Messages from Bill

           One of the hard things about losing someone is that you keep thinking they're going to get back in touch with you--that you're going to get a message here pretty soon. But you listen and watch and stay open, and though they're on your mind so much, the messages mostly never arrive. You have to slowly let go of that thought that you're going to hear their voice or get a strong feeling that they're near. I guess thinking and hoping that that might happen is one way we forestall grief, hold off the emptiness.

   And then there are the days when things happen. You let yourself think that you've just gotten a message, that you're still accompanied, that there might still be a connection.

  The whole time I've lived here--29 years now--I've maintained a "yard list" of all the birds that have flown over, stopped by, bred, or visited this sanctuary. New additions have slowed to a trickle, but I have to say that the species I'm adding now are the coolest of the cool, and that makes up for the years between new additions. Bill was always prognosticating on the next species we were going to get. Me, I'm pretty Zen about it. What shows up, shows up. But oh, the thrill of discovery! The surprise! 

 On May 10, I went out to feed the bluebirds in the yard and the meadow. Both pairs are feeding fledglings now, and I have been subsidizing them once a day, early on each freezing-cold morning. I figure it's hard enough to feed four or five fledglings without temperatures starting out in the 30's every morning. I was leaning against the garage, watching the bluebirds through binoculars, when I saw something that looked like a dark stick in the middle of the meadow.  

 It was a shorebird, and it wasn't a woodcock or a killdeer. It wasn't even a Wilson's snipe, which was species #188 on May 2, 2013. It wasn't a black-bellied plover (#182, May 18, 2006). It was a solitary sandpiper, and it was species #198 for the sanctuary! 

It was poking around looking for food in the little swale that Bill always said would be perfect for a pond. He and I had quite a few discussions about whether making a pond was even feasible. I maintained that the sandy loam there was the wrong soil to hold water, and furthermore that there wasn't enough runoff to fill it, much less keep it wet long enough to even raise a tadpole. I still think that. I go back and forth, back and forth. I would LOVE to put in a shallow frog pond, to serve as a vernal pool for all the wonderful amphibians we have. But I just don't think there's sufficient water, and I'm sure the soil is too permeable for this wonderful notion to work. So now I'm thinking about how much a liner would cost, because I'm still thinking about it.

Here's a little digiscoped video (I just hand-held the phone up to the scope's eyepiece, so it's pretty shaky) of the solitary sandpiper messing about in Bill's little wishful pool. 

            

                  

That gracious and beautiful visitor stayed long enough for me to charge the house and grab my scope and long lens.

Solitary sandpipers are such pretty birds. They have a constellation of stars flung across a dusky back, a nice white eye ring, and a long, tapered shape that is distinctive. They bob and weave like an oversized spotted sandpiper, but they aren't quite as compulsive about it. More elegant, more restrained.

 

This was an amazing thing to see, walking right next to Bill's grave. Did he send it to me?

 

 

 

The sandpiper wasn't saying. It took flight with a three-part rolling trill and arrowed out, to disappear over the northeast horizon. 

 

 

I was so glad I was there to see that. It would have been so easy to miss it. And hearing its wild woodland call over the meadow made my day.

 

I came back inside from watching the sandpiper, sat down at my drawing table, and glanced out, as I do 5,000 times a day, to see this...

 

Who came up with this design? Is there a flashier bird in the world than a red-headed woodpecker? Durn thing looks like a stuffed toy out there!

It occurred to me that I had just come in from seeing a brand new species right by Bill's grave, and now here was his favorite bird, flying and hitching around like it owned the yard.

Perching like a hieroglyph on the feeder post

 

 

Using all the feeders, as red-heads will..they are fearless, inventive and inquisitive birds

Speaking of inventive, this is how I feed sunflower hearts now that tube feeders have been taken out of service. The mesh, intended for black oil sunflower seed, is too small to admit the new improved fatter shelled seeds, but it's perfect for the hearts! No ports to spread house finch disease--it's working well! I had sidelined this feeder because black oil sunflower wouldn't fit through the mesh, but it's back in service now.

 

Little character was shuttling peanuts, one by one, to storage in the crevices in a telephone pole out in the yard.

