Misty mornings and nights

Canada Geese eye me and Baby Dog suspiciously in the early morning

This week has proved to be one of those changeable weeks that included a 40 degree variation in temperature and a lot of overcast and rainy skies.  Yesterday afternoon I even had a fire for a few hours.  It wasn’t horribly cold but it was horribly damp, and the fire soon took care of that.  I have spent some time outside, though not as much as I typically do.  I find it hard to foray through the woods when rain pelts my face and drips under my rain jacket.  I come home damp and the dogs come home wet. I easily convince myself it’s better to stay inside.

The rain, however, makes for lovely sleeping weather.  Most nights it’s been warm enough to leave open a few windows and cool enough to snuggle under a blanket, all the while listening to the soft sound of rain on the forest leaves outside.  To me, that is about perfect.  The only thing that could make it more perfect is if I’d been in my sleeping bag in a tent, possibly with dogs (as long as they were good).

Few sounds are as lovely as the sound of a soft rain on the forest leaves, lulling me to sleep.  I’ve had plenty of that this week.  It’s not as lovely during the day when I’d prefer a foray in the woods, but I can’t have everything.  This week the rain was my lullaby.

Who's a cuckoo now?

Abundant sunshine, a gentle breeze with temperatures not too hot and not too cold.  That was my weekend on Roundtop Mtn.  I was outside as much as I could be, nosing around, looking here and looking there, just seeing what I could see.  I was rewarded with more than a few good sightings.

For the first time in years, I actually got to see a yellow-billed cuckoo! Cuckoos are never common, but each year I hear one or two residents, calling from all around the mountain.  Often I think it’s one cuckoo, traveling from one tree to the next around the cabin.  Cuckoos are notorious for being hard to see, partly because they don’t bounce around like some other birds and partly because they seem to make an effort to stay under cover.  That’s a bad combination for someone hoping to see one, instead of just hearing it.

On Sunday on one of my many forays out the door, I suddenly heard the call of a very close cuckoo.  I didn’t have binoculars and wasn’t about to rush inside to find mine.  Instead I stood in front of the cabin, trying to locate the source of the call.  I could tell the call was coming from one of the tall white oaks behind the cabin but that covers a lot of trees.  After a few more calls I was sure of the cuckoo’s general area but without binoculars (and perhaps even with them), locating a cuckoo in that mass of greenery was impossible.  But then the cuckoo flew and for a brief second or two, I saw it as it headed further up the mountain to find another vantage point for its next round of calls.  It’s always a banner day when I can see a cuckoo!

Red sky again this morning and storms are heading my way.  It's a summer kind of thunderstorm, though the temperature is more modest than the thunderstorm weather of midsummer.  That's not much consolation as the storm itself is just as severe as those of a month or so from now.

Did anyone get up/stay up for the meteor shower this past weekend?  I set my alarm and got up, loading a lawn chair and Baby Dog into the car for the brief run up to the north parking lot. In my corner of the sky, the meteor shower was a bust--I didn't see a single one in the hour I was out.  I did hear other areas of the country fared better and got a nice show.  Ah, well, it will be time for the Perseid shower before I know it.

Morning walk with Baby Dog

Milk snake

Baby Dog and I took a walk this morning along portions of Roundtop Mtn. that I don’t usually have time to visit on a weekday. But this morning no rain or thunderstorms deterred us. The puppies are off for a day being neutered and spade, and we had the morning to ourselves. The change to our routine was a good one.

Baby Dog was the first to see the snake, a milk snake I believe, perhaps just a bit shy of 2-feet long. I’m not sure Baby Dog had ever seen a snake before. Certainly she’d never seen one slithering quickly across the dirt road in front of her before. She was forced to bark at it, of course, but was wary enough to keep a reasonable distance away. I managed one quick photo before it disappeared into the grass.

Later, I came across a nice little grouping of fleabane, likely Philadelphia fleabane. The only difference I can see between this flower and daisy fleabane is that Philadelphia fleabane tends more to the lavender shade than daisy fleabane, which is usually white or just barely tinged with lavender.

