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

 

Two Days in May

 Dang, this is a strange and wild spring. It was January until about April 25; people were saying it wasn't April 25; it was the 115th of January. And that's exactly how it felt, like the winter that would never end. Then it ended and BOOM, on the first of May I walked into the greenhouse and all the plants that had been basking in its gentle warmth were suddenly and inexorably being broiled alive. Winter to summer in one day. I've been cooking this idea for a blogpost about May 1 and 2, all the crazy crazy stuff that happened when spring finally burst open like a pinata.

And then it all happened. It warmed up, and everything woke up, including me. The lull I'd fallen into, of just leaving my plants in the greenhouse until whenever, left in a hurry.

April 25, 2018. Creole Lady finally awakens, like Sleeping Beauty, from her winter-long sleep, and resumes dazzling me as if she'd never languished. Still in the greenhouse. Last week of April and it was still dipping into the lower 30's every night!

Now it was May 1. And the greenhouse looked like this. It was 93 in there with the vent and doors flung open wide. No question about it: My to-do list for May first had just been turned on its head. 

 

 I was going to have to empty it out today, and plant everything out into larger pots and planters, or into the ground. It was that or let them roast alive.

On April 11, I'd found this little female tan jumping spider (Platycryptus undatus) in a shoe in my closet. Well, what was she doing there?? I had brought her down to the greenhouse and released her on the geranium. And here she was again! I gave her another drink, which she received gratefully. She'd grown! And now she would go outside with the geranium.

 

I was sure when I set it out by the Bird Spa on May 1 that Happy Thought Red would never look this grand again. Once the wind and rain got done with it, it'd be a sorry sight. Little did I know how right I was...You don't set a 7' wide geranium outside and expect to keep it that way. But it was Live Free or Die time. The greenhouse was no longer a living option, and wouldn't be until next October. It stands empty from May 1 until late October, because it's just too hot in there for any living thing except paper wasps. The derecho of May 15 pruned it all right, but it still looks pretty impressive. It needed a pruning, anyway.

Before I realized that this (May 1) was D Day for the greenhouse, I'd started a couple of loads of laundry to hang out. And while hanging out the first load, I looked out across the meadow with a sigh and noticed that it was full of yellow rocket. Growl! That's an exotic mustard that cheerfully turns meadows into monocultures of yellow rocket. 
This is the before photo. Yeah, it's pretty. Pretty obnoxious! Each one of those plants has to be hand-pulled before it sets seed. Jeez!!


  This is the after photo. Meadow clear, and laundry basket plus trash can packed tight and full, not with dry clothes but with yellow rocket. I grabbed the nearest handiest thing, as is my wont. Just another thing on a naturalist's to-do list.

While I was weeding the meadow, I heard a meadowlark sing, and spotted him in the top of a tree in the sideyard. He couldn't be serious! Our 12-acre meadow wasn't near big enough for him to successfully nest. But it sure was nice to have him stop through and advertise. He appeared for three mornings, then was gone. His clear slurred whistle stays with me. It's the quintessential sound of springtime. 

 
While watching him, it occurred to me that I needed to check the bluebird box out in the orchard. 
A bluebird had laid a beautiful clutch of five eggs, then left them lying stone cold for at least a week. In a normal spring,  bluebirds commence incubating with the third egg, almost invariably. The last one or two laid have to hurry up and catch up with the first three so they all hatch together. Now here her eggs lay, cold as stones, when they should have been halfway through the 14-day incubation period. I had a hunch she was coming back, and a hunch that today was the day. 

But on my way out to her box, I found this. There ensued a hunt netting eight large morels, which I ended up taking to the New River Birding and Nature Festival to cook up and feed to a few lucky friends. I usually have morels to share there. If you're getting dizzy, hey, me too. Going, going, gone, all spring long.



Morels gathered, I forged on, knowing this was the day I'd find out if the bluebird eggs were being cared for. And it was!! The  eggs were warm as toast when I went out to check. Oh, that was the sweetest thing. They'd been so cold 'til now.

Just goes to show you: never second-guess a bird. They know what they're doing.


 
 Yes, we do.

 

While I was out there, I remembered it was the right time of year to check for Incisalia henrici, better known as Henry's elfin. Its brood plant is redbud, and there's plenty of that in the orchard.

  

I found my little man!!  I love this bug. I love going out to look for it, when I get a feeling it's out there, before the redbud even blooms. I've only ever seen it at the end of the orchard. And I've been seeing it there in early spring for 24 years. There's great comfort in that.

 

Back at the house, it was starting to look a lot like springtime! Hummer feeders are out; colorful planters deployed; greenhouse plants finding new places to thrive in the cooler spring air.  Camera and binocs always at the ready on the front stoop. That's how I bring you all this great stuff, with these Essential Tools. I've been told to expect my Canon 7D to die any old day now, as it's passing the usual number of actuations (190,000) that constitute a normal camera's life. So far so good. I baby that thing. 

