Sources of Joy

I came back from a morning run...yes, I'm at it again, tired of quarantine flubber. I have lost 6 lb and Curtis, 4.5. I decided to do a loop through the woods on our east 40. What did I find but a box turtle out and about?! Glad I had the notion!

Because I was looking through the phone and concentrating on the light, I totally missed the odd profile of his shell.

It's low and flat, indented. Concave.

I was so captivated by the runes on his side that I missed the scars on the top.

But look at this turtle. He's been mowed, many years ago. The pigmentation is missing; the scutes along the right top are irregular, and there's an indentation down the right side of the spine and a great dip on the left. Oh my God! what this animal has suffered and survived. With no help whatsoever, he crawled into the woods and set about healing from an injury that should have killed him.

His plastron is still cracked. But he's healed. 

Oh you fine old soldier, you walking survivor, may you avoid the blade and the wheels of man. 

I had plenty to think about in that scarred but surviving box turtle. Oh how cruel is man with his implements, his weapons for conquering nature. 

I got a little breakfast and jumped on my best weapon for fighting multiflora rose and honeysuckle: my John Deere. The irony did not escape me as I rolled out the orchard, planning to mow down the resprouting rose that I'd cut early this spring. See, I think I'm on the good side! Since about February I've cut so many rose canes--probably many thousands--that I've given myself a trigger finger on my right hand which makes it hard to write. Ah, what does a writer need with a functional right hand? I will say that it's changed morning journaling for me. Massages and stretches have helped, and I'm hoping it goes away, as one hopes about all things that might need surgery one day. 

I did get a nice set of hard muskles out of it, though. Just wish my right hand hadn't suffered so. You can be sure I'm trying to figure out how to use a boltcutter style pruner without clenching my right hand, but so far it isn't going too well. Also, how do you weed a garden or turn soil without clenching your right hand? There is still so much multiflora that needs to be cut and killed, so many weeds to be felled. Finding out you aren't bionic is a bummer, especially when you feel that way.

I was rolling out the orchard, looking with satisfaction and trepidation on the prairie we planted, seeing so damn much Japanese stiltgrass coming up amidst the expensive seed I bought...

and there was a feather, nay, a barred owl feather! lying on the prairie. I call these apports, gifts from the world beyond. Who lays them out for me to find? The owl, to be sure. But who sent the owl? It's fun to wonder.

You can see the noise-canceling fringe along the left edge. The whole thing is downy, overlain by fine noise-absorbing filaments.

 That's the prairie patch coming up behind it. Pray with me that flowers and native grasses rise over the Japanese stiltgrass, which has been on our land for only about five years. It was brought in on the tires of the four-wheeler that's used to visit our long-broken welljack. The oil company that owns the lease does virtually nothing to maintain its equipment; I think we're going into our fourth year with a jammed shaft on the welljack. And for this kind of service, we get stiltgrass, too. If the stiltgrass smothers my beautiful prairie plants, I will weep and rage. I don't understand why invasive exotics have to win every time, but it seems they do. I might be whistling into the wind with my dream of a native shortgrass prairie out here, but I've worked too hard to make it happen to give up now. It's a pitched battle between the stiltgrass and the bluestem, deertongue, black-eyed Susan, New England aster, and partridge pea. Who will win?

The Zabulon skippers are hatching out wherever I walk.

Each one I see in the orchard seems like a little victory to me. Skippers are so very rare any more. Butterflies in general are where one can most easily see the insect apocalypse at work. Diversity and numers, corkscrewing down. 

This is a male. That chocolate band on the inner hindwing, and the fairly smooth checkered outside border, are his marks. 

The female Zabulon skipper is chocolate brown, and she has a neat white line along the top of the hindwing.

Speaking of butterflies, I found a chrysalis in the meadow on May 28. It was clinging to the underside of a little pine stick I was about to toss off the path.

It was the most beautiful thing. I thought it might be a skipper of some kind. A duskywing? A Zabulon? Even a small wood satyr?

