The Fifth of April

On April 5, it seemed like everything happened at once. I credit Curtis for getting me out every single day, rain or shine, for a walkaround. I suit up and out we go. The day dawned so mild that for the first time since...I don't know when... I danced out in a tank top and cropped pants. Oh, the feel of the warm breeze on bare skin, lifting my arm hairs at long last. I love that feeling.

The first azure bluets have opened! Who can blame them, on a 68 degree morning?

Here come the dogwoods! So early, early in the spring. 

My dad used to say that a warm wind will whip the flowers and leaves out. And so it does.

I saw a female bluebird slip out of the house by my mailbox. As far as I know, this is the first nest on

my trail. I'm so glad to keep finding empty boxes in early April. With the way springs go around here, the longer they wait, the better! My enthusiasm for bluebirds is heavily tempered by worry for them when the weather turns nasty. The early nests are likely to be snowed upon, and then comes the worry and work of feeding babies through snowstorms. Please, please, please not this year. I've got so much travel coming, and a magazine to edit, and six bats to condition for release, and it all has to happen in April and May. 

Out in the orchard, a blue-gray gnatcatcher whined, but I couldn't find it against the white-gray sky. Same for the liquid twitter of the first tree swallow. Oh my gosh, how those quiet songs electrify me! Spring is here, it's here, ready or not.

I did find the first yellow-rumped warbler of the year, though, and was very surprised to see it was a female. Usually, male warblers come through first. 

When you click on the photo you can see that she's catching and eating little bees who are visiting the elm flowers. There is a whole world of small bees I know nothing about, but I have friends who know. This one's for you, Laura H!

I was amazed to see the first clouded sulfur butterfly of the spring fluttering erratically over the dead grasstops, and elated to find a Henry's elfin feeding at spicebush in the orchard. You have to look for this tiny brown butterfly early, early in the spring. Its caterpillar eats redbud (obligingly blooming as the butterflies emerge)

it flies in March and early April; it's cute as a button and I've been looking for them and usually finding them in my orchard for 30 years now. I like the silken spider line in this shot. 

Henry's elfin  Callophrys henricii on spicebush

Since I've had to keep mealworms to feed my bat clients over the winter, I've discovered the perfect mouse trap. Mice love to eat mealworms, and with a stack of unused critter keepers, I'd inadvertently made a ramp up to top of my joint compound bucket full of mealworms. Mouse climbs ramp, sees feast, jumps in, can't jump back out. It started with one...

and then came a mama mouse with four babies (how did this happen?? Were they hanging off her teats when she jumped down into the bucket?? Or did each one climb up behind her, see her, and jump in to join the others?) I need a trailcam in my basement. 

All told, I've now caught ten mice (two mamas with broods) in this gentle trap. I am SO glad to get them out of my basement!

I release them in a place where they can have shelter but won't annoy anyone, with a pile of seed to feed from until they find their way.

With the latest white-footed mouse family as impetus, I decided to make a trek up to an old farmstead I used to visit with Chet. I knew the trees and shrubs would be in full bloom around the swiftly decaying house, my favorite combo of weathered wood and colored petals. 

It did not disappoint.

I'd heard toads trilling in the puddles at home, and here in a road puddle was the coiled evidence of their work in the night. 

I must revisit and see if these peaches are any good! The tree is enormous.

It hurts to see the lath fall and expose the old house's bones. One by one the buildings I love have fallen or been torn down, so I photograph them while I can.

Beautiful spirea, weathered lath.

The first tiger of the year in a riot of peach blossoms. I'd see one back at home too, flirting with daffodils...there's not a lilac flower (their usual first food) to be found this early. 

Birdseye speedwell has such a sweet true blue, the first of early spring.

I turned for home, hearing the first yellow-throated warbler of the spring singing his sweet descending  notes from the tall pines along the farm road. 

There was a pair of courting falcate orangetip butterflies at my last daffodils!

Click on the photo, please, to see the orange tips of the male fluttering above the female, who has her abdomen sticking straight up--a butterfly's way of saying "I have a headache."

A chipping sparrow sorted through seed hulls beneath the feeder. They've arrived and are singing, adding their somewhat tuneless trill to the mix of nearly identical trills in my yard.

The pine warbler pair is still around; the male expertly extricating bits of peanut

and gagging them down before my delighted eyes.

He sings constantly, his trill softer and more melodious than the more percussive chipping sparrow's...

and more constant in pulse than the looser trills of dark-eyed juncos. It's a lot to sort out for the ear birder!

All this warbler action and the 85 degree temperature on this fifth of April finally moved me to get the WarblerFall going! I've never put it out this early, but like Steven Tyler, I don't want to miss a thing!

I made a presoak bucket of cold water, another big bucket of hot soapy water and a rinse bucket as well, and I commenced scrubbing clean all the flat rocks that had been lying unused all winter. Finally I was ready to construct the WarblerFall.

I plugged it in, got the water music just right and popped into the studio to watch and shoot through the window. First clients were a cardinal and a house finch!

The Carolina chickadee slaked its thirst

and finches gold and house descended again and again. 

A house sparrow took a drink, and then two male brown-headed cowbirds took the first baths,

Maybe you don't like cowbirds. But remember: These are native birds with a very, very interesting life history. And LOOK at them!

 and within minutes, six species of birds had joyfully broken the champagne bottle on the prow of my 2023 WarblerFall. It was so clear to me that they all remembered the setup from last season, and were delighted to welcome it back.

