Birds in the yard!

This is a great place for birding, if you just want to listen to them. I've been puttering around here, putting up string for the Hops Vine. The Eastern Comma butterfly has been back, soon it'll be laying eggs on the plant and we'll have caterpillars. The heat is atrocious on this part of the continent.

Birding from the deck has been great. The waxwings are after the serviceberries out back and front. 

Song sparrows and goldfinches have been bathing.

Apparently they can share the water fountain. The goldfinch is on the extension cord, the sparrow on the middle tier.

These are the birds Merlin thinks it is hearing. The 'waterthrush' may be accurate, I've seen a thrush before. This from walkies in the forest. I have seen other thrushes. I'll have to compare the hermit thrush with this one.

The pileated woodpecker is quite busy in the forest, yelling at someone or broadcasting its territory.

Phoebe has been back eating bugs. I'm not sure if they'll have another brood. The Mourning Doves sure will. They are doing the cooing and flirting thing. 

What was your spark bird?!

"Spark Bird" being - The bird that helped spark your interest in birding. It helped open your eyes to the incredible beauty

I listened to a This American Life podcast: "📻Spark Bird Stories – about birds and the hearts they sway, the havoc they wreak, the lives they change." 

The expert they interviewed, Noah Strycker, was amazing. He and Ira Glass were out in the field and Strycker identified a Steller's Jay imitating a red-tailed hawk. I knew that blue jays imitate them, as I've heard them. I didn't know why. His theory is that they like to terrorize the chickadees!

Blue jay

It's an interesting podcast for amateur birders, like me. He spotted a crow, focused the parabolic listening device on it, and found it was humming to itself. It was a fascinating story, explaining that turkey vultures were his spark bird. He brought home a deer carcass to put in his backyard and watch them. (Sound familiar? Life includes death in the rural cycle of life: deer carcass & The circle of life. )

We had 13 mourning doves under or near the feeder. Dec. 18th is our Christmas Count, here. JB asked the collective noun for doves.

"There are a number of collective nouns for any group of doves. They include cote, dole, dule, bevy, flight, and piteousness. For the Mourning Dove specifically, I would offer lament as a collective noun because of its sad song, sung over and over and over again."

I don't think I have a spark bird. I just like every bird that shows up!

Winter birds

Return from Almonte – Part 2

We went off to Almonte for bird seed for the first time in two years. Off to Almonte Part 1! On the way back, it was suggested we visit the Almonte Lagoons Bird Viewing Area. We've been before, but they've added a new viewing spot. We followed the path, around a field, through a forest.

This is the new outbuilding. 

Potvin Observation Tower (1997)

There was a couple there. Better birders than I. The woman informed us that there were 100s of geese, and a blue-winged teal duck. They had binoculars.

They went back over to the outbuilding, while we climbed up the tower. Indeed, hundreds of ducks!

You can see three blue-winged teals in the bottom right. You'll have to trust me! I don't have any photos of them anywhere else. I'm not sure what they look like! 

Can you count them?! I love the sound.

Almonte geese from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

Back through the forest to the road, our car, and we headed home.

I noticed a sign for the old schoolhouse, 1856. It is hidden behind trees at the road. It is a working barn, now.

Wolf Grove Rd. was amazing.

The are lots of old homes and farm houses, as well as churches converted to homes.

The sumac are perfect!

I see this man with the ZZ Top long beard in town a lot.

Blue skies might have been better for photos, but I cannot complain.

Then there is this house. It is immense.

I love the reds and oranges surrounding the house.

We passed Temple's Sugar Bush location. We attended an outdoor Family wedding –it was a chilly one! back in 2015. It was cold and it rained. The trees are amazing.

Don't you love the floofy birds? There was a turkey, too.

There looks to be a deflated unicorn here!

• 
  
• 🐻SNUGGLE Bears

October 8

Our standing joke with the girls was 'beer and chips all around' when Momma and Papa weren't here!