I had to bring it into the house so we could find out what it is to be.

I gave it to my Willowtree figurine, "Joy," to hold for awhile. 

The chrysalis keeps changing. These later close up photos were taken May 31. 

It has darkened a lot, and you can see the tiny segmented antennae running along the top of the chrysalis; the white hindwing border, and the eyes, which weren't as evident before.

Of course, I can't wait to see what it's going to be. I have a feeling it's going to eclose very soon, as dark as it's gotten. All these mysteries go  on around us. We can walk on by, or we can notice them and get involved. I now have the chrysalis' anchor stick in a lump of plasticine, on the softly padded floor of a small critter keeper, so we can see it should it eclose when we're not watching. But oh, we are watching. 

 

The end of May is a grand finale of joy fireworks for the naturalist. After the cruel clamp of rain and cold, everything is springing forth. Birds are starting over, many having lost their first nesting attempts. Here's a little overcompensation from a pair of bluebirds in a country churchyard that I watch over. Six eggs is a highly unusual second clutch, but this is a highly unusual year.

It's a bit more usual for tree swallows to haul off and lay a sixpack.This is their second attempt as well. The first clutch was thrown out by bluebirds, who lost their fledglings to cold then turned around and kicked the swallows out. The swallows reluctantly moved to the bluebirds' old box, and peace has settled over the meadow once again.

I find myself stopping at the Three Graces every time I go by. They are in their late spring glory at last. The black tupelo, far right, held off the longest, but even she is in full raiment.

And Iris Cora from the Adirondacks is holding forth with the scent of grape Kool-Aid, some Granny's  bonnet columbines sneaking up through their spires. Before the storm blew through...

and after, all bespangled.

This is just a little piece of late May. There is alwasy so much more than I can take in or tell about, but I feel I must try.

Don't forget to sign up for my live Zoom interview with Living on Earth. It's happening Monday, June 1, 2020, at 6:30 pm. Here's the link. 

https://tinyurl.com/zickonLOE

Baby Bluebirds, Chickadee Eggs, Trashy Tree Swallows

Still checking bluebird boxes on May 6. It was a big day, enough to make three posts out of it! And I love bringing you along. This stuff is just so cool, I have to share.

The Three Graces leaf out. I have been photographing them every time I pass. It's awesome to see the changes. 

Hendershot has four nice four-day-old bluebirds. I fool them into gaping by giving a little whistle. Easier to count them when they pop their heads up, as you shall see...

Driveway Mid has four two-day-old bluebirds. The hen seems to have removed a fifth, infertile egg. 

I have her down as having laid five, but poking down into the pile o' meat reveals nothing. Yes, they're hard to count. You kind of have to figure out what you're seeing each time you look into a box. You can't count heads, because you can't always see them. In this case, the chick at 6 o'clock in the lineup has its head under the chick at 9 o'clock, and the 12 o'clock chick has its wing over on the 1 o'clock chick and its head way over to 4 o'clock, and the 1 o'clock chick has its head tucked down. This makes me chuckle. But trust me, there are four chicks here in this sweet Celtic knot.

Here are some six-day-old bluebirds from my Old Studio box in our yard. They're smaller than the Warren #4 babies, though they're the same age. It's all about food. They're fine--the Warren babes are just abnormally fat and well-fed, being only three in number. You should see babies in a box where only one or two of the clutch hatches. Monsters!

There are some fun surprises in today's box check. Meadow Slot on our farm has E-Nor-Mous ten-day old bluebirds, five of them! Man, she got started early! Counting back, these hatched April 26, so she started incubating her clutch on April 12, meaning she started laying April 9. Whoo-ee. And I'm not feeding bluebirds this spring, either, so that tells me that Bill's mowing the meadow three times last season has improved the feeding grounds for our bluebirds. Or maybe she's just hot to trot. She'll have these fledged and be thinking about starting another nest while most are still feeding young in the box. The minimum turn around time for bluebirds from fledging a batch to starting the next clutch of eggs is about two weeks.