The sweet song of Baltimore orioles accompanied us throughout our early morning walk. A least 6 different males, sang from every corner of the mountain. Who needs an iPod when the orioles’ song follows me everywhere I go?

Tonight the puppies will be back home, and our quiet time together will be over. Baby Dog misses the puppies, and I had to tell her that will be back soon enough. I think she believed me.

Red sky at morning...

Sailor’s warning?  So does orange count as the sailor’s warning?  I suspect it might, if not perhaps quite as soon as a truly red sky.

I would call this a sky of building trouble or trouble nearby if not right atop me.  The old sailor’s warning holds true, though it also leaves a lot unknown.  A sky that looks like this might be a storm that’s still hours away, perhaps no to arrive until overnight, or perhaps not even until tomorrow.  This same sky could also mean that someplace nearby, say within 20-25 miles, is in for trouble and “my” sky is telling me I’m on the edge of that.

What I do know for sure is that I won’t know the answers for some hours after I see a sunrise like this.  It’s the kind of sky that tells me to keep an eye to the sky to see which way of my two possibilities this sky will turn out to mean:  storm overhead but hours away or storm nearby but not overhead.

Either way it makes for a beautiful sunrise, but one to watch out for in the hours ahead.

Dogwood sunset

With spring already two-thirds gone, I should not be surprised at how many blooms are already fading.  Dogwood, though near its peak when I took this photo at the beginning of the weekend, is already today past its prime.  The redbud has gone to green, leaving nothing but twisted trees that look, even to my eye, as though they should be cut down before they infect the rest of the forest with some terrible disease.

And with the loss of some comes the first blooms of others.  The first of the wild geraniums, a delicate shade of lavender far prettier than that of their tamer, more garish cousins, are budding and almost blooming.  Perhaps this evening the blooms will be fully opened.

The first geese have produced three tiny goslings.  Another goose, one I have dubbed Mrs. Hiss, is still on her eggs.  She has chosen, rather poorly, to build her nest not 6 feet off the road around the pond near my cabin.  Every time a car goes by she stands up off her nest and hisses ferociously.  As nest choice goes, it’s a pretty terrible one.

Sunrise on a spring morning

My view of the western mountains is gone for another 5-6 months, a sure sign that the warm seasons are in full bloom.  The leaves are not yet so full that I have lost my view of the sky, though that is not long away either.  The tall oaks and hickories leaf out later than the beech and the smaller trees that strive not to be pushed out of the sun by their taller neighbors.

So considering that annual growth is still growing ever more lush by the day, it seems a little surprising that a few things are already dying back, done for another year.  The earliest of the bloomers are already tossing seeds into the wind.  Coltsfoot, that dandelion look-alike, has turned white and fuzzy, tall stems topped by the flat, white leftovers of the yellow flower. They remind me of straw hats, the kind called “boaters.”  A few still retain vestiges of the yellow flower, though tomorrow they will be little boaters, too.

The warblers are about done here until fall. I had a nice few mornings dominated by chestnut-sided warblers.  I don’t usually get many warblers on the side of the mountain, away from water, but I nearly always have a nice number of chestnut-sided.  Or perhaps it’s only that they are easier to spot—they come down to the mid-level of trees instead of flitting through the tallest ones.

On a recent misty morning warblers that favor the top canopy were nearly impossible for me to identify.  They were little gray silhouettes instead of flashes of color, and my poor hearing meant I can’t hear some of them .  That’s a bad combination when trying to identify them.  But chestnut-sided warblers are more cooperative. I can hear their little trill and they are low enough to see well and identify.  They seem more curious than most of the others, too, frequently bouncing lower to get a look at me or the dogs.

This morning the sunrise was especially good, perhaps foreshadowing thunderstorms later today.  Those are another sign of the warmer weather.  So far the storms have been meek—a few rumbles of distant thunder, a gathering of clouds that never quite turned into a storm.  That will soon change, I’m sure.

