Happy Birthday to Me!

 I usually get a post up on Sundays, but I was working on a new talk and I had to get it done. 

It's only supposed to be 20 minutes, and it'll be delivered at the Saturday banquet for the Sedona Hummingbird Festival (Squee!!). I've figured out that I work something like two hours for each minute of the talk. The amount of time and brainpower I expend on these things is ridiculous. If it comes out right, it sounds extemporaneous. Well, it isn't. Snort.

So I was tied to the desk all day, except for an insanely cool evening walk down Dean's Fork, the subject of its own post. Sunday happened to be my birthday, so I decided if I had to sit all day, I would count the blessings that came my way. Each one would be a present.

My first gift was a handful of protoplasm. A couple of days ago, I looked down at a tire rut at a construction site and saw a puddle of tadpole goo where the day before there'd been rainwater. Because it's late July, the only thing they could be is Cope's gray treefrogs.  I touched them and sure enough a few wriggled in a SAVE ME!! kind of way. Oh no. More than a mile from home, and it's going to be a blistering hot day, and there is no natural water I can reach in shorts for at least another mile, unless...

I glanced around the site and saw a gallon of drinking water on a folding table, with a stack of plastic cups. Eureka!

I scooped up the taddies and a good bit of silt and plopped them in a cup, pouring life-giving water over them. Imagine how good that feels to a tadpole on its dying day. Jogged that mile home carrying the cup of taddies, laughing to myself about how that must've looked to the neighbors. Poured it in a plastic jar and added beaucoup rainwater. I gave them a couple of days to rehydrate before releasing them, and they needed it. When they started acting like tadpoles instead of crumpled bent fetuses, I knew they were ready to go.

This was my first birthday gift.

For future reference, they love koi sticks. Nomnomnom.

On this morning, I took the jar down to our fishpond, fed the comets to repletion, then installed the jar on a shelf in the pond.  One by one, the taddies who had survived their ordeal came up for air, saw the great expanse of water and delicious algae, and swam off into the deep. 

This one swam curlicues, dove, wriggled through the algae; its joy on being in proper habitat that wouldn't dry up was palpable. Honestly, I don't know how tadpoles do it, always watching the water levels, praying for rain, facing the imminent prospect of death by baking. Ugh.

There being no puddles left anywhere in the sweltering July heat, our water garden was my best choice. I had to hope the fish would leave them be. Comets aren't very predatory where small swimmers are concerned. As I was monitoring their exodus from the jar, I saw a tiny comet, the first spawn of my four fish, swim by. If he can make it, they can, too. 

Second present: BUN.

 There's a litter of three young cottontails in the yard who, having grown up in the sanctum sanctorum of Indigo Hill, have no frame of reference for humans as dangerous animals. They barely recognize Chet as a threat, which (let's be frank) he barely is. So these foolish little animals perk their ears attentively but go on chewing clover when I speak to them, kneel down and take iPhone photos of them from barely five feet away. Dumb bunnies. But of course, I adore them. So, Bun. They're all three named Bun.

I have a little family of brown thrashers in the yard! I don't know if any of them are Cletus, Melba or Harper; I think not, because the adults aren't tame at all. But oh, being able to look out and see thrashers doing thrasher things, dust bathing, sunning, hunting bugs or, in the case of one of the parents, grabbing a sunflower seed and pounding the shell off--it's just the best. This is a juvenile. Gift 3.

Seeing the laborious way a thrasher, which doesn't hold seeds in its toes for shelling, has to pound the hull off a seed, I spread sunflower hearts in all their favorite spots. Watching them gobble them down: Gift 4.

Present # 5: Someone dribbled squirrel! He appreciates the sunflower hearts very much. He ooches around on his belly picking them up one by one. I have to say I love my squirrels. They annoy the hell out of me, but they're such fun to watch! So they're paying their way, at least partly.

The sunflower hearts brought in MamaCoon and her three kits! Gift #6: July 24 was first day she's brought them out at noontime.

It's amazing how long those raccoon babies are dependent. The smarter the animal; the more complex and comprehensive its diet, the longer the juvenile dependency period.

It takes a long time to learn to be a raccoon.

