Thomas: A Very Useful Baby

I've been reaching into my photobag, grabbing the sweetest moments as I find them. One of my trips during the New River Birding and Nature Festival in May 2022 was blessed by the presence of a young mother named Mary Luckini and her son Thomas, who was enjoying being toted around in a pack and frequently set free to mess about with pebbles and sticks on his own. I flashed back to Liam when I saw him head straight for a huge pile of gravel. Why, he could throw rocks there all day long! Just feed him and change him every now and then and he's good to go!

And it is here that I have to pause and marvel at the richness of blogging; it can be a window into others' hearts and lives. You see, I took some photos of Thomas that melted my heart, and Mary asked if I might send them to her. Oh yes, indeed I will!

Thomas is a little sobersides, with a steady and appraising gaze, who stole my heart immediately. 

He found some swallowtails puddling in a damp spot, as they do in West Virginia in May.

Slowly and very quietly he approached.  Low and slow, as we butterfliers say.  Well, he couldn't much help being so low! I always advise folks not to let their shadow fall across a butterfly--they'll take off. But the butterflies didn't mind when Tommy's shadow fell across them. Even his shadow was gentle.

There's something about baby hands that gets me--that little index finger, set to point.

The wonder and surprise--and restraint-- in those open palms.

The butterflies went about their business, untroubled by this sweet elfin person who came to sit down in peace with them. 

He never disturbed them. He just watched, occasionally pointing, then clasping his hands to his chest. 

He knew without being told that he mustn't startle or bother them. That right there is a Very Useful Baby. 

He's certainly had an amazing start, carried around like a joey in his mama's pouch, wherever she's gone. Hiking the Appalachian Trail at 34+ weeks, Mary was readying Thomas for the rhythmic cadence of her boots on the trail.

And when he arrived, she never left him behind. 

 This photo and the four following, all courtesy Mary Luckini.

After all, she was packing everything he needed.  She had breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. They were free as two birds. I'll never forget the joy of traveling with Phoebe and Liam as infants, when I had everything they needed. 

Mary tells me Tommy's favorite word right now is "OUTSIDE." Look at that impish smile! What a traveling buddy he is!

Mary and Thomas and his lovely grandmother Karen Luckini graced us with their presence at the New River Birding and Nature Festival in May 2022. That gal to the far left? Writer/avian rehabber/environmental activist Katie Fallon. Then there's Mary and Thomas in his casbah. Jessica Vaughan, BWD's Editor, is next (heart eyes emoji). That woodsman in the orange hat? That's Geoff Heeter, one of the founders and the stalwart of the NRBNF, 20 years strong. A lovely festivalgoer, then our friend Scott Jones, and bird trainer and educator Cheyenne Carter.  And the New River Gorge Bridge, currently the longest single-span steel arch bridge in the US, and the third highest bridge in the country, behind them all. A wonderful bunch!

This photo cracks me up. Click on it and you'll see the gaze Tommy fixed me with each time we met during the festival. 

I think my goofy grin set him off. He could tell I really wanted to get my hands on him.

About that richness that you get when you scratch the surface of others' lives: In corresponding with Mary, I learned that she and her husband had to work extremely hard to create Thomas. Seven years and the miracle of in-vitro fertilization finally gifted them with their beloved little boy. Imagine. 

Seeing a child so dearly wanted, so beloved, and being exposed to such beauty and richness at every turn moved me deeply. This is how a naturalist begins. 

Thomas, I hope I get to see you and your wise and wonderful mama and grandma as the years roll by. I'll look for a little boy with binoculars and an unblinking gaze. You are one lucky little sugarbean.

More Sweet WV Moments

 Hard to put into words how good it felt to be among friends (all of us freshly vaccinated and tested) for a week in West Virginia again!  Amy, Keith, and Kim. Oh my gosh was it great to see them after such a long hiatus! Our time was too short, and there was too much going on for the long yaks I craved, but we ascertained that we are all still alive and thrilled to be together.