Redbuds on a gray morning

Thundergust Mill Rd., Warrington Township, York county PA

Redbud trees are in full color on Roundtop. Redbuds are not flowering trees, though they appear as such at first look. The red literally is a leaf bud that will soon turn green. When that happens the trees lose all their splendor and look like something that is diseased and broken and should be cut down. Which, I suspect, is what happens to some of them when overeager brush clearers are at work once the buds turn to leaves.

Redbud favor sunny field and forest edges, so I don’t have any right around my cabin. I am too deep into the forest for them, though the bottom on my lane, where the forest ends, has several of them.

Splindly and misshapen as the trees are, they look like a natural, more full-sized version of a bonsai tree. The trunks and branches take on their own S-shapes, without help from a master gardener.

Today, the redbud are at their most brilliant for the year, but the morning is gray and a touch foggy. Professional photographers would gnash their teeth, hoping for good lighting to match the redbud’s peak.

I am more interested in documenting the natural year in whatever lighting presents itself. Better lighting would be nice, but the redbud peak won’t wait for that. Too many professional photographs look garish to me and seem to reflect the photographer more than the world as I see it. I’m not convinced we do people with limited experience of the natural world any favors by showing nature in ways that don’t look natural. Nature is not Disneyland. Nature should be experienced as it is, for how else can we reach any level of understanding of it?

Springing

Last week’s rain brought out the neon green of spring in a big way.  Where winter browns still languished, the rain was like fertilizer, and all shades of greens soon exploded everywhere.  Redbud is budding, and serviceberry is blooming.  The forest is red and white and green right now.  The redbud down off the mountain is in full color; the trees up on Roundtop Mtn. are not quite so far along.  I am waiting a few days to take a photo of them, waiting for the color to get just a bit more intense.

More wildflowers are blooming, too.  Wild violets with their luscious shades of purple are delicate as rice paper.  Rue anemone all but cover some sections of the forest floor.  The forest is growing lush, though it is still a delicate lushness, fresh with new growth.



The first wood thrush and ovenbirds are now joined by several “friends” competing for territory around the cabin.  Last evening I thought I heard the “whoop” of a great crested flycatcher, but it wasn’t close enough for me to be sure of that.  Other migrants are starting to arrive to rest for an evening or two before heading further north.  I know I heard at least half a dozen different Baltimore orioles singing last evening.  I don’t expect all will stay here, though several are likely to.

I often don’t see many warblers down around the cabin, unless a foggy, misty morning forces them off the mountain top. I’m sure I would find more if I climbed the mountain in the early morning, but my mornings are too hectic and short for that.  Maybe next year.  It’s spring again and time to be outside.

Too wet!

Lakeshore Trail at Pinchot State Park

After the deluge earlier in the week, I was ready for some drier weather and some time outdoors! Spring is springing, and the annual explosion of new growth happens quickly.  Miss a week and suddenly it’s summer.

Baby Dog and I decided (well, I decided and she readily agreed) to go for a walk.  Although up at our cabin the ground has already drained from the 4 inches of rain that fell, flatter land at lower altitude was still soggy.  In other words, we didn’t get too far. I could easily have returned to the cabin for my wellies, but I didn’t want to have a wet and muddy dog dirtying up the car, so we aborted our walk and returned to higher ground.  Baby Dog was fine with that—she got a car ride and a cavort around the mountain.

Spring is further along down off the mountain though not by too much.  It won’t be very long before I lose my view of the mountain to the west for another 5 or 6 months. At the moment, I can still see the mountain through a maze of budding leaves.  Even that level of visibility will be gone in 2-3 weeks.

My last frost was April 18, and though the temperature has been very close to freezing several times since then, it hasn’t actually dropped to that magic number.  At this point, it’s unlikely to.

Wood thrush-yes! Bloodroot--not

Tree Swallow taken at Braddock Bay Hawkwatch

The first wood thrush have arrived by my cabin, and the first ovenbirds.  I head the sweet songs on Monday evening, the day before a long stretch of rain inundated the mountain.  The rain stopped late last evening, but I still feel I’m living in a bog.  The ground squishes underfoot and puddles are everywhere. And since I’m living on the side of a mountain, you can guess how bad it is in a valley or on flat land.  Those areas are flooded; houses are sometimes on little islands, like castles with a moat.

