Winter Day Doings

Today was unseasonably warm, even in this warmest of winters on record. Temps were projected to hit the high-60s in mid-afternoon, so I planned accordingly and started in on the mountain of laundry from my recent travels. What a gift to be able to hang out laundry on a sunny winter day.

Between the breeze, low humidity, and the warm sun, my three loads of clean clothes were dry in less than an hour. Now if they'd just learn to put themselves away...

The warm, sunny morning reminded me of spring, which reminded me of baseball, which reminded me of an annual pilgrimage I make each spring with my daughter Phoebe. We go to Florida to see our beloved Pittsburgh Pirates in spring training in Bradenton, Florida. Phoebe goes to college in Maine, so, when her spring break coincides with spring training games in Florida, we pinkie-swear to each other that we're going. This year we're taking Phoebe's "little" brother Liam (who at six feet tall now towers over Phoebe). Liam wants to go to spring training because Phoebe will be there. Not so much because he's a baseball fanatic on the level of his sister and his dad. That's OK. We'll have a good time. I booked the tickets, which for me is a true sign of spring.

We've been going to Pirates' games for years now.

After noon passed and the day just kept getting more and more beautiful I could not stay inside any longer, so I suited up for a hike.

We had two feet of dry, powdery snow fall a bit more than a week ago. Lots of it still lingers in the places where the direct sun doesn't fall. The snow outside the back door was strewn with birch seeds, broken apart from their tiny-cigar-shaped clusters by wind and birds I assume. It looked like an overzealous waiter had run around the yard with a pepper grinder.

Pepper snow.

Out the orchard path I went, headed straight West as if commanded, though I am no longer a "young man." Out in the orchard are some places I like to visit. The skeletal remnants of our last sweat lodge, made from saplings and grapevines and the attendant fire circle are there. Some squat poplar logs, used for seats (too punky to burn) and a pile of future bonfire wood are there, too.

Off to the left is the spot where my dad is buried. He died five years ago this week and I still miss him so much. I like to come out here and sit on the bench near his grave and talk to him about what's going on. These places are touchstones on my renewal loop which I try to walk as often as possible.

Squatch prints.

The sudden warm temps and re-freezing night had done amazing things to the tracks of deer—rendering them the size of sasquatch prints. Or, as the ultra-hick reality show guys from West Virginia, would say, "Them's the prints of the Ahhiya grassman!"

 

It's hard not to yank out the phone to take a photo every 30 seconds/30 steps when the landscape is half covered in snow and drowning in sunlight. I must remind myself to be in the moment and let the phone stay put in the pocket. 

The nuthatches and titmice were tuning up. I could see pair of them flitting through the sumac and honeysuckle tangles. Pileated woodpecker drum circles let their presence be known from deep in the woods. It's the leading edge of spring. Won't be long now before the nesting season begins. I scanned the patches of grass for woodcock chalk—droppings left behind by a foraging timberdoodle.

Might be last year's nest, but all the boxes showed signs of use by roosting birds.

The sky sang a spring song too, with high wispy clouds. I could tell, however, that without a gray blanket of clouds above, tonight would be quite chilly.

I've got a busy slate of travel coming up over the next few months, so it was sweet to reconnect with these acres we call home by walking along its slushy, slippery paths. o smell of spring on the air quite yet. When that happens, I know that we've chased winter for good for another loop around the sun.

What a great day. If all winter days were like this, I bet fewer people would get the winter blues and blahs.

Thanks for coming along. Let's do it again.

New Podcast Episode: Spring Sounds at Indigo Hill

There's a new episode available of my podcast "This Birding Life."

This episode (#36!) is a new type, I'm calling "Ear Candy" because it's audio-only. This is my attempt at creating shorter (but I hope no less interesting) episodes in between the longer episodes that come in both audio and enhanced audio (with images) formats. The longer episodes (I'm working on one about birding in Israel right now) take me a much longer time to create, which often means there are long lags between episodes. Which is why I'm hoping that Science can perfect cloning soon.


This episode "Sounds of Spring at Indigo Hill" is built with audio field recordings I did with my iPhone. And there's a bit of narration tossed in between. I hope you like it.