And then there was Jim and Paul...parking lot hijinks. Such fun to be in the field with these fabulous naturalists!

Had a deliriously wonderful day at Babcock State Park, co-leading with Jody, here in joyful lead. 

 I love being out with other weedpickers, as Bill used to call those of us who walk looking down, squatting frequently to exclaim about tiny wildflowers. This is Bellis perennis, an introduced daisy from Europe that I love without reserve.

Jody helped us with violets. This is Sweet White Violet Viola blanda. The red stem is the tipoff.

Babcock was showing rather well on this May morning! Ah, West Virginia, when you shine, you really shine!

The historic gristmill would be enough, without the songs of Swainson's warblers ringing from the great rhododendron surrounding it!

Birding this wildly scenic place with other naturalists: heaven.

Sugar Creek is always one of my favorite trips featured by the New River Birding and Nature Festival. We're never sure what we'll find, but it's usually really good. 

On this beautiful day, way down at the bottom of the mountain, a surprise awaited. There was a Swainson's warbler, quest bird of the festival par excellence, just showing off. For casual bird lovers, the Swainson's warbler is a rare and local specialty of the New River Gorge of West Virginia. It needs impenetrable thickets of great rhododendron, and it's easy to hear, but famously hard to see, in that dark and tangled milieu. Lots of people come to the Gorge to see their life Swainson's warbler. Sometimes they come home only having heard it. It can be an undertaking to catch even a glimpse. Bill used to say his syncopated, emphatic whistled song says, "Screw you! Screw the world!"

That interpretation, of course, born of the frustration of staring into rhododendron tangles for hours, hoping for a glimpse of the author of that disembodied voice.

 Have you ever seen a Swainson's warbler on a powerline?

Us neither. A moment of cognitive dissonance, to see this famous skulker of the rhodies perch on a wire. 

Nobody was playing a recording. This bird just did not care.  Or maybe he associated groups of birders with recorded songs, and was just heading us off at the pass? 

Birds can surprise us...maybe he's been exposed to enough birders to know we carry singing Swainson's warblers in our big pockets. It always pays to think outside the envelope with birds, because they LIVE outside the envelope.

I never thought I'd shoot a SWWA in flight! Such a big, strong, hearty bird, so different from any other warbler we have; a skulker in great rhododendron thickets, a syncopated singer, rarely seen.

Except for today

 

with the tiny leaves of a hornbeam hanging like squirrel ears all around him. 

I don't expect to ever have such a session with a Swainson's warbler again. We take what we get, gratefully. 

It was a charged and magical day. I wrote in an earlier post about the homemaking cerulean warbler who knocked us out with her aqua blue crown and persistent plant fiber pulling as she gathered nesting material on a roadbank. Here she is wearing her cat's whiskers!

We were birding slowly along the same roadside when a red truck rolled slowly up. The driver stopped to tell us about a potential hazard along the road and his little red and white dog stuck her head and then most of her body out the window, wanting to join the conversation. One gentleman in our group was drawn like a magnet to her gentle overture, and, though I wanted to pile on and pet her too,  I thought it best that I capture this sweet moment between them. And I marveled at dogs, and humans, and the instant and dear bond they are able to forge with one another. What a sweet, sweet moment. 

Yes, I sent this photo to Jeff. :) Too sweet!

Hello! You are a nice man, I can smell that. You have dogs at home, yes you do. I would like to touch you, and have you touch me, because I am a dog.

Dogs: Is it any wonder we love them so? Open hearted, gracious creatures they are.

West Virginia's Peak Moments

   I put so much stuff up on Instagram. And then that goes to Facebook. I feel like I'm posting something every day, little bits and bites. I will confess that I forget about this blog for weeks at a time, because the square hole in my dwindling brain that says, "Share wonderful things" is constantly being filled. I pound the peg in and go on my way. 