But this afternoon the fog has lifted and for the first time in days the sun is out and the day is warm.  The streams will recede and the island houses will revert to houses with lawns in another day or two.  I hope the break in bad weather continues for a while.  Outside chores are piling up around my cabin, and my list of them gets longer every day—move the chicken pen, clean up extraneous junk that somehow has appeared, clean the gutters, trim back the fast-growing underbrush.  I need more than a few sunny weekend days to even make a dent in the list.

I am also starting to think that for the first time in years I won’t have bloodroot at the cabin.  The little flowers haven't appeared yet, and at this point in the season I suspect they won't at all.  I watch the patch where they grow anxiously but see no sign of them.  The area hasn’t been disturbed at all, so I have no obvious explanation for why they haven’t appeared.  Now that I have wild violet in the woods, I’m thinking I won’t have the bloodroot at all this year.  At least, I hope it’s only this year that they don’t appear.  I’ve gotten used to these one-day wonders, and I hate to think it may well be another full year before I can see them again at the cabin.

It's spring flower week!

Rue anemone

 

The forest’s first, tiny ephemeral flowers are blooming at Roundtop. In addition to the yellow dog-toothed violets I found several days ago, I’ve now added bloodwort, rue anemone and coltsfoot. All of these flowers are small and easy to overlook.

Coltsfoot

Coltsfoot is the most obvious of the three new species I found yesterday, and even that one is easy to overlook. The flower looks so much like dandelion that I believe a lot of people overlook it because of that. But though the flowers are similar, the similarity ends there. Coltsfoot is taller that most dandelions and the plant flowers before you find any leaves. Often, it is the first new flower I find in the spring, but not this year.

Bloodwort is another tiny plant. The flowers are about half an inch and the waxy, clover-shaped leaves are perhaps 2-3 inches. An entire plant may be only 3-4 inches long. I found just two plants of this one, within 4-5 feet of each other. Likely, there are more that I haven’t found yet.

Rue anemone is a common plant in my forest. Every year I have multiple plants that vary in shade from white to a nice lavender. This plant is no larger than bloodwort but it grows much more densely, and I often find 10-12 plants in one area. Even a tiny flower is hard to overlook when so many are grouped together.



Bloodwort

Finding spring’s first flowers is a true sign of spring, along with the appearance of that lovely little Eastern blue butterfly. This weekend I also had golden-crowned kinglets, ruby kinglets and a pair of very curious blue-gray gnatcatchers. For the first time this year, I finally feel confident that I can finally put those snow shovels away!

Sunset through forest

 

The latest chill (and I sure hope it was the last big one of this season) is easing. The dog-toothed violets appear to have come through okay for the most part. I have yet to see any other flowers in the forest, but I am beginning to notice a green "haze" around some shrubs. That haze will no doubt soon become leaves, perhaps tomorrow when the temperature warms to seasonal levels again.

In the mornings, I hear two summer visitors—the eastern phoebe and the robins among the ever-present cardinals. Now is the time of year when, for a few days, I have both robins and juncos. It always seems odd to me to see the northern visitors and the southern visitors together. The togetherness doesn’t last long. Many of the juncos have already left.

As yet, I’ve not yet heard the song of the wood thrush or the cry of the ovenbird. It is still a few days, perhaps a week, too early for them here. I expect them about April 23, though occasionally they are 3-4 days later than that. Once they arrive, the morning chorus of bird song will be in nearly full voice, loud enough to wake me up in mornings without the need for an alarm.

For now, the forest shows signs of waking up after a very long, winter nap. It still has a ways to go, but the slumber is ending.

A wild ride

Skim ice patterns

What happened in the last 24 hours? Let’s see..the temperature dropped nearly 40 degrees in about 12 hours, and torrential rain turned to driving snow, though it didn’t accumulate. Worst of all, I was forced to turn my heat back on.