That's not very long. This amazing ebb and flow, and all the change and surprise in my bird boxes is is why I get so frustrated when I'm traveling and don't get around to check them at least once a week. All this wonderful stuff happens and I'm missing it. After running boxes since 1982, I still hate to miss a single little thing.

Surprises abound today. I had something start a moss and bark fiber nest in the meadow PVC box, and I thought it juuust might be a white-breasted nuthatch, since we keep seeing nuthatches perched out in the open on the snags we put up in the meadow. I was literally holding my breath. And then one day I came and found the nest all torn up, and tree swallows holding the territory. I was really disappointed, because nuthatch is my Holy Grail of baby birds I want to paint. I haven't had a nuthatch in a bluebird box since about 1984, in Connecticut, and it was on an old box that my landlord had nailed to a tree (bad, bad thing). And the babies were taken by a coon just before they fledged. Part of me has never gotten over that. And this is why you never, ever nail a nest box to a tree. 

So I was waiting with bated breath to see what would happen to this torn-up mossy nest--to see who built it. And it looked like the swallows had queered everything. 

Not so. 

For today, May 6, a Carolina chickadee bursts out of the box as I come up to it, and I find six precious little Carolina chickadee eggs in there! I can only guess that she had them hidden under the moss and they escaped the tree swallow's depredation. And she has prevailed! The tree swallows have moved to a wooden box nearby. Hooray!

It's a great year for chickadees on our place. Here's another nest in the garden box--an uncharacteristically late laying. This moss nest appeared overnight, and I think she's still laying as of May 6. We now have four active CACH nests with eggs, and another in the Oilwell box built, with no eggs. Not sure what's going on there. This is what makes checking such fun! This is the latest CACH egg laying I've ever had. Something must have happened to their first attempt. I find that chickadees are one-brood wonders, and they seem not to attempt nesting if it gets too late. It's one brood or nothing for them, at least in southern Ohio.

I am absolutely knocked over by the perfume coming in the windows from my heirloom lilacs. This is Aunt Lolly the Younger, who is heir apparent to the throne, as Aunt Lolly the Elder is slowly croaking in her shaded north exposure. I have to lop off one enormous trunk after another.  Hooray for The Younger! But I'm not counting The Elder out, no way. These are tough, tough plants. They really should be called tree lilacs--the biggest darn lilac I've ever seen.

 Up close. Swoon!

Bill for scale. Look at the size of those clusters! I planted this one about six years ago. It's headed for the top of the deck. I deliberately planted it where I could stand on the raised deck and someday swoosh my face in the blossoms. It will get that tall. I think I've found The Perfect Spot for it, don't you?

 Speaking of tall, I had to move Hibiscus "The Path" to the front porch. She was bumping her head on the ceiling of the greenhouse, and it's too hot in there now for anything but peppers and tomatoes. They love heat. My fuchsias, hibiscus and jasmines, not so much. Out they go!

One last surprise in the Meadow Wood box. Here's what tree swallows do when they can't find any nice white feathers for their nests. When they can't find any feathers at all. They use beech leaves, tinfoil, and cellophane. Awww. Poor little things. On a whim, I tore some feather-like strips from my bluebird notebook and let them fly on the breeze. The tree swallow who built this nest watched intently, its flat little head pivoting, as they fluttered by him. I'm betting they end up in his nest. Don't worry. I'm going out to buy them some goose feathers this afternoon.

Thus ends the box check. But it's never over, not until August. So there will be more babies to come!

Making the Nestbox Rounds

One of the big excuses for going down Duck Creek Road is checking a couple of boxes I just put up at the Washington County Fish and Game headquarters. It's a private organization you can join for only $30/year. They have lots of woods that's open for hunting, but also walking and botanizing and stuff like that. I joined this year because I wanted to help their bluebirds and tree swallows. Plus, I've always loved their pond, and they have some very special streams in their woods. 