Making the place ring with its churring growl, kerr kerr kerr!

With the solitary sandpiper and the red-headed woodpecker visiting on the same day, I had the feeling that Bill was reaching through the veil. Phoebe's immediate response: "He's saying BUILD THE DAMN POND, WOMAN!"

Yeah, well, I still have to think about it for awhile. Ohio can be pretty stingy with rain in the spring and summer. I just tipped ten gallons of rainwater into the two tadpole puddles I'm tending now, which are full of all the American toad eggs I saved from the driveway! With all the rain we got last week they were still actively drying up, and they're in straight clay, in the shade. Hard times for frogs and those who lug 40-pound jugs of water to their squiggly offspring. I take them out in the garden cart, three at a time. It's all I can do to hold the cart back with 120 pounds of water in it as we go down the steep hill. Do I really want to sign on to a large vernal pool all the way out the meadow? Kinda thinking I have enough to care for now...

But Bill, I just wanted you to know I got your messages, and your beautiful messengers. Thank you for sending them. We miss you more than ever.

 

Ever Seen a Chickadee Quilt?

I can't begin to tell you how sweet it is to stand on my dirt road on a May morning and drink in the sights: the light, the sky, the clouds and the sounds of the birds who make their homes on our land. It's such a simple thing, to walk out the door, trot out the driveway and about a half-mile down the dirt road. I find myself praying it stays dirt for good; that nobody plops houses on the haymeadows or lets them grow up to woods. Simple prayers, but heartfelt.

In this video, you can hear, more or less in order, Carolina wren, song sparrow (scold), indigo bunting, scarlet tanager, American redstart (the really loud see see sweew) Eastern towhee, Tennessee warbler, a school bus turning around, orchard oriole, common yellowthroat, American robin, a possible blackpoll, and northern cardinal. Of those, only the Tennessee warbler and blackpoll are  migrants, headed farther north; the rest are going to hang around and breed right here. I'm pretty used to picking apart a cacophony of birdsong into its various contributors, but this presents a bit of a challenge. It's a birdsong menudo. Everyone's singing at once!

          

I watched the young male redstart and a pair of white-eyed vireos fluttering in the sunlit edge, looked for but couldn't find the tanager and orchard oriole, and gazed at my beautiful new doggeh, feeling very lucky. 

It's all so beautiful. I could never tire of seeing the light stroke across this landscape, especially with a cur in the foreground. Going out with Curtis every morning puts a big piece back into my scattered jigsaw puzzle of a life.

 

The field daisies are just beginning to bloom, dotting the haymeadows with clean stars of white. They always start blooming well before I'm ready for them, and every year they're a delightful surprise. Oh! The daisies are out! Even before it really warms up for good. It's a disgusting 46 out at 5:47 AM which is what you get when the skies clear and all that heat radiates out into space. But then what will follow is a sunrise and a sparkling sunny day, so hauling all that stuff back into the greenhouse is ultimately worth it.  I've let daisies come into my flower beds, because they make me happy. I can see how they got out of gardens and into everyone's fields.  

One of the things I do in spring and summer is check my bluebird boxes. Technically, I try to hit each box at least once a week, but when there are babies, I check a bit more. Things can always go wrong with babies, and it's good to be looking in.

 

Checking my boxes gets me out into red-headed woodpecker habitat like this. Hearing their querulous squirks! lifts my heart. Seeing their banner colors stops it. 

Really, how can a bird be so gaudy, so perfectly clean-cut, so noisy and social; so delightful? Red-head was a pretty obvious choice by Bill for his favorite bird. Someone less enthusiastic and outgoing might have chosen something more subtle. (Says the person who chose blue jay).

You may detect hazy August light in these shots. I certainly do. Though I usually post up-to-the-moment iPhone photos, for the birds I occasionally have to go back and raid the long-lens archives. Not apologizing. Just 'splainin'. 

Ahh, that's better. Look at this glowery May day!! And I get to be out checking bluebird boxes in it! Lord. What a place I get to live in. These skies, I'd put them up against Tuscany's any day.

 

Here's a box, perfectly sited by my sweet late friend Jeff Warren. He built the box, I built the pole and baffle. We were a team. 