This morning the temperature was 24 at the cabin, a number the little dog-toothed violets did not like at all. Those flower stems were closed up tighter than tight this morning. I don’t know if warmer weather will revive them or not, so I will have to wait and see. Tonight’s temperature will also drop below freezing again, if not quite so far or so precipitously.

None of us should be surprised. It’s been the kind of year where atypical weather is normal. And it’s only April.

First flower

Dog-toothed violet

 

Ah, the first flower of spring has appeared.

Just past my front steps is an area that’s filled with dog-toothed violet plants. The first flower bloomed on Sunday, the first of many in this patch, which is covered with the pretty grey and green mottled leaves. The patch itself is about 4 feet by 5 feet and contains hundreds of leaves. The blooms are small and delicate, and the leaves far outnumber the blooms. In a good year, I might have 20 blooms, but the size of the patch and denseness of the leaves might lead you to expect 50 or more.

I hope the flowers make it through the snow predicted for tomorrow. Yes, you read that right.

Yesterday the temperature flirted with 80 (and no doubt passed that in some suburban areas). But Tuesday brings cooler weather, rain and sometime after dark, snow. It’s just that kind of year. One morning the heat is still on, but the air conditioner is needed in the afternoon. And then the heat is needed the next day.

No, I didn’t lug my air conditioner out from underneath the kitchen table where it spends the winter. Nor, did I place it in my kitchen window, but I did use the AC in my car after a trip to the pet food store with Skye.

Other spring flowers, like forsythia at my family’s farm, late to start this year, are blooming one morning and withering by the afternoon heat. The yellow violets are blooming the latest I’ve ever recorded, though only by 3 days. The earliest I’ve ever had them was March 21, which was still snow-bound here this winter. Usually, a blooming this late translates into a bloom that doesn’t last very long. The forsythia are certainly following that pattern. I have to look fast this spring, so I don’t miss anything.

Why does the turkey cross the road?

...To visit his lady friends, of course.

Two whole days without rain!  I hardly know how to act.  Of course, rain is forecast for Friday but I still get two whole days of sunshine and bright blue sky from horizon to horizon.  It feels as though it’s been months since that’s happened.  Even if it hasn’t been months, I’m pretty sure the other non-rainy days were overcast, so the sunshine seems a novel thing to see.

The sunshine and warmer temperatures are starting to encourage the first signs of spring greenery.  I’m seeing a few patches or shades of green on the yards, amongst the winter brown. The weather has also encouraged flocks of wild turkeys to start roaming around again.  This week I’ve seen them every day.  All sightings have been within a mile of each other, so possibly it’s the same group.  The local wood lots and orchards are their favored haunts, though I’ve also seen them in a cornfield that still boasts the shorn stalks from last fall and a fallow field.  Sometimes I hear them gobbling in the pre-dawn hour from the safety of their forest roost.

Around the cabin, I have discovered where the resident pileated woodpeckers are nesting this year.  I have hopes of getting a few half-decent photos as the nest hole isn’t far from the cabin, and I think I can stand on my raised deck and be nearly eye-level with the site.  I’ve also found where the flickers are going to nest, and that’s not too far from the woodpecker hole.

The forest itself is still as brown as it was in winter. I find no sign of buds on the forest trees or on the smaller underbrush of the forest floor.  The start of that can’t be far off, though—not with 60 degree temperatures and all this lovely sunshine!

A foggy spring day

The first signs of new growth are appearing around Roundtop Mountain! This morning I saw the leaves of the (pick one) 1) yellow dog-toothed violet 2) yellow trout lily 3) adder’s tongue 4) fawn lily were up. No signs of flower stems yet though. And the leaves of the one-day wonder, the bloodroot, are also breaking through the ground. That’s pretty impressive, considering I still had snow on the ground a week ago.

The robins are singing, as are the juncos, who will soon be heading north again. More phoebes have arrived and call from both sides of the cabin. I also had a pair of golden-crowned kinglets at the cabin this weekend. I didn’t see any insects, but they were busy little things, so I’m sure they found something. It took me a while to identify them. They like to be in the higher branches of the trees, so I never get very good views of them, even with 10x binoculars, and seeing more than their bellies takes a bit of luck.

