A Spark Bird for Liam?

On New Year's Eve, Phoebe, Liam, and I were texting about remembering to notice our first bird of 2025 the next morning. Liam was already back in Columbus, but Phoebe and Oscar were still here with me in Whipple. Liam got very excited about going to an actual birding place on New Year's Day and trying to see a really cool bird. A birding co-worker had told him about Pickerington Ponds Metropark south of Columbus, which is the only place I've ever seen sandhill cranes in breeding season in Ohio. Oh, YES. Go there, Liam and Ayla! Go there!

(Sadly, they were not as well protected from cold on New Year's Day as they were the day before Thanksgiving, when we went to see cranes in Indiana! Didn't have me there with the giant duffel full of Michelin Man down parkas...)

I was at Pickerington Ponds in February, 2016, and it was fulla ducks and I'm almost sure the cranes were there as well. If you look hard you can see some ducks flying over this beautiful barn, a signature sight at the park.

So he and Ayla climbed in the car, innocent of binoculars or field guide, because they don't own either. I was of course writhing with frustration, but there was nothing I could do about it from two hours away. Believe me I was tempted to drive up with the right gear. My boy wants to bird? I am ON that like Bluebonnet!

I knew they'd have fun with the water and the open sky, and I figured they'd see something cool, binoculars or none.

It wasn't long before I got a call. "Ma? We're looking at some ducks with a white spot on the head. Do you know what they might be?"

Well, they could be several things, this time of year. Buffleheads. Goldeneyes, for two. Liam said he thought the white spot was behind the eye. OK, that narrows it down...

"Can you take even a horrible cellphone photo of them?"

I got these a few minutes later, just what I'd asked for.

Ayla had thought to bring a small astronomical telescope, hand-held, and she somehow held her phone up to its eyepiece and got...something. But in this one I could eke out enough to figure out what they were.

I studied the photos. "Am I seeing cocked tails here?"

"Yes!" Liam answered. "Their tails are cocked!"

I fired back with some shots of my Sibley guide, opened to the pages I knew had the answer.

When Liam realized the mystery birds were hooded mergansers, his excitement knew no bounds. "That's so COOL!!" he kept exclaiming. 

It IS so cool! I could have gone to Pickerington Ponds with Liam and Ayla, and shown them those mergansers through a proper telescope, and I'm sure they'd have been pleased. The whole difference was that he and Ayla found them themselves, had no idea what they were, were burning to know, and figured out how to get the information they needed to identify them. (call Ma).

I know damn well I was about three times as excited as they were. THIS!!

Phoebe was to drive up and have lunch with Liam on her way home with Oscar today, Jan. 5. So the second I hung up with Liam, I started making a birdwatcher's care package. First, of course, was a pair of 10 power Swarovski binoculars, one of my spares. (I find I carry the smaller, lighter 8 power).

I put a brand new bino bra on them, with a Zick-decorated leather shield.

Next was the field guide his dad and I had worked together on, with help from Phoebe's fourth-grade class focus group at Salem-Liberty Elementary. Why, that's Phoebe on the cover!

Bill wrote it, and I did many of the illustrations (My dear friend Mike DiGiorgio did lots of the western species). 

I also wrote the WOW facts.

I included a lens cleaning kit for the binoculars, with a lens cloth with my photo on it. Phoebe had found this red-morph screech-owl along the driveway when she was coming home from work around 9:30 one night when she was in high school. She came in the house, grabbed a flashlight, told me to get my big camera, and said she was going to show me something. 
She literally led me by the hand across the yard and just down the little hill in the driveway. She whispered that I'd have probably only one chance to take the shot. She flicked on the light, found the owl, shone it; I took the shot, and the owl flew away.

And the shot was perfect. We had no right whatsoever to get a good shot, but somehow we did. Angry bird! SUCH a great moment, captured forever, never to be repeated.

February 28, 2013, 9:28 PM.

Then I wrote a card to go along with it all. Now that's what you call home-cookin'.

I had to tell Liam how I'd been waiting for this moment for 25 years, and how excited I was that it was finally here. And that the perfect time to start birding is exactly when you start. 

I hope he'll remember that whenever he puts these old Swarovskis on. I hope he takes this moment forward in his life, and opens the door wider to the joy of birdwatching. Ayla, I'm counting on you to get him out in nature and noticing everything around him. You two can learn together. My mama's heart is full to bursting. 