I'd also like to thank Carl Zeiss Sports Optics for their sponsorship support of "This Birding Life" and Podcast Central.

Spring Observations in Bleak Winter

I am working from the farm for the next 10 days or so, trying to get some writing done on the next book project. It's a bleak, raw day here—every single thing seems to be some shade of gray, drab olive, or brown. The utterly bare branches of the deciduous trees, devoid of swelling buds, beseech the sky to let the sun come out to play. Even the normally cheery carmine red of the northern cardinals seems subdued. 'Round these parts we call this book-writin' weather. May as well, it's too muddy and bone-chilling to be outside.

Tufted titmouse, peanut pig.

There are a couple of subtle signs of spring among the feathers. And for this I am truly thankful.

• The male American goldfinches are showing just a few small spots of bright yellow spring finery.
• Stick your head outside and you'll hear spring singing already! Cardinal, white-breasted nuthatch, tufted titmouse, Carolina chickadee, American robin, Carolina wren, and song sparrow are all in spring tune-up mode.
• The red-tailed hawks at the end of our driveway are perching a bit closer together each day. One day soon they'll be close enough to touch each other, and we all know what happens next boomchickywahwahchickywahwah.
• And finally, now, when I see a Carolina wren, I nearly always see TWO Carolina wrens. A small wisp of moss on the bird feeder tells me they are already nest building in the copper bucket under the front door eave.

The Carolina wrens are nest building, though not on our weather vane.

I admire our birds for how they carry on living despite the fact that the weather is bleak and cold. I'd admire them even more if one of them would get in here and help me finish this book chapter.

Waiting for This Sign of Spring

OK the bleariness of the Ohio winter has settled in upon us and signs of spring, well, there are none! Sigh.

There's one specific sign that I look for each spring—one that lets me know that the ambient daytime temperatures are warm enough for there to be airborne insects. The air above our southeastern Ohio woods is peppered with gnats...

It's the return of the blue-gray gnatcatchers! They return in spring sometime in early April, usually around the 5th. Once they're back, they are with us until early October, giving away their presence with their high-pitched wheezing calls.

What's facing us now here in Ohio is about six months of gray skies and icky weather. Funny that a bird as gray as our winter skies can be such a harbinger of the joys and colors and music of spring.

I. Can't. Wait!

Man, Dog, Morels

Oh how I wish our wonderpup, Chet Baker, Boston terrier, could be trained to find morel mushrooms using his highly sensitive nose. That would make him truly useful in ways that transcend his utility as a companion animal and terror to the bunnehs.

I LOVE all of spring's wondrous bounty: the returning songbirds, the hillsides bursting with blossoms, the greening of the landscape, the warmer weather, the almost vastly improved Pittsburgh Pirates...but right up there in my top five or so spring things is the ephemeral appearance of edible fungi.

We'll be eating morels most nights this week thanks to the wet spring and warming temps of recent sunny days. It's good to be alive.

Photo by Julie "Don't Say Anything Mean About Chet Baker" Zickefoose.

Spring is a Teasing Vixen

I found further proof, thanks to today's balmy weather, that writing about birds is much easier when you can write with the windows open, bird song floating in on the gentle breeze. Spring!

However there is this caveat: Spring in mid-March (at least here in southeastern Ohio) is a teasing vixen. She'll let you glimpse her rapturous beauty and catch a whiff of her sweet perfume, but reach out for her expectantly and she'll slap your face with three days of sleet and snow.


She'll make you watch while she coats the daffodils in frost and forces the timberdoodles to forage in roadside ditches. She'll bruise your heart with her apparent cold-hearted cruelty, but that's just spring's natural way of making you truly thankful when she arrives for real.

And on that day, each year, I drop to the ground and roll around in the new green grass, trying my best to hug the entire Earth.

Blink and Whoosh!

Blue-gray gnatcatcher.

Dear Readers:

My sincere apologies for the sparse and irregular posts of late. After my first Guyana post last Monday I had the very best of intentions last week about sharing some more from that trip but then life revved up into krazy-train mode. I blinked and it's another Monday!