Gift 7: the yard robin resents crowding by a ruffian house sparrow, tells him to back off! Just having a robin in the Spa, ahhh. But this combo was too much.

 

#8: speaking of Back Off, a mourning dove warns a squirrel it's too close.  I am big! I will beat you with my wing! Interestingly, a dove would NEVER let a chipmunk get that close. Chipmunks are far more dangerous than squirrels. They're nastya-s little animals. Chipmunks remind me of the killer rabbit in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. 

 Adult male Cooper's hawk makes two passes through the feeder zone. I manage to capture its bill, leg and foot, enough to identify it, as it fetches up in the Japanese maple. Not a great photo, but still gift #9.

This just in!! July 25: I saw the Coop take a pass at some doves just now and scuttled with camera downstairs to shoot it from the bedroom. This is through two panes of glass, at a terrible angle, but OH MY. Talk about a gift, hurled from the Other Side. Thanks DOD!!

On the first shot, I captured the whole hawk. When it turned toward me, I lost my head and focused on its face. Ah well. Too excited to shoot well.

Please note that this hawk is perched in a retired, or as I love to say, recovering bonsai. DOD, you place your gifts so well. He adored my bonsai. 

You beautiful thing!! Please help yourself to mourning doves, and  take a house sparrow as a chaser, willya? You're also most welcome to squirrels, but please not the one who sccoches around on his belleh.

#10: Seeing a gray squirrel use its tail as a hat and parasol.

At this point it's 98 in the shade,  easily 102 in the sun, and I'm so thankful to be inside mostly (not) working on my talk. 

 # 11: a rubythroat investigates the coneflower, seeming to find a sip of nectar in the disc. Not something I see every day, but these midsummer juveniles try everything.

There has to be nectar in this big fat bud. Just has to. I'll wait for it to open. This photo: Gift 12.

I have a variety of wire supports for my tall cardinalflower and Fuchsias, and the hummingbirds adore them. Hummies appreciate thin perches. They can watch for Cooper's hawks from them. It must be nice to be too small and fast to bother with. But you still have to stay vigilant. 

 

This photo: Gift 13.

Meanwhile, fall migrants (yes, I said it; fall begins in July for warblers!) are sifting through the yard. A young yellow-throated warbler on its leisurely path southward. Or westward, or eastward...they do a bit of wandering.  This has to be one of my favorite warblers, Gift #14. Get the picture? Everything out there is a gift. I had intended to put all my birthday gifts in one blogpost, but it's evolved into at least three. And that is a gift in itself.

Happy birthday to me! Now you can see why it takes me so dang long to put together a talk. Or a blogpost. A giant set of Venetian blinds for the studio window would probably go a long way toward increasing efficiency, but ignoring the show going on just outside those windows in late July? Unthinkable! All but a couple of these photos were taken through my studio window, through the crop netting screens that cover them. Gift #14: having such a big, comfortable blind for a house!

Blessed, that's all!

The Best Game Camera Photo Ever

Corey stayed with us for a glorious week leading up to Phoebe's birthday. Wherever he goes, nature follows. Corey's mom Diane told us that, and it's true, it's true. And our streak of amazing nature karma, which includes flying squirrels and box turtles and gray foxes, continued unbroken. Aided and abetted by Corey's magical presence, his way of noticing everything. 

He brought his Bushnell game camera, unbidden. I thought that was the coolest idea. Brought his fiddle too, but that's another story...

He and Liam went out to mount the camera. All I can say about this first shot is that Liam comes by his impishness honestly. It's 4:01 pm.

They all go out in the Honda a few minutes later. 

Dad comes home in the Bird Watcher's Digest van at 7:23 pm.

At 11:06 pm, the gray fox we've been seeing shows up. You can tell it's a gray fox and not a red by the black tail tip. All color phases of red fox have a white tail tip.

It crosses the driveway.

Not much happens until 3:41 AM, when a raccoon patrols for tadpoles in the driveway puddles. 

And then there's a long quiet spell until I come by, headed out for a late morning run, at 10:29 AM on July 8. I didn't even know they'd put the game cam out, but I saw it as I trotted by and thought I'd wave.  I think this photo is funny enough to swallow my pride-gullllp!!-- and post it anyhoo.