We check the subject of the Perfect Bluebird Intervention of April 12.  You'll recall that we took a rotten box off a tree,  and moved the nest that was in it to a new, protected box just before the female was to lay her eggs. 

Four beautiful two-day-old bluebird babies. Yesss!!

Glowing with pride, I walked over to the pond to see who was about.

On this beautiful May 6 morning, Chet and I found seven kildeer in the lawn (three of them week old babes!), then two spotted sandpipers, four solitary sandpipers, and four least sandpipers on the mudbar!

What a treat, at least for me, to see shorebirds in my land-locked county. Seriously. I never, ever get to see shorebirds unless I travel to a coast. Which seems to happen less and less.

Chet was less enthralled, and retired to the picnic table's shade to rest while I birded.

I have taken to tucking a bikkit in my pocket when we go on longer runs. Chet has figured out that I will give him the bikkit if he asks nicely.

That's a sweet smile, Bakie. Way to ask nicely. Bonus point for gutteral piggy grunt as you hoist yourself into the air. Here you go.

 Little monkey boy claims his prize. There's something to be said for a mature dog who retains the appeal of a puppeh.

Tree swallows have claimed the second box I put up, which I mounted to take the pressure off the bluebirds who I moved into the first box. Here, you can just see the female perched on the low wire to the right, and the male flying by on the left. This was taken May 6, 2015.

They've been adding to their modest nest, and sleeping and pooping in their box. Hoping they'll finish up their nest and start feathering it. I wonder if they're a young pair...very slow starters. But all my tree swallows are slow to start this year. Perhaps the flying insects are not yet at sufficient abundance to trigger nest-building.

Baker and I keep on heading down the May road, counting birds. We'd count 76 species this day!

Blue phlox lights up the woods. Mayapples are about to bloom beneath their green umbrellas. So much to protect from garlic mustard...

We finish our beautiful morning on Duck Creek and head through Whipple to Bonn to check more nest boxes. This morning, we'll check them all...

but not before saving my first of year box turtle (FOY BOTU, for those who love acronyms).

My heart sighs to see he met a car tire sometime last fall. The break is not fresh; it's partially healed. The turtle seems to be breathing with a little difficulty, and I watch him for awhile, but at length I decide that if he's made it through hibernation in such good weight and he knows where he's going, I'll just help him across and wish him well. Not much I can do for him at this point, and hauling him into care would only mess with his chances to mate this spring.

 It's a damned hard world for box turtles. We've laced their ancestral territories with busy roads, and expect them to "learn" not to cross. To look both ways and watch out for cars. Well, they haven't, and they won't, because they are wise and wonderful and knowing creatures, but they simply can't compete with traffic. And if we don't stop and help them across, they don't make it. Box turtles belong to slower, kinder times.

I check Biehl #4, to find the most artful tree swallow nest I've ever seen. They much prefer to insulate their nests with soft white waterfowl body feathers, but will take whatever they find. In this case, common grackle, mourning dove, and one goose feather. Whee! What a crazy nest! No eggs yet, but coming soon. These tree swallows have more than a touch of noir in their interior decorating tastes.

And in Biehl #1, where on April 23 there were three white eastern bluebird eggs, something had thrown them out when I checked again a week later. Today, May 6, I see evidence that tells me who dun it: tree swallows, who have brought a mourning dove tail feather and a piece of white Hollofil, as well as some trademark green grass and straw. The bluebirds have moved to Biehl #3, where the female has laid two more white eggs.  I know all this because I keep careful notes, and the white eggs are sufficiently rare that I'm sure it's the same female from Biehl #1. Otherwise I'd never figure out what's going on here. Sure enough, tree swallows harrass me as I make more notes at this box. They'll work it all out. With luck we'll have one pair of bluebirds and two of tree swallows in one yard: pretty darn good! I'm happy to help them all.

There are more Easter baskets to come, as we check Stanleyville Road and Indigo Hill. Stay tuned!