I will try to do better this week. I hope you'll stick with me (I do appreciate your patience).

In other news the blue-gray gnatcatchers got in this morning on the farm. I heard my first brown thrasher of the spring on Sunday, and the eastern meadowlarks were battling it out over the meadow this morning. We watched them from the tower where we'd run hoping to identify three mystery ducks that flew over the hills to the west of us. No joy on the ducks, but the woods showed us its flimsy spring garments—the tree buds and blossoms exhibiting the most wishful thinking possible. We'll see if leaping into spring so soon is warranted or even advisable. I fear winter may yet have a face slap or two in its arsenal.

Along the Scioto River

Yesterday a handful of intrepid souls gathered along the Scioto River on the Whittier Peninsula in Columbus, Ohio to look for waterfowl. Nearly everything we saw was fairly distant and most of the river was frozen, which limited the numbers and variety of birds. We did spook a small flock of hooded mergansers, however, and I was reminded anew how stunning the males are.

Of course I was armed only with my ancient digiscoping rig and the light was pretty poor. I did manage to get a shot of one male along the far riverbank, and upon downloading it to my computer, I could see that its value as a bird photo was minimal. Its value as a seasonal snapshot however is fairly solid. The male hooded merganser with his crest up, the snowy bank behind him, the choppy water, and the bare tree branches all say "later winter/early spring" to me.

It's been such a rough winter weather-wise that it seems many of us are grasping and squinting for any small sign that spring will, in fact, come again. On a freezing cold day along the Scioto, I got a good sign of spring's promise from this lone male merganser.

Gnatty Sign of Spring

Though far away, he hears me spishing at him.

On of the birds whose arrival I note each year as a solid sign of spring is the blue-gray gnatcatcher. Male gnatties come back well before the leaves are out on most trees—and just after the male red-winged blackbirds have started conk-a-reeing in the cattails. How the gnatsters find anything to eat I'll never know, but they must.

I often hear this species before I see it. It has a high-pitched, sibilant call that sounds more like an angry mosquito than a territorial bird. Hearing the gnatcatcher's call I scan the treetops, hoping for a sign of movement—these are very active birds. But the gnatsnatcher's gray-on-gray plumage is a perfect match to the still-leaden winter skies, and I often miss seeing this tiny bug-eater of the treetops.

Gnatcatchers ARE very susceptible to spishing, however. And, as you can see from this series of photos, their curiosity sometimes brings them quite close to the spisher. Try it for yourself.

I'm glad that the gnatties come back early. Even though they don't add much color to the woods as some later-arriving migrants do, they add sound and activity and life, where everything else seems dormant, still slumbering under winter's sedation.

I've got his attention now.

He's hopping mad that he cannot find the rival gnatcatcher.

His face shows that he realizes he's been duped.

Haiku for Spring Beauties

Tiny white flower
like snow on a sunny day
spring won't be denied

These images were taken on Easter Sunday at Camp Tupper, a park in Marietta, Ohio. The hill in this last image is ceremonial mound called the Quadranaou, built by the Hopewell Indians sometime between 100 B.C and 900 A.D. Growing up in Marietta, we kids in the neighborhood surrounding Camp Tupper called it the turtle mound because it was vaguely turtle shaped. It got the name Camp Tupper during the Civil War when Union soldiers used this park and Sacra Via nearby as camping and parade grounds.

Every April, the spring beauties carpet Camp Tupper—a reminder that spring is here and soon the trees will be full of migrant birds and the air full of their songs.

Hurrying the Seasons

Weak spring sunlight casting shadows of leafless trees on new meadow grass.

It's been spring, officially, for two weeks, but it's not really spring for us bird watchers until the good spring migrants start showing up. Don't get me wrong. I LOVE the hardy early arrivers: pine warblers, tree swallows, chipping sparrows, brown thrashers. But it seems so much more wonderful when the wood thrushes, chestnut-sided warblers, great crested flycatchers, and Baltimore orioles show up.

