All posts by laurahinnj

Birds, Jersey Girl in GA, Remembering, Wanderings

No whining in paradise

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Isn’t there a saying about a rainy day at the beach being better than almost anything…

: )

So it rained while we were in Florida and when it stopped raining it got so cold and windy that being outside on the beach was almost unbearable.

Almost.

We got to do all the things I was hoping for and it was still fun, but the weather did put a damper on things.

Florida is magical to me, regardless of the weather, really. During the many hours on the road, driving back and forth on I-75, I found myself remembering a road trip my family made to Florida when I was a kid. I don’t remember much about that trip beyond the rain and that I had to sit next to the leaky window in the backseat of my dad’s Cadillac.

Any trip to Florida still holds a certain level of excitement for the Jersey Girl in me. Growing up, the lucky kids got to go to Florida on vacation.

: )

But having been able, recently, to visit different parts of the state, I’m seeing it differently now and starting to form opinions about favorite places to spend time.

That’s a good thing, I guess. The magic isn’t at Disney anymore, but instead in the places that aren’t so developed. The roadside orange groves and blooming bougainvillea delighted me. The palm tree-lined streets are charming, but for all the traffic. The birds are amazing… I’ve never seen so many Osprey!

So… I came home without even so much as a sunburn. I’ve a bucket of seashells from Sanibel to sort through and some lovely photos of Florida “junk birds” like this Yellow-Crowned Night Heron. Plus the memories of a couple rainy days in paradise…

I like to make lists, Jersey Girl in GA, Wanderings

Getaway plans

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seashells cover the beaches, tinkling like wind chimes as they tumble over one another in the waves

Our next throw-everything-in-the-car-plus-the-dog-roadtrip-to-escape-the-city is on for next week. We’ll be spending a couple days on Sanibel Island and then a couple days around St. Pete. A visit to Ding Darling NWR as well as Fort DeSoto is on the agenda. We’re hoping also to fit in a dinner date with a long quiet blog friend while in her neighborhood.

J is plotting our course over his beloved maps. Me, I’m looking forward to…

blue sky dawns * shelling on one of the best beaches in the world * pelicans! * salt spray * white sand underfoot * key lime pie * driving with the windows down * roseate spoonbills * at least one drink with an umbrella * wearing flip-flops for a couple days * watching J make drip castles in the sand * laughing gulls! * my polka-dot bikini * palm trees * sunshine * sandy feet * sunsets * floating * hermit crabs * sandbars * humid salty air * staring at the horizon

Garden, Growing up

Violets: my nemesis

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I’ve been trying to grow them for years; this is my latest victim picked up at the local hardware store. We only have north and south facing windows, so it sits on my south-facing desk, soaking up the winter sunshine.

Growing up, my mother had her beloved collection of violets displayed on the dining room windowsill.

Anyone have tips to share to prevent the untimely demise of yet another African violet?

City love, iPhone snaps, Whatever

Art seen

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It’s SUBTLE!
So subtle, in fact, that I’ve walked past this site at least a half dozen times and never noticed it before!

An artist worked with nearly two dozen teens to fabricate miniature “ruins” within the recessed areas under numerous small rock overhangs and ledges of railroad cut for visitors to encounter new worlds as envisioned by the teens. Before the clays eventually deteriorate in the elements, visitors are able to examine the curious nooks and crannies of the rock wall, scouting for traces of civilizations from long ago to the post-apocalyptic.

Seen along the Atlanta Beltline.

Birds, Pastimes, Wanderings

Here birdy, birdy…

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We spent the early morning hours on Saturday with Georgia’s IBA (Important Bird Area) Coordinator and some of his volunteers. They were out at Panola Mountain State Park to band sparrows.

We met before the sun was up and were pleased to see and hear American Woodcock doing their flight display over the grassy fields of Panola.

Here birdy, birdy…

I’m not sure how much you all know about how birds are caught and banded, so I played Kenny Kodak and took pictures of the process to make myself feel useful. I’m a bit too squeamish about it to actually handle the birds myself…

Mist nests are erected in likely habitat and then checked by volunteers every thirty minutes.

Removing birds from the nets is a very delicate process. Volunteers are trained over the course of years to learn how it’s done.

The birds are then placed in soft cotton bags until they’re processed by the bander.

As a side note… a couple years ago at Jekyll Island, where Charlie also bands birds, they did a study of the droppings left in the bags in order to better understand what specific plants birds were making use of in the local habitat. Neat, huh?!?

A bucket o’ birds!