Inside that box, three bluebirds, two males and a female, 14 days old. They're atypical 14-day-olds, small and not as fully feathered as they should be, but thanks to all the rain, the hay is tall and foraging is tough for bluebirds when the hay gets so tall. They'll be OK, even through these nights in the 40's, because it's going to warm up and quit raining so much now. Right? This is why I check more often when there are babies. Someone might need help.

 

Though it's really pushing Blogger to ask it to publish two videos in one post, here's the father of these babes, dive-bombing me. Turn the sound up to hear the angry castanet snapping of his bill as he comes close. This bird was paired for years with a female who was just as aggressive as he. She disappeared, and their box went empty for the first time this spring. He's turned up at this box, several hundred yards away, now paired with a female who vanishes under duress.

        

Of course, I am perfectly aware that the dive-bombing male here could be the son of the pair in question, but finding the box the Aggressors had occupied for at least five years suddenly empty led me to the possibility that the female died and the aggressive male moved. My observation from 37 years of running bluebird boxes is that, in eastern bluebirds, female choice drives nest location. I've seen male bluebirds try to override their mate's choice of a nest site, and it is not pretty. Those girls know what they want, and a male can resort to beating her up and even tearing out her nest, trying to get her to change her mind. So, having perhaps lost his mate, Mr. Aggressor had to change locations, letting his timid new mate dictate where the nest would be. It's kind of nice to be swooped on by only one bird. Maybe just a touch of PTSD from my years of working with least terns, who swooped, sometimes struck, and pooped on me, too.

Back in the Aggressors' original box, someone finally moved in! What a wonderful surprise! And not a bill snap to be heard.

 

I am usually wearing going-to-town clothes when I check the boxes on this road. The tall hay is almost always wet, and so am I.  But oh, the sights you'll see!

 

I watched this pair in a haymeadow on my road fool around with a half-built nest for weeks. They only got serious when a pair of tree swallows showed interest in the box. I suspect the female is getting quite old and just had to gather herself to build and lay this year. She's usually a late nester, but initiating a first clutch on May 12 is really pushing it. Still, she laid five beautiful eggs (the norm around here is four). I honestly think these small Gilbertson PVC nest boxes, and the small slot boxes as well, discourage bluebirds from laying their full normal clutch of 5. Which may not be a bad thing; in times of privation, it's tough to raise all five. It's always a pleasant surprise to see a fiver in my little boxes. 

But the best surprise of this day was yet to come. This PVC box in my driveway started out with bluebirds who laid two eggs, then mysteriously abandoned. I think they started over in another box just down the driveway. Why, I have no idea. 

Another(?) bluebird came in and covered the eggs with a new grass lining. Well, OK. If they're going to go to waste...I dug down, fished the cold eggs out, and farmed them out into two other nests, where they both proved to be infertile. Maybe that first bluebird knew something about her own eggs.

The renovating bluebird never laid eggs in the nest, and it sat empty for several weeks. I left it, because something interesting could yet happen, and it was a perfectly good, fresh nest. One day I found it all tamped down and neatened up. Oh! Someone's been renovating! 

And a few days later, a very pissed off Carolina chickadee shot out and scolded at me when I checked it. Oh!! I left her alone for a week. You don't want to disturb a nest-building bird. And when I finally checked again, I found the MOST marvelous thing.

A patchwork chickadee quilt, made of three kinds of fur (rabbit, squirrel, and something with dark brown wooly underfur); some soft grass, and two wads of green Hollofil!!!  I suspect the Hollowfil is still from toys Chet Baker used to shred on our lawn. Hollofil doesn't biodegrade, but it is wonderful insulation. Chickadees know this. They love it, and Polarfleece too. I found a chickadee nest once with purple Polarfleece from Chet's (and now Curtis') favorite blankie. She must have gathered it while it was hanging out on the line!

While she's laying, a Carolina chickadee makes a little quilt that she lays over her eggs to hide them when she's away. Because I have checked many a chickadee nest, I knew to lift the patchwork quilt. It came up in one neat piece, like a blanket. And there beneath, treasure.