The hibiscus were enjoying their shady new digs after the scorching they'd gotten in the greenhouse. 

Amazing to see jonquils still going strong on May 1, when the lilacs were in full bloom.

The first catbird celebrated arriving at Indigo Hill by taking a bath in the newly activated Spa! Oh what a wonderful thing to witness!

I found a silken tunnel in the lawn that I suspect might belong to a very large spider, perhaps Hogna georgicola. I've raked them up while raking the lawn, and I've dug one of them up in the garden before, so I know they go underground.

 

 It would be on the size order of this one. Big.

I think this is a Dolomedes fishing-spider.  Ain't skeert.

Meanwhile, it occurred to me that it was probably getting pretty darn hot in the tower room, where I'd been growing lettuce all winter, keeping us and the neighbors in delicious salads. 

 

Yep. Hot up there, too. So before Liam left for school I enlisted his help in carrying the heavy planters down two flights of stairs, one of them small and treacherous. I could hear the lettuce sigh in relief when it got in the open outside air, which moves and swirls. Down it would go to the bunny-proof glass table on the side patio.  

Man, I hated to cut this uber-sexy flower stalk off my North Dakota rhubarb, but it has to be done before the plant expends too much energy into making seeds. Rats!! I manured it and the peonies next to it as an apology. I mean, I put cow manure on them. Pfft. That sounded weird.

Here's a flower stalk I won't cut off until the last flower falls: my Encyclia cordigera, which is still stinkin' up the bedroom with paradisiacal scents of clove and heady musky perfume. Never has it had better blossoms. I credit manure tea!

Of course, the lawn needed to be mowed and raked, too. It needs that again today. There is so much more to do in spring and summer, but I take great joy in doing it all. It's my cross-training workout when I have no time to run.

Phoebe sent me a blissed-out photo from Maine. Yep, that's pretty much how I felt at the end of May 2, with all this done, and all this to enjoy.

Gifts of April

The old pear tree that dates from the original farm on our site has horrible rock-hard fruit, but it more than makes up for that shortcoming in April blossoms. The deer and butterflies like the fruits, especially when I mow over them. Brrrrp!

Any time I see a forecast of 80 degrees on April 3, I plan to take a walk. Chet and I set out on the Loop to see what we could see. The first tiger swallowtails drifted overhead--a good omen, though I worry for them, because it's all of 39 degrees and dropping as I write this. April is nothing if not cruel. It's the cruelest month of all. But yesterday, Chet and I were in the moment, basking in her warmth.

Falcate orangetip butterflies fluttered ahead of us, just a foot off the ground as is their wont. I've long since given up trying to get a photograph of a FOTI. They never alight, and I've learned to enjoy the spectral orange on their wingtips as they go by, eating them up with my eyes. Which I kept peeled for the first Henry's elfin, Incisalia henrici. Those are hard to come by, but easy to photograph. A surefire April specialty of Indigo Hill. I adore these little dark bugs. They fetch up on black raspberry twigs to watch for rivals. Their brood plant is redbud, and there's plenty of that around. Gorgeous little things. I'm happy with the way the telephoto blurs out the background for a nice, unicolor backdrop. This could be the cover for Enjoying Elfins More, huh, BOTB?
On this day, I carried my 300 mm. lens, and I was thrilled with its performance. I could shoot butterflies without disturbing them in the least. No creeping up on them with this lens! It's tricky to get it to focus, but when it works, it works really well.

At the overlook, spring was creeping up the valley. How green is my valley! I was eager to see what was blooming farther down on the rich slopes in the Chute. I was not disappointed. Spring beauties and dentaria were going full bore.
Some bee-mimicking flies (dressed for cold weather, I noted) and an honest hymenopteran were vying for space on the dentaria blossoms.
I didn't even see the little flying wasp until I viewed this on the computer screen. I love how the camera captures what's there, whether we see it or not.

Coming back up toward home, a violet smiled shyly from the forest floor. I haven't keyed this one out yet, but it had a round, slightly downy leaf and the most bewitching blue color. I don't think it's Viola sororia. Maybe downy blue violet? If Jim McCormac ever commented on other people's blogs, he could tell me. That was a taunt, in case you missed it.

A chipping sparrow sang to the clear blue sky. This male was giving a slow, melodious trill. The male only a couple dozen yards down the driveway was giving a dry, buzzy, colorless trill. I thought it was interesting that they were countersinging with such different styles.
Chetty was thrilled to be back out in the woods, even if he got a tad hot when he scared up a pack of turkeys and two deer. They had to be pursued.He's back, victorious, sending me pictures of fleeing turkeys.See the splashes of mud on his back? That's the spatter of a high-speed doggie. We're drunk on April.