This is my favorite part of the banding process… Charlie is blowing air on the bird’s keel to check for fat… you can actually see the fat deposited there when the feathers are blown out of the way. He rates the amount of fat each bird has and records it, along with the expected info like weight, wing measurements, sex, signs of molt and how much the flight feathers are worn down. The band number is recorded and the bird is set to fly away, back to its weedy patch of home.

Another quiz!

We have the idea that going to these banding sessions might actually help us learn to better identify sparrows, but I’m not so sure. Even though I know these are two different varieties of sparrow, I can hardly recognize the field marks that differentiate them! Anyone care to guess?

The morning wasn’t all about LBJ’s though…

Eye candy!

Bags and bucket in hand, the volunteers head back to check the nets again…

Seasons

Winter Solstice

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Partridgeberry

“The year achieves another solstice as the great wheel of time turns with the earth and the seasons. Winter, by the calendar, begins tomorrow, though the year’s shortest days have been upon us for almost a week. The solstice is a marker on the charts, but winter abides by its own schedule of wind and weather.

Since man was first aware of the changing seasons, the winter solstice has been occasion for awe and wonder and a challenge to faith. Hope and belief are easy in a warm, green world, but when the cold days come and the sun edges farther and farther south, cutting a constantly smaller arc across the sky, the imminence of utter darkness and oblivion seems at hand. Then the sun stands still. The turn comes. The crisis passes and the sun slowly climbs the sky once more, reaching toward another spring, another summer.

It was, and it still is, an annual miracle. Hope and belief were, and still are, once more justified. There is order in the universe. The seasons still march in their eternal sequence, and winter is neither pause nor punishment, but a part of the year’s whole. Ice and stormy wind are inevitabilities, but they pass even as the leaf and the blossom, equally inevitable in their own season, ripen and are gone.

The year has its own fourtold truth, indelibly marked on the turning earth. Now we know it whole for another turn of the great wheel. The cold verity of winter completes the cycle.”

–Hal Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

Birds, Wanderings

Room for the unimaginable

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Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable. 
–Mary Oliver

Five endangered Whooping Cranes, the twelfth such group to be led by ultralight from Wisconsin to the gulf coast of Florida, arrived the Friday after Thanksgiving on their wintering grounds at St. Marks NWR.

And we were lucky enough to be there to see it!

The cranes arrived a full month ahead of their usual schedule and we were in the neighborhood for the holiday, so we just followed the signs!

I’d been wanting to see the Whooping Cranes at St. Marks for years; I’ve since learned that it’s practically impossible to see them other than when they arrive because the group is secreted away in a distant part of the refuge to protect these terribly endangered birds and to minimize their contact with humans.

Anyone who interacts with the birds wears a funny suit like this to prevent the birds from imprinting on humans; even the ultralight pilots wear a crane suit. Understand that the staff and volunteers with Operation Migration raise these birds from hatchlings and train them to fly behind an airplane in order to teach them a migration route; the ultimate goal being to reestablish an eastern population of wild migratory Whooping Cranes. Seeing them arrive at St. Marks feels like a huge success, but it’s really just the beginning for these five juvenile birds. They have much to learn during the winter ahead. If things go as planned, this spring, they will make their way north without an ultralight to guide them and will continue making this north-south migration for the remainder of their lives.

Many people follow their progress via the web and call themselves “Craniacs”; some even follow the birds’ journey and travel to “flyover” sites, such as the one we visited in St. Marks, to catch a glimpse of them. Regular updates about the cranes are posted in a field journal maintained by staff and volunteers… it’s fun reading and a great way to keep up with what’s happening… click here for a look! Somewhere on Operation Migration’s website (when the birds are migrating south with the ultralight) there is a list of flyover sites posted ahead of time… maybe one will be in your neck of the woods next year!

We waited around at the flyover site for about 45 minutes… there was a delay due to frost that morning. First we saw the tracking van, with its antenna on the roof, pull into the parking lot where the crowd had gathered. A couple minutes later the birds and the ultralights came into view over the distant treeline… they circled around us a couple times (to much cheering from the crowd!) and then disappeared over the horizon to make their way to their secret spot on the refuge where the cranes were “dropped off” for the winter. The pilots and support team returned to the flyover site an hour or so later to answer questions and such. My impression was of a tight-knit group that really enjoys what they do. And they love these birds.

I’m not skilled at making videos with my iPhone, but I get goosebumps watching this, still. My silly giggles at the end say it all…

Top photo from USFWS; used without permission. My iPhone pix were awful.