I covered the tiny orbs back up and went on my May way.

Woodpecker Helper

Though he worked on it all day, I never saw Garrett go inside the roost box I'd provided, and I got worried that he couldn't fit in the hole. A quick Internet search indicated that a red-headed woodpecker box should have a hole from 2" to 2 1/2" across. I ran outside with a ruler. This one measured 1 3/4." Eek! I had thought it looked big enough to admit him, but it was apparently not.

Garrett was still pecking at the entry hole as darkness came on. He had worked on the right and left lower edges of the hole, to little avail. You can see the pale worked edges in this photo. He barely stopped to eat, he was working so hard all day.

Not that I was worried or anything.

 I hated to do it, but I didn't have much time. I asked Garrett to leave for a little while, took the box down and carried it inside to the workbench where I attacked the hole with a chisel and a big rattail file my dad called Rasputin. Oh, I love using my dad's old tools.

Especially to help my favorite birdie du jour.

As I worked on the box, I remembered my mom's poor big toenail, that ever since she spent a day shopping in pointy-toed dress shoes in downtown Minneapolis in 19 fifty-who-knows-when, has grown up instead of out. When it would get to bothering her Dad would clomp downstairs and come up brandishing Rasputin, with an evil grin on his face, take Mom's foot between his knees blacksmith style, and rasp away at the overgrown toenail. There were always blacksmith and horse jokes and wincing and giggling from us kids. Poor Mom. But oh, I loved remembering that scene.

The wood was cedar and surprisingly hard. I realized that it would take Garrett days to do what I'd done in a few minutes. I wound up using a chisel and mallet to chip away chunks around the entry hole, then smoothing the jagged edges away with Rasputin. Only the best for Garrett!

Hoping Garrett would be able to enlarge it himself, I'd waited until the last minute to intervene, and darkness was gathering as I hung it back up. Woodpeckers like to go to roost when there's still plenty of light. Poor Garrett would probably have to spend the night somewhere else.

Yes, I worried about him in the night. It was raining, of course.

Come morning, he was nowhere to be found. Bill went so far as to speculate he might have quit the place altogether since his snag had fallen down. And I'd swiped his roost box just as darkness was falling. Ack ack ack. But I still felt him around. I knew he was out there somewhere.

I went out to check the box--no sign of him. I put a few handfuls of hamster litter in the box to give Garrett something to excavate. That's important, if you're going to put up a box for woodpeckers, to make them feel they're cleaning out a cavity.

Finally I spotted him sitting in the willow, which seems to be his retreat when things aren't going so well for him. I know how he feels. Everybody needs a tree friend.

And the next time I looked at the roost box, he appeared. He cast a look at me, sitting in the studio window, and I had to think it was an approving glance. The hole was now about 2 1/8, and should be large enough to admit him. It looked a lot better to me, at least.

The next thing that happened had the whole family crowing. Garrett stuck his head in the newly enlarged hole

went a little further

almost disappeared

and backed back out 

with a billfull of hamster litter!

Whooping, dancing, crowing with Bill and the kids--he was in! And he was cleaning out his new home!

It wasn't long before he was all the way inside and popping out just to spit litter.

With a quick shake of his head, he'd ptoo it out.

Repeat until litter is gone

and ground beneath the box is littered with gray paper snow.

Yes, it's a comfy fit. No problem now for a broad-shouldered bird. Big, big grin. Thanks, Dad. Thanks, Rasputin.

That bird was on the box the rest of the day. It started raining hard again in the afternoon. I could barely see him through the rain-spattered window. But this time Garrett knew what to do.

I've been storing up blogposts for awhile now, trying to get enough to see me through a big trip in February (!), the release of The Bluebird Effect in early March, the release of The Rain Crows' first CD  and a CD release party in early March, and two big family events, also in March. I feel the hounds of Hell at my heels. I'm working from dawn until bedtime trying to make it all happen and keep the blog going, too.

And I cannot tear myself away from this woodpecker's story. Every time I think I can wrap up the Garrett posts and move on to The Wilds in winter and North Dakota in summer, something else happens in his life. Which makes something else happen in my life.

