All posts by laurahinnj

Birds, Pastimes, Snapshots

Teacher bird

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A funny thing about birds in the hand; they’re so much smaller than we realize. Sometimes it’s even difficult to recognize them for a moment or two, I guess because we’re not used to seeing them in so much detail.

Or at least I’m not.

😉

Says Laura who refuses to wear her glasses when birding.

Ovenbirds are handsome warblers; an olive-green back and a white waistcoat spotted and streaked like a thrush. And they have very big eyes! They like to make their dutch-oven shaped nests on slopes in deciduous woods, on the forest floor.

Theirs was one of the first warbler songs I learned, because it’s so easy to recognize and so loud! When I first put bird and song together, I was surprised to imagine all that noise coming from such a tiny, inconspicuous-looking bird. Their only bit of color comes from that black-rimmed orange stripe across the top of the head.

The farmhouse we stayed at in W. Virginia was blessed with many ovenbirds in the surrounding woods. That was quite a treat for me as I’m used to having to *go* somewhere to hear their song. Something neat I learned about them there is that they sing at night… a funny sort of flight song, but I can’t find it referenced in any of my bird books. Anyone know any more about that?

Please click on the pics to make them bigger, especially that first one. It’s sure to make you smile.

Birds, Crazy things i do to amuse myself, I like to make lists, In the neighborhood, Pastimes

17

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Juliet’s snared you, little one, perhaps startled you into our nets…

interrupted your song or nest-building to carry you away for a moment…

our temporary prisoner, an object of study.

Tom wants only to fit you with a tiny numbered bracelet…

and to blow gentle kisses among the feathers of your breast…

to measure the distance of your wings and the length of longing in your journey…

to hold you up for a portrait; your bright eye looking to the sky for escape…

to release you, your bit of fire no longer contained; his open palm and our thanks for this moment in your life.

Sandy Hook Bird Observatory and CUNY-CSI are partnering in a banding study of spring/fall migrants, as well as breeding birds, at Sandy Hook. They put out a call for volunteers to help with recording data and running birds from the nets to the banders. Between schedules and poor weather, today was the first chance I had to help out and so I spent the dawn hours today with them, mostly trying to stay out of the way and taking pics.

#17 in my 38 by 39. Time is running short…

Snapshots, Travels with the flock, Wanderings

Skywatch Friday: Devil’s Courthouse

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Devil’s Courthouse from the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina. Elevation 5720.

Even the vocabulary is unfamiliar to me: ridge, gap, valley, pass, switchback, hollow, notch. There’s been very little in my upbringing to acquaint me with a love for the mountains or the many words used to characterize them. I grew up in another place, with other treasures.

I’ve played in the High Peaks of the Adirondacks as an adult, where instead of sweeping views, one gets mostly strained glances at the sky through bare branches. These mountains are not so jumbled and rough; instead they’re all curves and circles, bulges and dimples and woods that go on forever uninterrupted.

For all that it felt exotic and alien, my spirits were lifted by the visible rush of spring as it crept up the mountainsides and the sweet light of sunset polishing the days. The throaty croak of ravens flying in tandem in a valley below, dark woods shot through with gleaming white dogwood blossoms, tiny hemlock cones and banks of trillium; all spoke to that part of my heart that gasps at such sights.

Visit here for more Skywatch Friday posts.

I like to make lists, Snapshots, Travels with the flock, Wanderings, Whatever

Southern oddities

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Just a couple things that tickled me from along the way…

And you all tease me about NJ and its toll roads?

The particular pleasure of watching your fat expertly glazed at Krispy Kreme… ack… too sweet! And what’s up with *waffle houses* and *biscuit houses*? And sweet tea? But absolutely no decent coffee anywhere within a 50 mile radius?

The mountain version of internet service, evocative of the days when two tin cans and a length of string constituted phone service… and the folly of hosting 17-some bloggers who were then forced to pirate a wi-fi signal wherever possible.

A *new* river that flows north. Backwards.

Right. We don’t really do mountains in NJ. WTF?

Rare red trilliums that are um… white? Or is it yellow? I have so many pictures of trilliums I’ve forgotten who’s who. W. Virginia is awash in trilliums. They should better protect their flowered hillsides, I think.

