I volunteer for a few hours once a month for NJ Audubon at the Sandy Hook Bird Observatory. I’m supposed to open the center, greet visitors and answer questions, sell books and optics, answer the phones, fill the bird feeders, and take out the trash. I forgot to take out the trash today and didn’t sell a single thing during my five hour stint this afternoon. It was cold and too windy for birding today. We had only 5 visitors and just 2 of them were birders. The only birds reported were a Eurasian Widgeon and a Woodcock. I’d say both were good finds on a day like today.

The porch at SHBO has a beautiful view of Sandy Hook Bay – I love to sit out there on summer afternoons and watch the sailboats. In the winter, sometimes a loon or long-tailed duck will float by. Sandy Hook is a barrier beach that juts out into New York Harbor and acts like a funnel for migratory birds in the Spring. The month of March means the return of Piping Plover and Osprey, Harbor Seals gathering on sandbars in the bay, and the beginning of the spring hawk migration. Today, during the first week of March, I had to settle for a few newly returned red-winged blackbirds at the feeders, but I know that by the time I return a month from now, things will be different.

When I first started volunteering for NJ Audubon about 10 years ago, our local nature center was located in an old house in the middle of a cornfield. It was lonely and quiet there, but we had a great butterfly garden and I had the company of Eastern Bluebirds, American Kestrals, Chimney Swifts and Bobwhites, on occasion. We moved the center to a better birding place in a newly renovated historic building and increased our visitors and sales. The new center is beautiful and came together as a result of a lot of hard work. For a person who loves books and birds, volunteering there is a dream. I pass the hours waiting for someone to come in by perusing the shelves of natural history books. I oogle the newest and most expensive binoculars. When my shift is done, I pack up my things, lock the door and head out to bird one the best places in NJ.

We took a ride today to South Jersey to visit some favorite little shops and antique places. On our way home, I dragged my husband down some back roads of the Pine Barrens to Leeds Point which, according to local lore, is the birthplace of the jersey devil. I was more interested in finding some birds. We followed a rutted dirt road into the saltmarsh and found the view above, with Atlantic City in the distance. If you look closely at the photo, you can see NJ’s first wind farm, only operational for the last 2 months or so. There is said to be 5 turbines, each 380 feet tall, although I only count 4 in the photo. If you’re interested in reading NJ Audubon’s opinion on alternative energy sources, click here.

Most of the marsh is part of the Brigantine National Wildlife Refuge and emcompasses more than 45, 000 acres of coastal NJ habitat. There is great birding at Brig during every season. One of my best memories is of being there late one fall afternoon when thousands upon thousands of snow geese arrived for their evening roost. Peregrines nest on towers built for them (and on nearby Atlantic City high-rises) and Bald Eagles harass the waterfowl. Northern Harriers and Short-Eared Owls are commomplace. There is even a huge nesting-box platform for barn owls – and I was lucky enough to see one once! Birding there with Pete Dunne I remember being told that only birders with a *pure heart* would see the Barn Owls in the box. Like they were some sort of dream bird or a bird of one’s imagination. I bet that’s a line he uses to this day to account for not being able to produce the owls on demand for his birding groups.

Because it’s a wildlife refuge, it is to a large extent managed for hunting. Is that an incongruous statement, or what? The refuge is closed on certain days for duck hunting, or maybe even deer hunting, I suppose. We came across these *visual aids* to help the guys with guns recognize what they are shooting at. A bit scary, but if it prevents them from shooting a Peregrine at 20 yards then it doesn’t seem so silly.

After driving around for a while through the refuge, we finally came upon a bird perched across a creek. Being the well-prepared birder I am, I didn’t have my binoculars with me on this *shopping trip* and I didn’t even have my eyeglasses because I wasn’t doing the driving. So, of course, you know it was a good bird we found. I couldn’t see a thing. I tried to use my digital camera with its 10X zoom to get a look at the bird but it was of little use. I snapped a few photos, all the while complaining to my husband that all I could see was a brown blob perched amid the phrags. I told him that if it would fly, I might have a chance. His joking suggestion was that we throw a rock at it to make it fly. Driving away, I decided we probably had a short-eared owl.

Sure enough, once we got home and I cropped the photo, I found this sleepy-eyed short-eared. Not a lifer, but certainly the best look (but not really) that I’ve ever had (but didn’t really see). I’ve spent quite a few hours in the half-dark in the dead of winter in the middle of various marshes with binoculars and my scope to see them. As often as not, they don’t appear where they’re supposed to. When I do see them, they flutter past at an impossible distance and and I’m left wondering if I ever saw them at all or if they were just a figment of my imagination or the creation of my shaky, shivering hands on the binoculars. I find it just hilarious that this owl was so close, yet I didn’t have what I needed to see it. Maybe Pete Dunne is right about birders needing a *pure heart*. A digital camera helps, too.

It’s Friday. It’s been a long week. I have a mountain of mid-terms to grade. I have a zillion ideas floating around in my head and can’t focus. So, I’ll settle on the mundane.

I teach a remedial reading course at a small college one night a week as an adjunct. I do this for fun (ha!) and money (ha! ha!). Seriously, I think I make about $2 an hour for all the time I spend outside of class doing prep work and grading papers. But, I love my students and look forward to class each week. I love playing some small part in their lives. I love the opportunity to maybe be the one teacher who noticed them and paid attention and listened to them and helped them to see that college and success in life isn’t only about being smart or lucky, but about working hard and doing more. Where exactly this fits into the curriculum of a college-level reading course I’m not sure, but it’s what I do while I’m trying to teach them to be better readers.