And so was I. I cranked open the studio window so I could hear the sound of fluttering wings and water droplets flying, and together the birds and I welcomed spring with water music. 
I washed the heated pet dish and put it aside, knowing I'll have to watch night temperatures for at least the next month. But it's worth it to see this cavalcade of happy drinkers and bathers again. What a treat, what a delight--the gift that gives and gives.

If you've been meaning to order your WarblerFall plans, don't let me stop you! :) 

THANK YOU for your continuing support!

JZ

 

The WarblerFall

 What was your Pandemic Project? Did you clean closets? Learn how to make sourdough? Pick up an instrument? 

Mine was inventing the perfect bird bath, something so irresistible that it would draw birds from the woods into the yard: birds I don't usually get to see.  I've been thinking about this problem ever since I learned the Magnificent Bird Spa was no longer in production, which was sometime around 2011. Oh, have I had fun with this wonderful creation. There was nothing like it on a hot summer day! But now it's old and the resin-based material it's made of is getting more brittle every year.  I felt a need to find an alternative, for the inevitable time when it breaks. 

Every time I went to a garden center or a wild bird supply store, I looked for something like the Spa. I looked online, again and again, for years. I never found it. Somehow the manufacturers of bird baths have never gotten the memo from wild birds about what they like. I knew it was up to me to come up with it.

I wanted to invent a bubbling bird fountain that would be affordable and easy to clean. Much as I loved the Magnificent Bird Spa, it was expensive ($350 in 2007), and it was a pretty big production to take apart and clean the basin and its 8 gallon reservoir. There had to be an easier way to get water to my birds.

 I also wanted to build something that would appeal to small forest birds like warblers, vireos and tanagers: something smaller, shallower, and noisier. The sound of trickling water is how birds find a bathing spot. A light went off in my head when I found a large, shallow basin at White's Mill, my favorite garden store in Athens, Ohio. I bought two, brought them home, and commenced thinking about how to create a fountain around them. By midsummer 2021 I had it figured out, but I kept tinkering with the components until I got it just right. I set it in the shady bed below my studio window and was thunderstruck by the action it got that late summer and fall. Warblers, vireos, tanagers, gnatcatchers, kinglets--they were coming right up to the studio window, enticed by the trickling water music below.

Black and white warbler (imm. female)

A fall-plumaged scarlet tanager bathes.

An immature white-crowned sparrow takes a sip.

Those of you who read this blog or follow my social media feeds know that I share things that make me happy. Uncharacteristically, I kept this close to my chest, posted not a single photo of my perfect bird fountain anywhere. I knew I had something very special here, but I wasn't sure how to make it available. I had an idea that it would be worth paying a little something to access my plans. It took my awesome friend Kristi Dranginis (originator of For the Love of Birds Festival) to show me what I needed to do to make it accessible to everyone. I'd never even heard of a one-page website, but I have now!

And so I developed a pitch for my idea and condensed into an elevator speech. Then I wrote a script for the video and put together the plans for constructing the fountain, with detailed instructions and photos. And in September 2021, my friend Shila and I spent a wild afternoon making an instructional video featuring me demonstrating exactly how to make this bird bath. It was really fun, and I learned so much about how to develop, package and pitch an idea.  The whole experience was a crash course in online marketing, and it's really rewarding to see how it's being received.

I call it The WarblerFall. Because of the work and money I've put into developing the idea and its website, there is a modest fee to access the instructional video and detailed guide. I think you'll enjoy the step-by-step instructional video, which brings you right into my garden, and I guarantee you'll have fun making your own bubbling bird bath, at a very reasonable cost. The whole thing can be constructed without tools for under $60, but oh, the bathing bird beauty bang for the buck! Check it out at warblerfall.com

 I took a bunch of photos in the last couple of days to show birds enjoying it.

We're moving into late summer migration time, and I am going to get absolutely nothing done because this water feature is right outside my studio window and there is literally always something going on out there.

It's prime WarblerFall time! 

The 2021 iteration of my WarblerFall was on the ground. And that is really best, if there are no marauding mammals around. But the chipmunks in my yard developed the intensely annoying behavior of trying to jump the birds while they bathed, so the new setup looks like this. 

I put a LOT of flat rocks in the basin to give pools of varying depths. I absolutely LOVE playing with the rocks to create the prettiest water music I can!

Take yesterday, July 28, for example. Phoebe and I were watching two cardinals bathing together, and not one but THREE Kentucky warblers showed up! 

They peered down at the fountain, chased each other through the birches, and suddenly a worm-eating warbler appeared, also attracted by the trickling water!

To see these glorious denizens of the deep woods drawn into my yard, only inches away from my studio window, was such an affirmation, such a thrill! This is why I had to share my invention. 

But it took a newly fledged brown-headed cowbird to demonstrate all the delights of the WarblerFall. 

First, it stood in a shallow pool, squatted, and bathed there. 

Then it tried another shallower pool

Escalating, it stuck its chest right into the flow. 

I have never seen a bird stick its head right into the outflow

but this little cowbird was living large. 

I can't wait to see what late summer and fall migration brings to my WarblerFall. On October 13, 2021, I had my first-ever ruby-crowned kinglet come to bathe! Her bath was too quick for me to capture, but I got the tiny customer right before she took a dip.

If you'd like to see what all the fuss is about, and watch me going all Bobby Flay on you with a rapid-fire two-minute pitch, check it out at  

warblerfall.com

I've also made a Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/WarblerFall

where some fun stuff happens.

Brass tacks. If you decide to take the plunge and purchase the WarblerFall plans, and you don't get a welcome email right back, CHECK YOUR SPAM FILE. Many email programs see the links in my welcome email and toss it into spam/junk. 

If you still can't find it, email me at juliezickefooseATgmailDOTcom

and I'll be happy to set you up.