Chet Baker is usually chasing bunnehs in the yard (up driveway to left in photo) when we start our run, and July 8 was no exception. He straggles along 12 seconds later. It is hard to catch Bacon on a game cam, but we succeeded. 

 

So I get back from my run at about 12:45 pm, and Phoebe meets me at the door with the hugest grin on her face. WAIT 'til you see what we caught on the game cam!!! she squeals. And I'm thinking, 

"Probably me, looking like a goober." True. But...

She opens the laptop and runs me through all the photos I've just posted. And then there's this one.

Taken at 11:42 AM, July 8, 2014, in our driveway. IN OUR DRIVEWAY!!!!! In MIDMORNING!!! 

Well, after a moment of stunned silence when I was just gaping like a goldfish, there followed about five straight minutes of high-pitched squealing, jumping around like Daffy Duck on speed, and incredulous, hysterical laughter. 

Let's have a closer look.

OMG OMG OMG OMG CatGods walk amongst us!!

Slowly, it turns out, because that cat triggered the camera three times in a row.

I just cannot get over the ornate inner leg barring, the spots on flanks and hams, the natty black and snow-white ear bars, the black-tipped tail with white trim. The soft, soft paws. It makes me smile to think that while we've got zero tolerance for feral housecats on this sanctuary, I would serve up wild turkey poults on a silver platter to this great slab-sided native cat without even thinking twice. 

So I wanted to know how tall this animal might be. See that orange leaf just to its left? I went out and measured the leaf. Then blew the photo up and counted how many leaf-lengths the bobcat was from ground to shoulder. It worked out to 21.5" at the shoulder. Right in the median range for bobcat. And quite a bit taller than Chet Baker, as you'll notice. Let's hope they never run into each other in the driveway. I had not thought of bobcats as so...diurnal. But they're also about ten times sharper than we are, so they'll just melt into the woods when they hear us. Not worried in the least about an altercation. That beautiful cat would be GONE at the first footfall.

This is the last photo.

I believe it to be an adult female bobcat, because I think you'd be able to see its manparts at this angle if it were a boycat.

Not even an hour later, Corey and Phoebe walk out to see what the camera caught. Little do they know here...

The whole thing is so beautiful and perfect I just can't even believe it. I still can't believe it. Way to make my day, week, month, year, Corey!! 

I've always known they were here. I photograph their sign. In fact, I'd taken this perfect track shot on nearby Dean's Fork just a few days earlier. If you click on the photo you can see the grain of its pawskin. It's 54 mm, or a little over 2" across. You can tell it's a bobcat by the overall roundness of the print, and the lack of claw marks. 

And I shoot their scat every time I find it. This one, with a neat little rodent jaw embedded. Taken at a lair I found high up in some rocks over a creek on our property. There was lots of poo there. This is where the cat had lain and watched the valley below. Generations of bobcats have probably relaxed there, stubby tails twitching.

And this, bobcat scat, very fresh, made up of turkey poult feathers and bones. It's what's for dinner this time of year. Bobcat scat breaks off in squared, short sections. On our gravel road.

Three evenings earlier, on July 5, 2014, Liam, Phoebe, Corey and I were returning from a bike ride, coming down our gravel road. And as we rounded a bend I alone saw a spaniel-sized, jet-black, apparently tailless feline bound across the road and into the woods. After I realized it was not a giant black rabbit (the only thing my poor brain could produce, given that black bobcat wasn't on my radar at the moment), I knew it had to be a rare melanistic bobcat. Someone sent me this game cam photo taken in Vinton County, Ohio, a few years ago. They exist. They walk amongst us. Perhaps the one I spotted will be next on Corey's game cam!!

For me, these are powerful things. Visitations. Signs. Validations. I need them, so I'm taking them as such. I'm choosing to interpret a black bobcat crossing my path as the best of luck. And a red one, walking calmly up the driveway toward our house in late morning, as a gift from above, a tight hug from the Beyond. Bring it on. 

Corey resets the camera, hoping to capture the cat's face on her way back out the driveway.

Reports back to Nature Fairy.

You made my momma's day. Thank you!