Summer ruminations on winter's impact

I might not have seen many fawns this summer, but I sure am seeing a lot of turkey poults. I found another brood of them, this group not far from my cabin. The brood was 6-7; the babies still quite small. They, mom and an "auntie" were taking a dirt bath at the very edge of the road. I stopped the car and they soon scurried back into the woods.

Turkey broods appear variably, with the severity of the winter a determining factor. One PA study showed that egg incubation after one cold and snowy winter (1999) didn’t begin until around May 15. During more typical winters, incubation begins around April 28. The hens incubate the eggs for 28 days. As I am only just now starting to see the poults, I would not be surprised if the hens didn’t begin incubation until roughly the end of May. The younger hens typically don’t start to incubate until a week or so after the mature hens.

None of the poults I’ve seen over the past week flew, though young turkeys can fly a bit within about 10 days. I suppose that just because I didn’t see any of them flying that doesn’t mean for sure that they couldn’t fly, but I can say the birds were quite small and it wouldn’t surprise me if they were under 10 days old.

So in doing the math, I’m going to say that the small brood I saw on Saturday was just 10 days old, which would make them hatched on July 9. That would mean incubation for this brood began around June 10-11. That is very late, and also suggests both hens I saw were younger birds, who would have started incubation later anyway.

Certainly 2013-14 was a colder winter than 1999, when the turkey nesting study was done. So it is likely that nesting for turkeys was even later this year than then. The little ones should still have ample time grow and ready themselves for this upcoming winter. Poults gain weight quickly and by the time they are seven months old will weigh 8-12.5 lbs depending on gender. Still, with nesting coming so late this spring, another tough winter in the upcoming season wouldn’t do the species any good locally. Winter is tough enough on the younger ones, let alone poults that may be as much as a month younger when winter arrives than is typical.

Not quite yet

Spring is still stuck in neutral for the next day or so. A warm up, enough to move the season along and push new growth out of the ground, is but a few days away. But that promise, that hint of warmer weather wasn’t enough to keep from setting a record low last night. So for the moment, spring remains a promise and not a reality. I am anxious for something different to look at.

Early spring is a good time to do some outside cleanup around the cabin. It’s not yet too hot, and the lack of greenery and underbrush makes the clean-up easier. I have a lot of downed limbs, in addition to the usual array of pots broken by winter’s freeze and thaw cycle or plastic flower pots that were broken when they were covered by snow and I stepped on them. Last night I also discovered that an old wooden deck table that came with the cabin finally lost a leg and now sits at an angle at the edge of the property. So there is work to be done, though I don’t seem to have much ambition to get to it. Perhaps there will be time this weekend, when it is sunny and the temperature rises a few more degrees each day. Work is easy to ignore when daylight lasts longer, and a walk after work in the woods is far more fun.

The woods are at one of their less interesting points in the year, too, but walking in daylight still feels like a novelty to me, even if the scenery is less than stellar. Last evening I heard one of the local wild turkeys gobbling away just at dusk, perhaps calling his harem to roost, perhaps searching for hens to create a harem. It is a wild and crazy sound, not as evocative as a loon’s call or a red-tailed hawk’s scream but not far from that either. It was the first one I’d heard since winter broke and marks yet another sign of the spring that hasn’t quite arrived yet.

Don't you look at me!

Wild Turkey

This morning my drive to work produced a flock of Wild Turkey, just where the forest ended and the neighboring orchard begins. By the time I pulled the car over and grabbed the camera, most of the flock was already hidden in the tall grass, except for this guardian. It’s not just that this photo is missing the rest of the big birds, it’s also missing the peeps. I saw at least 3 tiny turkey-ettes before they disappeared in the grass. The peeps were no taller than the big birds’ knees, nothing but tiny brownish balls of fluff.

Finding tiny peeps (or poults as they are more rightly called) now is odd. Typically, the little ones hatch around the end of May after a 28-day incubation. The male gobblers are at their strutting best in spring. Since these poults couldn’t be more than a week or so old, I suspect that the hen’s original clutch of eggs was destroyed as it is rare for them to re-nest in the same season if they raise a brood.

It isn’t unusual for a hen to lose her eggs. I’m told that less than half make it to hatching. Turkeys nest on the ground, where they are highly vulnerable to predation, especially by raccoons, of which there are many around Roundtop. And raccoons aren’t the only dangers—snakes, fox, skunk, opossum. It’s a long list.

In any event, mama turkey has a young brood now, and hopefully it’s not too late in the season for them to do well and be large enough to survive the winter. This flock isn’t a huge one, but there are enough aunts in them to help mama keep an eye on those babies.

Turkey Day

The traditional November dreariness continues here on Roundtop, making photography pretty much impossible for the moment. As it’s the day before "turkey day" here in the U.S., I decided to post a few of my Wild turkey photos to help start off the holiday.