The whole Southern fascination with B-B-Q. I never got a look at the pit, but I’d be surprised if it wasn’t made out of half an old oil barrel.

I think this could probably be an on-going list, as we all remember things…

Anyone?

Birds, Snapshots, Travels with the flock, Wanderings

High country miscellany

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Whoever was in charge of scheduling flock members for field trips did a good job of separating me from the more raucous members of our group. Maybe they somehow knew that adding me to the Susan, Mary, Lynne and Beth mix would just be too much for anyone to bear. As it was, I did trips with Kathie, KatDoc, Nina, Jane and Tim. One day, for Cranberry Glades, I was all by myself and very quiet and well-behaved.

I missed the chance to be silly with the others, but one benefit of being on different trips was that the others could tell me what to look forward to on each trip. The highlight of the High Country trip for everyone was the bobolink field that we visited late in the day. Bobolinks and Meadowlarks aren’t new birds for me, but seeing them this way, surrounded by mountain views, was a new joy.

Another joy, whenever I’m out birding, is meeting dogs along the way. These two local pups barked their way suspiciously into our group, and Jane, a self-proclaimed cat person, interrupted her quest for bobolinks for a little doggy-love.

Nina took this pic of me that I’ll use when I win Birder of the Year.

😉

That little dog attached himself to my ankle. Cute!

I carried that ridiculous lens everywhere for a week and took all of three bird pictures. The next time I go to W. Va. in early May I’ll bring my macro lens so I can take pics of all the wonderful wildflowers that bloom there. I wish the festival would have advertised that aspect a bit better for the likes of me.

There were lots of little, slow moving things to take pics of that I couldn’t really give justice to with my big lens. I had to back up a half-mile to get this soft pic of a funny fungus we found growing in a little vernal pool. We tried making it into Golden Club, but decided instead that it was some fungus that I can’t remember the name of. Connie Toops stopped me at breakfast the following morning to tell me the name of it, and well… I hadn’t had enough coffee yet, I guess.

The second of my three bird pics… a sweet Chestnut-Sided Warbler. My eyesight is pretty poor and I tend to use my ears first for IDing birds, so I kept confusing these with Hooded Warblers which were everywhere! No matter how many times I listened to the songs of both on my birdJam or asked one of the field trip leaders to help me tell them apart, it didn’t help. At least the Chestnut-Sideds aren’t nearly so skulky as the Hooded Warblers.

I was hoping to see a bear at some point on the trip, but the closest I came was seeing some bear poop. I didn’t take pics of it, instead I was amused by everyone else taking pics of it. Silly birders!

Birds, In the neighborhood, Pastimes

World Series Day

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Sandy Hook Century Run Team 2009

(except for the ones who bailed out before 5 pm.) Note Linda in front in dead bug posture.

We had a fantastic day and ended with 134 species! Wow! What I love about Sandy Hook, and what I guess I missed birding in W. Va. is variety and the chance to witness migration as it happens.

There were Palm Warblers in every beach plum

and Clapper Rails that played hide-and-seek all day long

cooperative Cuckoos

and Yellow Warblers willing to pose

and the most spectacular sunset to end the day.

But there were also flocks of shorebirds, and Blue Jays, and a nice little hawk movement when the fog finally lifted, and Fowler’s Toads calling in the dunes, and Nighthawks, and a Mississippi Kite or two, and night herons taking off from North Pond at dusk…

I could go on and on, but I’m tired enough to be delirious. 16 hours of birding will do that, I think.

Birds, Pastimes, Whatever

A nearly shameless plug

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This Saturday is World Series Day here in NJ when teams of birders set out to find as many species as possible in one day. I’ll be out there, for the 11th year in a row, with the Sandy Hook Century Run Team. My first year, it rained buckets all day and I’m afraid the weather is shaping up to be the same this Saturday.

Migration is at its peak in NJ during this, the second week in May, and all told World Series teams have raised more than 8 million dollars through the years for conservation causes.

Our team is birding in support of the Sandy Hook Bird Observatory where I volunteer and I’d love it if you’d toss some money our way! A fun way to pledge is an amount per species… we usually see between 120 – 130 species from dawn to dusk.

So far I have pledges for 37 1/2 cents per species… I’m hoping to get that to $2.00 per species. Leave me a comment if you’d like to pledge.

Thanks! Wish us luck!