Category Archives: Wanderings

Birds, Wanderings

Faking it

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What’s that ahead in the road? That bird looks like it might be broken…

Have you ever seen a killdeer do its distraction display? To a car speeding along a dirt road in the middle of Nowhere, North Dakota?

😉

The abundant killdeer taught an early lesson in exploring the prairie: slow down… look around… tread gently…

You never know what treasures you may find if you look closely enough.

For you non-bird folks: Killdeer and some other birds perform distraction or broken-wing displays to lure predators away from their nest or chicks. The adult bird fans its tail and drags a droopy wing along the ground so that you or I or a fox will think it an easy meal to catch. Soon enough, once the young are out of danger or forgotten, the parent flies off thumbing its nose for having faked you out. A great trick!

Birds, Small truths, Snapshots, Wanderings

Why North Dakota?

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I’ve always imagined the place we grow up to sink into our bones and set the course for where we feel most comfortable in life. For me, that’s meant the shore and the scent of a salt marsh at low tide… traffic and malls and lots of people. Something, though, has tugged at me to see a place where all the oceans are equally far away; a place where long stretches of land flow for miles unfettered by anything but my imagination.

Other places I’ve traveled to make the world feel small by comparison: the sky hemmed in by mountains or trees or buildings. The prairie is different. The landscape doesn’t shout out its beauty here, but entices you in small ways… the winnowing of snipe overhead, the soft huff of horses grazing in the predawn light, the starkness and loneliness of it, a velvet bowl of ink black sky so full of stars it makes you wonder what it might feel like to count so many, clouds that stumble across an unbelievably big sky, the long soft blur of sunset shadows that cross a patchwork of farm fields and prairie: where a few trees and a grain elevator are the only comfort for the eye in all that emptiness.

Maybe I like the challenge of finding beauty where others would see none… the black backbone of road and the faint lines of light at the horizon that mean there’s a town off the interstate, the nothing between me and a three wire barbed fence and a pasture of horses or bison, the wind that carries the grace notes of a meadowlark or a bobolink. This, this middle in the middle of nowhere, is a place of quiet where birdsong and the gentle whistle of wind are the only music and me the lonely audience.

There’s something here in the intersection of land and light, sky and the ever-present wind, the dark earth and the cerulean water in each and every pothole with its breeding ducks that communicates the language of this place; words of solitude translated by a yellow-headed blackbird hanging from cattails in a slough beside the road or the sight of ancient purple lilacs watching over deserted dooryards. There’s all of this and yet, sometimes, you need to bend close to the ground and pull the soft dusty green sage through your fingers or catch sight of prairie smoke blooming among the short grasses, with kingbirds squabbling on the fencerow behind you, to know that emptiness looks like this and that the place that one calls home need not be the only place a heart resides.

(Written mostly as a response to the cross-eyed glances of friends who wondered why I wouldn’t choose Hawaii as a vacation destination instead of the frozen land of North Dakota.)

😉

More to come…

Birds, Wanderings

Wandering for spring migrants

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Ever been followed through the woods by a nuthatch? This little guy followed along, tree to tree, flew directly at our heads, as if he thought there might be peanuts in our pockets. Funny! Especially hilarious is that Mike at 10,000 birds had the same experience last year! Have to wonder if this isn’t the same crazy bird. There were some 23 species of warblers at Garret Mountain on Saturday, but all I got was this lousy pic of a cute nuthatch… story of my life. Garret is generally a magical place on a spring day and I’ve never had a bad visit. The only disappointment this time was with the weather… gray and rainy and foggy… but the birds were dripping from the trees. We could easily have chosen any oak tree at random and spent the day beneath it. As it was, it was difficult to know where to focus the binoculars… difficult to focus on any one birdsong… difficult to not be distracted by what might be ahead in that other oak tree.

Focusing the camera lens was just as difficult. The good birds were too high up in that awful diffused light of a foggy day and were too busy feeding and flying about and chasing one another for any pics. This Canada Goose with its goslings was forced into a photo op… hissing all the way.

Most frustrating were the warbling vireos singing everywhere, none willing to come into view. It felt silly to chase such a plain-looking bird, but that song was maddening. Spring Beauties made a pretty carpet on the forest floor, dogwoods were blooming, and this maple had its keys hung out on display. Anyone have a guess at which maple this is?

Birds, Small truths, Snapshots, Travels with the flock, Wanderings

Birding in Delia’s backyard

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Susan seems to think I have all these fabulous photos to share with you from our visit with Delia. Well… I don’t. I carried that darn camera with me everywhere and was distracted with laughing most of the time and didn’t get very many nice pics. But, there is this one from Delia’s backyard – isn’t it fabulous? As much as I love being near to the shore, I can easily imagine myself happy to have a view like this out my kitchen window. I’ve no idea what type of trees those are up on top of that mountain, but if they ever turn green or in the fall are colored with reds and yellows, and oranges – wow! Delia called that a ‘hill’ rather than a mountain, by the way, but to me used to the coast it all seemed pretty spectacular. Please click on the pic to enlarge!

It was really neat to see the places that Delia blogs about. It felt to me like she lives in the middle of nowhere, but that must come from my being too accustomed to traffic and noise and people. Made me wonder what in the world they do with themselves! But then I remembered when I first started reading Delia’s blog and she talked about building her own scope from scratch for birding, and then making an adapter for her camera for the scope she finally bought, and her posts about moon and starwatching, and all the time she spends birding in the marsh that’s in her backyard. Anyway… it seems like a nice life there in the ‘hills’ – even if there’s only one Dunkin Donuts within a hundred miles and you have to pump your own gas!