Tomorrow I will be eating a traditional Thanksgiving meal, including turkey, though not wild turkey. To that we are adding baked corn using my grandmother’s recipe and made from local corn and eggs from my girls, apple crisp (my great-grandmother’s recipe) made from local apples for dessert, chestnut-sage stuffing, green beans, sweet potato casserole, homemade cranberry relish and probably a few other things. We will all eat too much and enjoy every minute of it.

If you are celebrating tomorrow, you do the same.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Turkeys again

The wandering Wild Turkeys are playing in the road again. This is becoming, if not a daily occurrence, at least a common one. In the question of whether turkeys are the smartest or the dumbest, I’m starting to lean towards dumbest with this group.

They stop traffic, not because of their rarity, but so people don’t have turkey splattered all over the cars. And even when people stop, that doesn’t hurry them across the road. If anything, they move slower or stop entirely when a car nears.

"What’s that?" they seem to say, all stopping to look at the approaching car.

"I don’t know but it’s not a turkey."

"Big, though, isn’t it?"

"Very. Weird color, too."

"Why are its eyes so bright?"

"No idea. Maybe it’s an owl."

"No. Can’t be. I don’t see any wings."

"Silly. Owls are myths."

"No, they’re not. Tom roosted in a tree with one once."

"Tom was drunk on those wineberries."

"What should we do?"

"Let’s ignore it. Maybe it will go away."

The hazards are different here...

Over the years, I’ve learned that the road hazards associated with living in the woods are different from those of suburbia. Falling or fallen trees can appear out of nowhere. So can deer, which are usually worse than the tree issue because they move. Squirrels and rabbits dart across the road, zigzagging like mad. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve almost hit one, despite a panic-braking stop.

Hazards like snapping turtles or box turtles are of a different class. With those, I usually stop the car and either move them or try to lure them off the road. Then, the hazard is that some other driver, rounding a curve or coming down one of Pennsylvania’s ever-present hills, isn’t paying attention and doesn’t stop for me. Of course, where I live, it’s easy to go 20-30 minutes without another car passing by, but still, people who live in rural areas don’t pay attention while driving to any greater degree than anyone else.

Today, my hazard was these wild turkeys. I was past the forest and into rural lands by about a quarter of a mile when I crested a hill and—there they were. I hit the brakes and let them slowly amble across the road. They were in no hurry. They gave a look as though I was at fault for disturbing them.

A man I used to work with, who was a dedicated turkey hunter, once told me that turkeys had the rare ability to seem like the smartest animal in the woods—and the dumbest. I’m not sure which category this morning’s episode falls into.

A funny thing happened on the way to today's photo...

No, this photo was not taken on Roundtop—don’t I wish!

I took this photo about 10 years ago when I was backpacking the Chilkoot Trail in Alaska in late September. The view was taken on our next to last day on the trail, looking towards Lake Bennett in the distance. At this point, my hiking partner and I had the trail kicked. If you can make it up and over the Chilkoot Pass, you’ve pretty much got the trail kicked. We’d done just that the day before and were only a few miles from the night’s camp site, and we were happy campers.

My plans for today’s Roundtop photo didn’t work out.

Late yesterday I was driving back to the cabin. It was raining a bit and overcast. A flock of 20+ wild turkeys ambled across the road, ruffling their feathers, the males displaying their tails and all of them generally just doing what turkeys do. I took a couple of photos. Unfortunately, none of them are clear, even though they looked fine in the little 2 inch camera view . It was too dark. Well, that’s what happens sometimes.

So I ended up photo-less for the day, with my only options to not post today, or not run a photo today or to use an old photo. I’ve been organizing some of my Alaska photos recently, so I thought, why not?

Anyway, back to reality and Roundtop: I’ve still not heard the first eastern phoebe of the season, so the species is now officially late by my records. An average arrival date for the birds would have been two weeks ago. This isn’t a surprise. Phoebes aren’t like swallows returning to Capistrano on the same day every year. Phoebes show up when conditions are right for them and not before. The weather is getting close, I think, to what they consider "right."

Bird migration seems to be running a bit late this year, judging by the pace of reports from the spring hawkwatches. Vultures are moving in good numbers, and Red-tailed hawks are moving decently. Eagles of both species are moving north (but those birds are strong enough to fly in almost any weather). The rest of the crowd—falcons, accipiters and smaller buteos—not so much yet.

Roundtop got about .25 inch of a nice gentle rain, not nearly enough to impact the 5 inch deficit, but it was a start. Once this rain clears the region, I think spring and bird migration will take a big step forward. All at once. Stay tuned.

Have a great weekend.

A Pretty Pair

Don’t these two make a handsome pair? They were parading around Roundtop the other day, oblivious to passing traffic (not that there’s much). I’m always a little surprised at just how large turkeys are, much larger than Canada geese. And yet, I see them not all that often. Wouldn’t you think that a creature this size would stand out more? And since where you find one turkey, you always find more, sometimes many more, I’d think they’d be more obvious, somehow. And even if I didn’t see them all that often, I would expect to see more signs of them—hear the gobbling frequently, see signs of scratching more often, but I don’t. And then suddenly, they simply waltz out into the open and remind me they are still around. Funny birds.