But Lord knows there are people I love who just don't do social media, who are missing out on the daily birdsong Zicktorials and evening primroses popping open that are going on over at instagram.com/juliezickefoose

and when I think about them I get to feeling guilty, like I'm letting them down. Yes. This is a stealthy way of trying to get even my loved ones who don't run around with their nose in their phones to check out that Instagram feed (which you can do on your computer as well as your phone) because it's so rich, so frequently updated, such fun, and I just don't have the hours now to post to the blog like I used to. Still putting out content! Just not here so much, any more.

I wanted to share some images from my big rig that I made at the New River Birding and Nature Festival this May. Just moments that I thought you'd appreciate. West Virginia was not as stingy with her sunshine as she usually is, and we had four days of beautiful weather to chase and enjoy birds. 

The BSA camp called Summit, in Bechtel, WV, which we were lucky to explore, is an astounding place, with big grassy fields that don't get mowed too often. It's in very light to no use most of the year until the yearly Jamboree, when something like 26,000 Boy Scouts flood in to do Jamboree things. Here, horned larks are nesting in peace!! Oh how I love their tinkling songs and heavy black theatrical makeup. 

This male was using a signpost as a song perch. 

Singing along from atop a lightpost was an eastern meadowlark, always a thrilling sound. Any grassland bird in heavily forested WV is kind of a big deal. Summit also hosts grasshopper sparrows and their earthy buzz.

And it was at Summit that I finally saw my first eastern black bears! a mama and three cubbies.

A lousy shot of a cub shinnying up a tree. Oh, was I thrilled to see this!

And glad it wasn't in my backyard. Y'all can keep 'em in WV.

Blue-winged warblers in WV often have a yellow tinge to their white wingbars, which tells of genetic mixing with golden-winged warblers. This figures: there are still golden-winged warblers breeding in WV, which is more than I can say for Ohio. Golden-wings need clearcuts, believe it or not, with young saplings springing up. 

See those yellow-tipped wingbars? Somebody's been doing some interspecies marrying. 

A confiding yellow-throated vireo held us in thrall.

His song: Three-eight...Cheerio! is so distinctive, burry and cheery. 

Summit Camp also yielded a beautiful Virginia rail, who called repeatedly as he slipped between the cattails and sedges.

Oink oink oink oink oink oink oink!!

Again--seeing any rail in foresty WV is kind of a big deal. How lucky and grateful we were to benefit from birding the extensive habitat at BSA's Summit Camp. It made me itch to get out there and canvas those breeding birds!

These gobblers were trying very hard to add their names to the list of successful breeders at Summit. Don't miss the lyre-leaved sage painting the field a misty blue.

Don't let her get into the woods--you'll lose her!

Cranberry Glades way up on the mountaintop produced for us a surprise mourning warbler who seemed to think he'd been hired as a greeter for festival participants, so lustily did he sing and display near the entrance to its fabled boardwalk. Grateful. I have worked this festival for 20 years, and I've never seen a mourning warbler do that anywhere. Having waited for long periods and chased this famously skulky species through thick raspberry tangles, getting only glimpses of leg or tail, this bold little feller was particularly sweet to watch.

I'd have loved to see him down futzing about amidst the Viola cucullata (Swamp blue violet or Cuckoopint).

Northern waterthrushes sang everywhere! They like fens and bogs, as opposed to fast running streams preferred by their Louisiana cousins. 

We were way out the end of the boardwalk when a little squall blew in. Nothing else to do but bundle the camera under the coat. But then the sun came out again over the bog.

The visitor's center had rose-breasted grosbeaks at the feeders. 

Inside, a quilt map that charmed me almost to death.

If there's anything more quintessentially American and particularly West Virginian than a quilt map, I haven't seen it. 

Just a note: I'm writing a LOT for BWD Magazine, and eagerly anticipating the first issue (July/August 2022) that will be mailed (squeeeee) July 1! And magazines being magazines, we are closing up content on the September/October issue now. Gonna be frank: the need to be putting together the next issue before the current one even mails is a bit frightening, and I'm going to be adjusting to the increased pressure for some time. If you'd like to see what we're up to and subscribe, please go to bwdmagazine.com