If you're going to find a bird on your own, THIS is a mighty fine one to find. A spark bird for Liam? 

Time will tell. No pressure, darling boy. No pressure at allllll.....

                                    From the website of the Rosamund Gifford Zoo in Syracuse, NY.                                                                    

Isn't it lovely that the first bird Liam found on his own was this insanely cool little fish-catching                                                                   duck? May there be many more.

Sharing a Snowy Owl

I left Lehman's Hardware, many pounds of popcorn richer, and went back to check on the distant owl in the cornfield. Yep, still hunkered down there, well out of camera range. Oh well. A huge flock of horned larks lisped over. I looked up, and an exquisite rough-legged hawk hove into view.

Against all odds, it came and circled over to check me out. Maybe it thought I had a mouse in my pocket. Maybe it felt sorry for me, not getting photos of the Kidron Road Owl. Maybe it had never seen somebody grin that big.

Oh, people look above you...

It's there your hope must lie

There's a (big) bird above you, gliding in one place

Like Jesus in the sky... 

(Jackson Browne, "Rock Me On the Water")

Rough-legs take my breath away and don't give it back for a long time. 

Oh thank you, Hawk, thank you.

 When the hawk flew out of sight, I headed for a small regional airport where a snowy owl had been hanging out for several weeks. I was excited at the possibility that I'd be close enough to focus my trusty 70-300 mm Canon lens on the bird. I didn't know that I'd make a bunch of new friends in the process. 

I pulled up next to the all-purpose gate/office/hangar/machine shop/pilot lounge building and began scanning the runway from my car. A gentleman came out and looked in all directions across the runway and surrounding fields. 

I had a hunch he'd know all about the owl. So I asked him if he knew where the big white bird might be. 

"Well, it likes to hang out on the watch shop, and that white aviation building, and the second telephone pole down toward the farm, and toward evening it generally sits on the green oil tank back there."

I knew I'd found The Man. David is Airport Manager here, and he'd been watching the owl for five weeks. Not, I'd add, with a spotting scope. He's borrowing mine here.

This man has 39,000 hours in the cockpit. He had that raptorial gaze, that far-off pilot look in his eyes.  I could not even imagine flying that much, that far. I wondered what all he's seen and done. I wanted to ask him a million questions, just listen to him talk, but he is a man of few words. I don't think I've done anything for 39,000 hours in my life, unless it's lollygagging.

I indulged my fascination for flying machines, peeking into the spotless hangar. Ohhhh. David was very relaxed about my dancing all over the tarmac and peeking in there.

A Piper came in, and he walked out to meet it, carrying some home-made chocks for its wheels. I liked this little airport.

  I found this air ambulance so beautiful, and longed to go up in it, but not because I had to...

It wasn't long before another small plane came sailing in, and this one spooked the owl from its hidden resting place behind a rise! I saw its great white sails cleaving the air and got very excited. I swung my scope onto the bird, took it in, and shared the magnificent sight right away with David. It was sitting on a runway light, too far away to photograph, but thrillingly close through the scope.

Word spread through the complex and pilots, mechanics and line personnel appeared like magic to see the wondrous sight, brought close by the scope.

Jennifer showed up with her two sons, one 12, one newly in college. None of the three had ever seen a snowy owl, but they'd heard it might be here. I was delighted to put their spotting scope on the bird.

Everyone was smiling. I felt like there might be sparks flying off my hair and fingertips, I was so happy that everyone was getting to see it. Just to be in the presence of someone seeing a life bird is such an honor. But a snowy owl?! Words fail me. All I could do was smile.

The little planes came and went. I didn't know they wheel them out of the hangar and hand-roll them out on the tarmac. Oh, I want to fly, too. 

 The ceiling lowered and snowflakes began drifting down. It would be dark all too soon. The owl had flown off. It was time for me to leave, though I didn't want to. David pointed to a big white pole barn, suggesting that the owl might be perching there. I drove over and soon discerned a giant white blob just a settin' on a floodlight. Ohhhh! I pulled into the parking lot at a respectful distance, for this owl is skittish and I could tell that David didn't like to see it flushed by people trying to get closer. I wasn't going to be that boob. So I lay across the seat, rolled down the window, and waited for it to look my way.