Mud remains everywhere, as are puddles and gushing seasonal streams. With the amount of water through these temporary streams, right now it’s hard to imagine that they won’t run all year long, but they don’t. Last night I saw a frog, too, my first of the year. It hopped in front of my headlights as I was heading back to the cabin after dark and was gone before could get out of the car to find out what kind it was. It wasn’t small enough to be a peeper or large enough to be a bullfrog. It was the size of a green frog or leopard or pickerel frog.

 

Spring may have arrived later than usual, but the season is doing its best to catch up. 

Open water

Although signs of spring can be found—phoebes, spring peepers and the like—the landscape around Roundtop is still winter brown, with nary a blade of green in sight.  That will change shortly, I’m sure, but for now brown is the predominant color on the trees, on the ground, everywhere.   And with it comes the Mud season, which is not a favorite of mine, just barely an improvement over the long winter, now passed. 

Spring is slow to start this year, in part because winter eased later than usual, but some of it is simply my own impatience to see better weather and something new to look at.  I have put away the down parka for another year, though my insulated coat remains handy, just in case.  The mornings are still damp and therefore chilly, and when a bit of wind is added, the insulated coat blocks that wind better than my lighter spring jackets.

This morning I saw the season's first osprey, plying the air above the Yellow Breeches Creek, and two swallows, identified as tree swallows more by the early date than by any plumage I could see.  Spring is coming, though the landscape is still more wintry than not. 

The first official sign of spring!

Out with the old, and in with the new.

Perhaps today’s photo will be the last snow photo I take of the winter season.  Officially, it has been spring for 11 days but most of that time has still felt and looked like winter.

This morning, I heard a truly official sign of spring.  I heard an Eastern Phoebe outside my cabin door, singing its heart out just after dawn this morning. Spring has officially arrived now!

Despite the snow still left on Roundtop, the resort has closed for the season after 115 days of skiing, a record for them, I believe. For me, the closing means that the mountain is quiet again.  I’m far enough over on the western side of the mountain that it’s rarely noisy from the hordes of skiers, but I do hear car noises or the occasional teenage squeal, and the total silence now is noticeable.

This is the quietest time of year on the mountain.  In another month or so, the leaves will be out and they are nearly never silent.  They rustle and whisper to their own music, a constant background of notes and chatter.  But right now, they are silent, and only birdsong fills the air.

Winter just won't go

Not January.  This is March 31, 2014

Lest you doubt that this is the winter that never ends, I bring you this morning’s photo.  The forecast of 1.5-2” of rain turned into 4 inches of rain, followed by considerable sleet and then snow,  along with strong and biting winds.  Sunday afternoon was as thoroughly a miserable day as I can remember.

I have standing water everywhere today. The temperature has gone above freezing and is now rocketing towards 60 degrees, which is quite a change from even six hours ago. The lane past the cabin is deeply rutted and still slushy.  I certainly hope that yesterday’s storm was winter’s dying breath, but the way the season has gone so far, I’m can’t be sure that’s the case, regardless of the date.

Saturday, the feeder birds knew something was up. They fed voraciously, emptying my feeders as though it was mid-February.  Deer were out at midday, grazing on the dead grass.  It was pretty obvious they were fueling up in anticipation of not being able to feed on Sunday.  And as is usual, the animals were right. Perhaps they sensed the changing pressure or perhaps it was just the dampness in the air. But they knew Sunday was going to be bad, and they took advantage of Saturday to fill their bellies.

I was hoping to spend some outdoor time this weekend doing outside spring clean-up, but by Friday I knew that was unlikely.  So spring clean-up will have to wait, as the new season is in no hurry to displace Old Man Winter.

In a Quandry

These shovels were my constant companions this winter.  But now I’d love to put them away for next 9 months or so.  But do I dare?  I just don’t know.  At the moment (which means for the next several days) it looks safe. But April can produce snowy surprises.  Still, I’d love to put them to rest and get them off my front porch.

Maybe I’d better wait a while longer.