PA-style! Yes, that is an outhouse in Delia’s backyard, and no, we didn’t spend the day in those chairs looking at it.
😉
The marsh behind it had more wood ducks than I’ve seen in my life, plus pintails and newly arrived tree swallows. There were even peepers peeping this morning. A great day… more pics tomorrow.
to Happy Valley PA… Susan and I are here in State College to attend Delia and Kat’s commitment ceremony and do a bit of marsh birding in the morning.
The drive out was a mad dash to arrive in time for the ceremony without having to leave home at dawn. Driving along the interstate at 80 miles an hour, most of the view was a blur of mountains and trees, with occasional valley views of pretty dairy farms with silos and big red barns. I’d imagine it to be gorgeous in the fall.
Parking problems caused both Susan and I to miss the ceremony, despite having arrived within plenty of time. Once the ceremony started, no one was allowed in, even though I begged and pleaded that I’d driven for 5 hours. Bummer!
Anyway, we did get to the party afterwards where I snapped this pic of the cake cutting. Then an early dinner in a local pub with a few of Delia and Kat’s friends. We talked birds and made fun of each other’s accents. (Mostly they made fun of mine – there’s no such thing as a Jersey accent; it’s all the rest of you people that talk funny!)
Tomorrow morning should be fun; Delia’s planned to show us around a few of her favorite local spots for birding. Plus, Barrack Obama will be speaking at the college as part of his “Road to Change” bus tour of Pennsylvania. I’d love to have the time for that, but there’s that drive home…
Freckles, this year’s appointed Easter Bunny, hopes your basket was filled to the brim with joy and love. 
The saddest thing I ever did see
Was a woodpecker peckin’ at a plastic tree.
He looks at me, and “Friend,” says he,
“Things ain’t as sweet as they used to be.”
–Shel Silverstein
Have you noticed the woodpeckers lately? All at once they seem to have decided to stop being so shy and are swooping from tree to tree in their woodpeckery way, testing out the hollow limbs to find the most resonant. The downies love peanuts and always seem to be at the feeder or waiting nearby in the little dogwood tree for the chance to sneak in and steal away a nut. Sweet little birds!
My habit of staying up late keeps me in touch with the neighborhood owls. I hear the great-horneds calling often, from the cemetary across the street or the black locust tree in our back yard, a favored perch, perhaps, because it’s the largest overlooking the farm fields and baseball green that borders our property. I’d imagine there to be lots of critters that fall within earshot of any owl perched in that tree. The screech owl, like this little one here, visits only occasionally and I’ve never been able to pinpont exactly where the whinny call originates from. Screech owls are tiny and delicate and disappear into the darkness much easier than the great-horneds whose silhouette is hard to mistake, even in the pitch black.
Of the great-horned owl Mary Oliver writes: “I know this bird. If it could, it would eat the whole world. In the night, when the owl is less than exquisitely swift and perfect, the scream of the rabbit is terrible. But the scream of the owl, which is not of pain and hopelessness and the fear of being plucked out of the world, but of the sheer rollicking glory of the death-bringer, is more terrible still. When I hear it resounding through the woods… I know I am standing at the very edge of the mystery, in which terror is naturally and abundantly part of life, part even of the most becalmed, intelligent, sunny life… The world where the owl is endlessly hungry and endlessly on the hunt is the world in which I live too. There is only one world.”
I had an experience at work today that made me feel guilty for my happy and peaceful life and for delighting in simple things. Most days in the field visiting clients are that way, to some extent but, my God, some people j
ust have so much awfulness heaped upon them. I walk in and out of their lives and their homes, have them fill out a bunch of silly papers, and then go back to my life of plenty. Yet, I’m collecting their stories in some part of me, so many sad stories that I can almost begin to imagine the same terrible circumstances on the periphery of my own life, just waiting for the chance to descend like an owl in the darkness. The recognition of that possibility, acknowledging the unmistakable shape in the pitch dark or the ability to see the little hunter hidden among the pine boughs… I’m not sure what that means. I wonder if it serves any purpose in my life or if it makes me any better at the work I do with clients. Maybe I’m just thinking too much or paying too much attention to stories and screams in the dark.
Owl pics are education birds from the Avian Wildlife Center who gave a children’s program tonight at our monthly Audubon meeting.
but then the Lab was suddenly transformed into the great hunter and regal protector after finally (!) spotting…
the sly fox hiding in the ramparts…
😉
These two stared at each other for a bit, the Lab whining some and wanting to give chase. I learned an important lesson; if there are no cookies to grab the dog’s eye, a small furry creature like a fox (or a squirrel) will do to get *that* look on the face of a Lab.
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
F.
Don’t ask what you’ll win if you’re right.
😉
(And yes, I routinely take pictures of stranger’s dogs)
Just something scenic from the drive to work – not that I’ll miss seeing it ’til Monday, mind you.
😉
It dawned on me today that I hadn’t shared even one crappy bird photo from my duck-hunting escapade from a few weeks ago. So here it is – click on it for a somewhat less crappy, more artsy, bigger view. Harlequin Duck: extremely cute, probably the most handsome, in my opinion, after Oldsquaw. They’re reliable here on the Jersey shore, but seeing them is something like a pilgrimage, for me at least, and it’s a journey fraught with danger.
I’m being overly dramatic, of course… well, almost.
In winter, Harlequins favor rocky coasts… think Maine. Not much of anything like that here in NJ, right? Well, we have ocean jetties and the most reliable for a small group of Harlequins is the jetty that sits in the shadow of Old Barney on Long Beach Island and juts out into the inlet. Walking the jetty is treacherous. John at A DC Birding Blog has a great trip report from his visit last year in this post. Also there is a more realistic view of the jetty from the top of the lighthouse.
Barnegat Light has to be the coldest place on earth on whatever day it is you happen to be out looking for the Harlequins. And windy as hell. And there’s those treacherous rocks to navigate, carrying your camera gear and the damn scope that picks that day to not work! Susan thinks she has problems with her camera that won’t focus – how about a Leica scope that since its very first winter has a focus wheel that ‘freezes’ on the coldest of days? Thankfully, the scope isn’t really needed to see these handsome ducks, as they stick very close to the treacherous rocks to feed. Problem is you can’t stay on the nice level concrete walkway beneath the lighthouse to see them; you have to walk out on the jetty proper with your eyes playing tricks with every step, insisting that you’re about to fall into the spaces between every single rock where the cold water is waiting to drown you once you’ve cracked your head open on said rocks.
Treacherous.
There were also sweet little Purple Sandpipers and Ruddy Turnstones and all the rest of the sea ducks one might expect. The Harlequins stole the show, though I think the group we saw was very small.. maybe just 4 birds. In years past there’s been a couple dozen… I imagine they were there, just further out than I was willing to venture.
😉
Will he ever stop getting more handsome?
😉
I take a picture of the monster each month on the third (or thereabouts) with the idea of reminding myself how little he used to be and just how cute. But gosh.. the cuteness just never stops!