My *real* job, where I make *real* money (ha!) is as a social services caseworker. I work in a cubicle surrounded by piles of case files and memos and cranky co-workers. My phone rings constantly with some client’s new urgent life issue. So, I counteract all this chaos, with more chaos! Looking at this pic of my cubicle makes me realize just how messy my desk really is. Geesh – the clutter! I didn’t even include any of the work-related clutter in the pic – just out of view is the current *pile*of cases that I’m working on. But I have pics of my bunnies there and some great bird photos and a nature book or two on the shelf – all to help me keep it (more or less) together in a stressful workplace. It’s not very professional-looking, but it’s my space and I don’t have any students grabbing stuff off my desk!

We all have to work and make money. A job is a job and usually they stink, right? What I enjoy most about my jobs is the people I work with – my students, my clients, my coworkers (well, most of them). Debbie and Linda (my friends, coworkers, lunch-buddies) posed for a photo today – can you tell by their smiles it’s minutes before quitting time on Friday? These two are as sweet as they come and I’m lucky to have them as friends.

Another member of the PetBunny list made this evocative post today and sent along the accompanying photo. I asked her permission to share both here and she obliged. She described this pic of a snapping turtle as a sherman tank in a negligee of cherry blossoms. It made my day!

Here’s Sharon’s post to PB:

“Folks who enjoy life by a pond or creek might also want to keep in mind just how many toes a cute big ole snapper can call a bite sized lunch 😉 You can pretty much walk without fear in their water, even stepping against them without ruffling their temper, but on land the behemoths are awkward and scared and will chomp defensively, so be cautious in early spring when the males roam their territory for a pre-nuptial review. Old Joe lumbers up from our cold water fishery creek early April, follows a route established for at least 9 years, climbs an incredibly steep and rocky outcrop where he encounters a country road between the wood edge and his mating pond. I have met him there so many times with a 30 gallon galvanized can. Using the lid I maneuver him into the can for easy safe transport across the road. Never seem to catch him on the return trip, but in just a few more weeks we will see if, once again, he has made it. His carapace is getting smoothed down now, years of wear.”

Thank you Sharon for allowing me to share your words and great pic here on my blog.

“March is a tomboy with tousled hair, a mischievious smile, mud on her shoes and a laugh in her voice. She knows when the first shadbush will blow, where the first violet will bloom, and she isn’t afraid of a salamander. She has whims and winning ways. She’s exasperating, lovable, a terror-on-wheels, too young to be reasoned with, too old to be spanked.

March is rain drenching as June and cold as January. It is mud and slush and the first green grass down along the brook. March gave its name, and not without reason, to the mad hare. March is the vernal equinox when, by the calculations of the stargazers, Spring arrives. Sometimes the equinox is cold and impersonal as a mathematical table, and sometimes it is warm and lively and spangled with crocuses. The equinox is fixed and immutable, but Spring is a movable feast that is spread only when sun and wind and all the elements of weather contrive to smile at the same time.

March is pussy willows. March is hepatica in bloom, and often it is arbutus. Sometimes it is anemones and bloodroot blossoms and even brave daffodils. March is a sleet storm pelting out of the north the day after you find the first violet bud. March is boys playing marbles and girls playing jacks and hopscotch. March once was sulphur and molasses; it still is dandelion greens and rock cress.

March is the gardener impatient to garden; it is the winter-weary sun seeker impatient for a case of Spring fever. March is February with a smile and April with a sniffle. March is a problem child with a twinkle in its eye.”

We’re not always successful and the photos aren’t always pretty. Oftentimes, we do really stupid things.

The photo at left is proof positive that my DH and I are dangerous idiots. A few years ago, yours truly, the newly-minted master gardener, got the bright idea to use newspapers and straw to cover her just planted vegetable seedlings. This (potentially combustible) mulch would hold in moisture and keep out weeds. Great idea, right?

Enter my DH, the easily distractable and absent-minded volunteer fireman. Being the tool-loving crafty man that he is, he built trellises for the beans and cucumbers and a nice little lattice fence to keep out the critters.

Late on a Sunday afternoon he’s out putting the finishing touches on his handiwork and decides to fire-up the tikki torches to keep the notorious jersey mosquitos at bay. After a while he wanders inside.

Next came a neighbor on a bicycle drawn to our yard by the smoke and flames. Then came the firetrucks. Can you imagine our embarrassment? We’re inside oblivious while our backyard is in flames!

My dear brother, who has a sick sense of humor and skills with photoshop, sent us this a few days later. That’s my other brother standing with the shovel and great physique in the center of the photo.

So, we learned a few lessons with that experience and our friends and family (and the neighbors!) had a good laugh at our expense.

Note: For some odd reason I can’t make the above photo *clickable* for enlargement to read the captions. The caption by my brother with the shovel says “Our compost expert gives advice on composting with ash: it’s simple – all you need is a match!”. The Iraqi press officer says, “I don’t know what you are talking about. There were no fires here!.” In this issue: *Terroristic Gardening – tips from comical Ali *How to roast your peppers while still on the vine *Don’t get MAD at weeds, get EVEN *How your garden can earn you big money in insurance claims Next issue: *The experts will give their tips on garden tool fire sales *Save time – combine your gardening with your grilling! And the woodchuck flipping us off says: Tips on getting those pesky varmits! Smoke ’em out!

Did I mention my brother was sick?!?

Cricket turns a suspicious eye to me lounging on the couch in front of the TV on a Sunday afternoon. This is about as far as she and Boomer will venture into the living room. They’re a bit braver since we rearranged the furiture, but still stick close to the edges of the room. I’ve found evidence of their comings and goings behind the couch (a stray marble-sized poop that could only have come from a Flemmie) and nibbled magazine edges on the coffee table. They must be exploring in there at night while we’re asleep and they know the dog is in the bedroom with us. During the day, the edge of the TV cabinet is as far as she’ll muster the courage for. Sillty rabbit!