So I guess I am trying my level best to hurry the seasons along. Despite the advice of all the New Age gurus that we must "live in the moment and not "wish our lives away." When it comes to anticipating the special birds of spring, I'm totally ready to forget today if tomorrow brings a dawn chorus of new arrivals.

Some other spring signs:

Blooming fruit trees.

Bluebirds getting house proud.

This Just In: Tree Swallow

This morning when I took Phoebe out to the bus, dawn was barely breaking and there was a heavy dew on the ground. By the time I took out Liam to his bus, just after 8 am, the dew was still there, and it was joined by a heavy, filmy mist, which obscured the sun. As we walked to the garage, the silhouette of a bird sitting on the power line caught my eye.

"Is that a tree swallow?" I asked myself. Liam overheard me and said "Walll, you know what preddy-mush all the birds are Daddy, so, yep, it prolly is!" He was right! It WAS a tree swallow.

Now THAT'S a good sign of spring's arrival.

Bus duties completed, I tossed a handful of dried eggshell bits up onto the dark-shingles of the garage roof. The tree and barn swallows eat these eggshell bits all spring and summer. I know it's early, but it felt good to start yet another spring ritual: The Feeding of the Eggshells.

Also in full song this morning: eastern meadowlarks, eastern bluebirds, house finches, a red-shouldered hawk, and all the usual suspects (cardinals, chickadees, titmice, nuthatches, woodpeckers, song sparrow, wild turkey) joined by some het-up dark-eyed juncos who are getting a head start on their spring concertos.

Spring's Eternal Hope

The first robin of spring!

Everyone, it seems, has been waiting for spring to finally, well, spring. Here in SE Ohio it finally did today with a bunch of obvious signs. First, there was the mythical First Robin of Spring! We have robins all winter long flying over the farm and in our woods. But that does not stop us from gushing and pointing and proclaiming the arrival of TFROS.

Colt's foot (Tussilago farfara)

Colt's foot has been in bloom for about 10 days and is now starting to go to seed. This hearty wildflower grows along roadsides and seems to thrive in areas of disturbed soil. It comes up in early spring without fail, just when you think you'll never see another blooming flower ever again.That high-pitched whining sound you're hearing at night from the roadside ditch is the love song of the American toad. The male toad trills away on warm, wet evenings, hoping to lure a female into range so he can jump on her back, fertilize her eggs, and make more little toads. These toads, captured en flagrante, are temporary residents of our backyard pond. Once the deed is done, they'll head back to the woods where they live, hoping to avoid broad-winged hawks by day and barred owls by night.

I, for one, am glad the wait for spring is over. Now I must steel myself for the warm weather ahead and for all the delectable birds that will be riding in from the south on the warm fronts.

This Just In

Blue-gray gnatcatcher. Photo by Julie Zickefoose.

When I woke up this morning and saw the sun (that unfamiliar bright yellow light in the sky) shining and the maple trees in flower, I knew it might be the day they arrived.

And sure enough it was today.

Just about the time I was throwing the hotdogs on the grill, and shellacking the kids at a game of P-I-G on the basketball court, I heard the telltale high-pitched, buzzy lisp of our latest spring returnee.

The blue-gray gnatcatchers got in today here in Southeastern Ohio. An undeniable sign of spring. Hallelujah!

I ran to the house for my binocs and when I came out I could hear the gnatcatcher's call, but at some distance. Where to look? .....DUH! Look in the trees that are flowering. That's where the gnats AND THUS the gnatcatchers will be. Ah! Look there! In the crown of that red maple. It's a male blue-gray and he's looking natty!

Happy spring to you, my fellow bird watchers! May a gnatcatcher soon arrive to catch your gnats.

Last Night I Smelled Spring

Last night I smelled spring
alive once more from frozen torpor
wetness seeping through sodden ground
peepers hail at edge of earshot
woodcock twitter-peents around

swollen creeks brown frothy roaring
bearing off the earth's loose, cloddy skin
tree buds swell anticipating
yellow sun, warm kiss of wind

It was no dream this earthy scent
of soil and grass and winter death
of leaves now rotten moldering
I filled my lungs with spring's sweet breath