I'm at that point in the summer season where I'm waiting for the next thing to happen. Summer is here. It's in full swing. I'm ready for it to be done and something else to take its place. I thnk one of the reasons I don't care much for summer is that it feels a bit static to me. It arrives, it stays and little changes until it's time for fall. Spring and fall are seasons of near-constant change. Winter also feels changeable to me--the deepening or lessening of the temperature with the ever-present threat of storms. To me, summer doesn't change all that much. I get bored. It's probably just me.

Sunday Promenade

I don’t know what’s going on with turkeys around here, but on Sunday morning I ran into another flock of them that fall into the “dumber than dirt” category. Around 8:15 a.m. I was on the way to the Laundromat and was several miles from Roundtop when what should I see but a small group of promenading turkeys up ahead, marching down the middle of the road. I pulled up right beside them, and they didn’t run away. They just fluffed their feathers and gobbled at me. Another car approached, and they still didn’t move away. A third car came by, and they still held their ground. Finally, they moved enough to the edge of the road that I could inch by. What’s the deal here? Suddenly, there are dumb turkeys everywhere I turn.

The first fireflies made an appearance at Roundtop on Saturday evening. I didn’t see many, but some were out in the humid weather ahead of a thunderstorm. I still have the feeling that their arrival is several days later than usual, but in the overall scheme of things, a few days here or there likely isn’t very important.

Roundtop did get some rain this weekend—not enough to replace the 3 inches I didn’t get in May, but some. Two storms with intense lightning and some rain came through on Friday night. Another storm skirted the mountain on Saturday evening, bringing rain and a little thunder. Sunday brought the remnant of tropical storm Barry, though only the barest of remnants. From mid-day Sunday and onward into this morning, it drizzled or rained lightly. It was somewhat breezy in a way that seems peculiar to hurricanes, though I’m having a hard time finding words to explain exactly how that way looks. It has to do with how the trees move in the breeze and the way the air feels, but why any of that should be any different than any another storm, I can’t say. Perhaps it’s simply the direction the storm comes from, compared to the usual run of storms that come into the area. I’m still not sure, but I’m also still convinced that hurricane weather systems have a different look and feel to them. Maybe I’ll figure it out next time.

Mountain Glorious

Summer feels so close now that only a morning or two separates it from spring. Today the "boundary" may disappear, with spring dissolving into the hot and hazy days of the mid-year. Still, no fireflies ply the darkened woods, though last evening I went outside several times just to look for them. I stood on the deck and looked into the woods. I heard a great-horned owl in the distance, the final calls of the nearest Eastern pe-wee and an ovenbird, but saw no fireflies. Should I worry yet?

I don’t normally keep track of the season’s first appearance of fireflies, though I have the sense that I should be seeing them by now. I hope they haven’t met the fate of many of the nation’s honeybees, though I have no evidence for that fear.

This spring has been unusually beautiful, almost measuring up to the Disney-esque version of it. Unfortunately, that beauty comes with a price. It has also been quite dry, one of the driest Mays on record, now more than 3" of rain less than usual. Unless June turns rainy, the price will be paid later in the summer, likely in August or even September when wells dry up and the harvest suffers. But last night it was too soon to worry about that, though the shadow of that worry won’t go away until the rain comes.

In other news: Dumber than Dirt, (see post of two days ago) was out again this morning, walking along the edge of the road as I left Roundtop and headed towards work. Mr. Turkey paid no attention as I drove by, stopping on the hill to take his photo (again). I sort of expect to find him dead along the road one morning unless he wises up soon.

Birds Around the Cabin

Wild Turkeys are weird birds, I think. Sometimes they act remarkably canny and smart. The next time they seem dumber than dirt. This bird falls into the later category. I snapped its photo as it was slowly ambling through Roundtop, in the middle of a wedding party this past Saturday afternoon. Kids running with balloons were just a few yards away. As I said, weird.

Anyway, this bird marked the 49th species of bird I’ve seen at Roundtop this month. For the year I’ve seen 64 species so far. I spent most of the non-raining, non-thunderstorming part of my holiday weekend trying to find species #50 for May, simply because last May I also found 49 species, and I’d like to best that total. So far, I still haven’t found that 50th species but I still have a few more days to go. It really shouldn’t be that difficult, but one of the things that keeps me interested in birding is that things (and birds) that shouldn’t be difficult often are.

Despite the fact I didn’t get my 50th May species, I had several good sightings, in addition to this rather dazed-looking turkey. To me, the most intriguing was the sighting of a male and a female rose-breasted grosbeak. Typically, these birds don’t nest much in this area, preferring more northerly sites. But here it is the end of May, and these two were hanging around the cabin all weekend. The male has been filling the woods with his distinctive, loud call and assorted chirps virtually every time I stepped outside. They spent most of the time flying back and forth from one side of the driveway to the other. Several times, the male was singing just a few feet above my head. I haven’t seen them carrying any nesting material but they sure have been fun to watch. And who knows, maybe they will nest here. How cool would that be?