Bingo!

O marvelous white ghost of the Arctic, thank you for coming down here to visit us. May you find many voles and rabbits, may you return to your birthplace healthy and fat, to find a mate and make more giant ice owls. 

As I ogled and shot, waiting for increasingly long periods for the owl to deign to look my way, I heard the whisper of tires behind me. Looked out to see two young women with excited smiles on their faces. Rolled down the window. 

"What are you looking at?"

I couldn't believe they didn't see the owl up there, but they didn't have binoculars. So I pulled alongside their car and handed them mine.

Their suppressed squeals of delight made a fabulous day perfect.

Kara and Amanda work for Stark County Parks District.

They were the best. So excited. Wanted to bring their whole office here to see this wonder from the North. I said DO IT. 

Thing is, I wanted to be there, handing out loaner binoculars like candy, setting up the scope...An owl this magnificent must be seen well. 

I got their business cards and gave them mine. We decided to make a date soon.

I drove home down old Highway 250, looking at the corn shocks in the gloaming, thinking about this cool, parallel other world I'd been in all day. A place where horses still whicker softly to their people when they finally come out of the grocery store

which is stacked with row upon row of beautiful fresh spices and herbs and more popcorn and yes I bought some...

A place where the world's most awe-inspiring owls have come to spend the winter, making birdwatchers of everyone who falls under their spell. 

And for someone who's been birding since she was eight, magically making it all fresh and new again.

Amish Country Owl Safari!

Working hard to bring you Bird Watcher's Digest doesn't leave a whole lot of room for the staff to play. 

But in an epic snowy owl invasion year, how could we not make a try for the nearest bird?

Which happens to be in Amish Country, just two hours northwest of us in Ohio.

Bill threw together the company van and Marcy (Mrs. Tools) brought her big Suburban, and I trailed behind in my Subaru for reasons of my own. Mostly because I knew I wouldn't be able to leave a snowy owl and return to Marietta by 2 pm, nuh-uhh. 

We looked for a bird near the intersection of Kidron Rd. and Route 250. Dipped out for the better part of an hour. And then Bill spotted it atop a silo, of all places, where it looked like a blinding white decoy. The bird spooked when we pulled over, and sailed right past our vehicles, the sunlight coming through its great white wings. 

It landed in a cornfield and there it sat, turning its head occasionally, for at least the next four hours. Kyle phonescoped this image. What a thrill to see! Six of our party had never seen a snowy owl before, so there was a lot of celebrating to do. There's Marcy at far left, Steve with the Fudd hat, Carol, obscured, Ann with the green gloves, our new Managing Editor Dawn with the red coat and matching shoes (!), Kyle just right of her, Melody, a guy from Indiana, and me, with my giant brown hands. Function first, fashion, dead last.

We repaired to the Country Crossroads for lunch, parking alongside the transportation standard in the area. 

I'm glad Amish horses don't mind having their photos taken.

Perusing the menu, many of us regretted coming on a Thursday.

There would be no noodles, home fries or Manager's Favorites. That's OK. That Manager's Favorite sounds kiiinda heavy. The waitress explained that they don't have much room in the kitchen on Thursdays because that's when something or other gets delivered. Sorry. I'm foggy on the details. I love idiosyncratic menus and hidden basement cafes. I heard Low German being spoken among the regulars, more than half of whom were Amish. It was like walking into another world. 

We all got admirably fed anyhoo. Blackberry pie, mmmm.

I was teleported right back to the cafes of North Dakota.

After lunch, the staff returned to Marietta, as it was production week for the magazine. My adventure was just beginning. I continued less than a mile farther down Kidron Rd. to Lehman's Hardware, dodging buggy teams all the way.

This place, this place. Woodstove and cookstove showroom. Propane refrigerators, too.

Cookie cutters, organized by genus.

Just the ladles made me dizzy. This is a place for people who still cook. A lot.

I went a little nuts in the popcorn section. To see all the red, blue, purple, yellow and rainbow popcorns all laid out and labeled...I succumbed. And picked up some nifty kale and lettuce seeds and my favorite Kirk's Castile Soap and strike-anywhere box matches while I was at it. I could easily live at Lehman's Hardware. It's my kinda stuff.

My day was to get even better from there...