(Don’t ask – I’m sure Susan will embarass me with that story – even if she doesn’t have photos!)

So, we spent a couple hours ambling through the marsh, talking and laughing like old friends – which felt really nice – and doing the things that birders and naturalists like to do. Only we weren’t really serious about it, or didn’t bother trying to pretend to be serious. We just had fun in that easy way that near strangers can when they share a common interest. We scared up lots of ducks with our laughter, and thought of Lynne when we saw a TV, puzzled over some bloody feathers along the trail, spotted a stinker for Mary as it flew over the marsh, Susan and Delia chimped their way through a pile of canine scat – while I kept my fingers clean behind the camera! Good, clean fun… but for the picking through poop – come on girls! Yuck.

In the end, I came away feeling like a 10 year-old, jumping through mudpuddles with the silliness of it all. Who in their right mind drives all that way to show support for a friend, misses the main reason for going to begin with, and then is perfectly happy with a few hours of backyard birding and wet muddy feet before a long ride back home? (Click here for the story and opposite view of this pic.)

What I mean to say is that I’m so often amazed with the friendships that’ve developed as a result of this silly blogging we all do, yet furthering those friendships beyond just reading one another’s blogs feels like a very natural extension of the connections we’ve made here. I think to others who don’t ‘get it’, it must all seem pretty peculiar, yet we bloggers all carry around little bits of each other and one another’s lives, don’t we? Going out of our way a bit and meeting in ‘real life’ makes it feel almost like a homecoming of sorts. Or a 20 year class reunion… you remember these people, but you’re surprised with how your memory of them has changed since you last saw them (or read their most recent post.)

😉

Snapshots, Travels with the flock, Wanderings, Whatever

Over the mountains and through the woods…

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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…

Wanderings, Whatever

Prettier dead stuff

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The American Museum of Natural History was also featuring a temporary tropical butterfly conservatory that I really was interested in seeing. I was hoping for a small dose of warmth and flowers and butterflies.

Outside the vivarium were a few collections of mounted specimens; also dead, but much prettier than those I told you about the other day. Something about seeing those bunnies pinned up that way really creeped me out. The butterflies didn’t bother me though. I have no idea what any of the ones in this first pic are; the orange-ish one on the right looks like some variety of anglewing, but who knows? I don’t remember these being labeled, even.

These look much more familiar – and of course, they’re labeled! The vivarium was kinda neat – smallish, but with lots of free-flying butterflies and moths. The space is kept at 80 degrees or so and at least 100% humidity, so with my sweater and wool coat I was fairly uncomfortable after 2 minutes or so. I would have liked to see a nicer variety of flowers, there were only pentas that I remember, plus lots of greenery. The butterflies have feeding stations similar to hummingbird feeders, plus there’s fresh fruit available to those species which prefer their food au natural.

😉

The light was harsh for photographs and it seemed like the prettiest butterflies never stayed still for a photo, but this guy finally settled in. I think he’s called a Cairn’s Birdwing and is from Australia – the topside of his wings is the most striking shade of neon green – I found a pic here to give you an idea, since it was impossible for me to get a pic while he was fluttering about.

I have no clue what this one is? Lovely eyespots, though. There were quite a few similar to this, with larger or more eyespots; wish I could remember what they’re called.

I’ve heard that the buterfly garden and conservatory at the Bronx Zoo is really great – anyone been there? This was a nice antidote to the cold of the first few days of spring, but left me wanting more.

Birds, Wanderings, Whatever

Dead stuff on display

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I had occasion to visit the American Museum of Natural History in NYC today. I almost never go to the city, certainly not without kicking and screaming about it, but I’ve always wanted to see the museum so happily took the opportunity today.

The place was packed solid with visitors, it being a holiday weekend, so with limited time and limited patience for crowds I focused my wanderings in the birdy parts of the museum. I don’t have any other natural history museum experience to compare it with, but my overall impression was sort of lackluster. There are several halls dedicated to birds, be it local to NYC, North American Birds (which holds 99% of all known species), or Birds of the World. The exhibits were very dark and the bird specimens in poor condition and really very creepy-looking! I don’t think this hall of dead birds will be winning us any converts to birdwatching anytime soon. Yuck.

Equally icky was the hall of dead rodents and rabbits; it was vaguely interesting to be able to make size comparisons among the different species of hares and rabbits, but still… yuck!

What did impress me were the habitat dioramas; these also included mounted specimens, but they were presented in somewhat more life-like scenes. Each was backed by beautiful and colorful paintings and included model plants and flowers to mimic the natural habitat of each species. I’ll share just a few pics of my favorites… and do click on these!

Desert birds of SE Arizona

😉

I thought this one was particularly pretty… marsh birds

Birds of the shore… feels like home on a summer day.

Birds, Snapshots, Wanderings

On the rocks

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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.

😉

Snapshots, Wanderings

Away and back

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No… I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth! I just wandered away for a day or two and never got here to say that I’d be away. There were ducks for chasing and sunsets to see over Barnegat Bay. If you stretch your imagination past the dock and it’s lonely bench to the marsh on that far shore you’ll see a short-ear or two hunting with the harriers in the gorgeous golden light of late afternoon. I wish I had pics of that to share, but now that I’m back I have only to imagine them there in the far away distance.