And I realize that I'm entirely too wrapped up in this little bird, and probably he's too wrapped up in me. 

which, as you know by now, is exactly how I like it.

Because when you can look out any window and see something like this, all you can do is share it.

Postscript:

On the morning of January 30, 2012, I went for my run. It was a pearly partly cloudy morning with promise of a little rare sun. I came up the driveway toward home around 8:45 AM and Garrett flew out to meet me. I couldn't believe he was coming on a straight line toward me. He perched in the old pear tree right over my head, holding a peanut in his bill. I spoke to him and told him what a fine, fine bird he was, and how glad I was to see him. I thanked him for coming out to say hello.  I told him I'd enjoyed having him here since the 15th of January and I hoped he liked all the things we'd done to make him feel welcome. He bobbed a couple of times and flew to the southeast, landing briefly in a willow. I headed up the sidewalk to start my morning, musing about how odd it was that he'd fly up to me, perch right over my head, stop to chat...

That was the last time I saw Garrett.  All day long, I told myself I just wasn't looking in the right places at the right time. By 3 pm I knew that Garrett had flown straight to me to say good bye. And, maybe, thank you.  

The floodgates opened then.

I'm sitting at my desk, watching a pair of red-bellied woodpeckers sharing suet. A pair of white-breasted nuthatches, two downies, a crow. All wonderful, none of them Garrett. Better, though, to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.

Homeless!

The wee hours of January 27 saw a ferocious windstorm with pelting rain. The creeks were running so high at dawn I thought Bill wouldn't get through Whipple to work. Duck Creek ran like angry chocolate milk, carrying our good bottomland soil out to the Ohio. I checked Garret's snag at 7 AM as it was beginning to lighten outside. A-OK. Bill checked it at 8. A-OK. I walked out at 9 AM, intending to investigate as to whether I could pound a post in beside it to which I could lash the rotting snag for support, and found this:

The snag had, not surprisingly, broken off right at Garret's cavity entrance. 

I'd seen Garrett take so much punky wood out of that cavity, I knew the walls had to be perilously thin. Add days of soaking rain and wind that made the whole snag sway side to side, and it was only a matter of time before it broke in two. Little Garrett was a bit too enthusiastic about his home remodeling project. He must've gotten a good fat home equity loan.

What used to be his ceiling--the cavity entrance at upper left.

And here's where he was sleeping. I figured it had to be pretty damp in there. Not to mention moldy (that's the white stuff).

Nobody had seen Garrett since first light. He wasn't in the cavity, nor was he on any of his usual perches. I combed Liam's huge weeping willow. Bingo.

He looked very disheveled. This is the first time I'd seen him preen. 

I knew he hadn't been hurt in the cavity collapse, or he couldn't have made it up into the tree. 

When he was done preening, he went to the living birch next to his old snag and started to try to excavate a cavity. He pecked for about 15 minutes in the hard, living wood and then gave up.

The next time I saw him, he was on the roost box I'd put up for him on the second day he spent with us!

You can imagine my excitement!

Phoebe had spotted him on it a few days before, and there was evidence that he'd already been working on the entry hole, which is a bit tight for him. But on this dark, cold, drizzly day, January 27, he really set to. He never stopped to eat that I saw--just pecked and pecked at the hole. You can see how he's got it bumped out on the right edge.

It's not beautiful by any means, and I have it turned upside down. It's actually a bluebird nest box that's supposed to discourage sparrows, and the hole's supposed to be pointing toward the ground. One of the many failed designs--it turns out to be exactly what house sparrows love--an entrance on the underside; a large nesting chamber, and darkness.  Baby bluebirds also tend to fall out of the hole when it's properly mounted. Like many innovative bird boxes, it's just a big Duh all around, but it looks mighty good to Garrett and me. 

He worked on it most of the afternoon, taking breaks to kick redbelly butt.

The other woodpeckers in the yard had a good day because Garrett was so preoccupied.

This boy actually got away with taking some Zick Dough, something Garrett actively discourages.

Almost the best part, besides having anticipated Garrett's need for a nice roost box? 

You can watch him working on it from the downstairs bathroom!

Could he get it done by nightfall?