All the Beautiful Creatures

Floating around North Bend, taking in the sights. Imagine having been born and raised on a chunk of basalt in the middle of the Atlantic. What you know is the sea, the forest in the highlands; how to pick up and carry a lost shearwater back to the ocean--these are just some of the things Oscar knows. And here he is, plunked down in the middle of a large freshwater lake in Ohio, with all the wildlife that goes with that--turtles and dragonflies and deer and woodpeckers (what are those?!) and herons and hawks. Oscar got very excited when he spotted a juvenile redtail, keening for its parents.

Aguila! Well, not quite. But pretty impressive, if a bit whiney.

A northern water snake made its leisurely way along the shore. There's a glint in the eye of those snakes that tells you not to mess with them. You do, they'll come after ya. Got a vengeful streak.

A green heron, looking like a Balinesian god, teed up on a stump.

 

I thought back to the July day in 2014 I had an audience with a little family at North Bend. Oh, what a day that was. Here's a freshly fledged babe peeking out at me, all toes and curiosity.

Today would be more for people shots.

The eastern pondhawk posed nicely.

As did the eastern amberwing. Halloween pennants are common here as well, but I didn't catch one on this trip.

 There isn't much that's fast enough to grab a dragonfly, but flycatchers like the eastern kingbird specialize in it.

 

I was thrilled to see this kingbird return with one for her orange-mawed babies.

 Kind of a scratchy crackly mouthful, I'd wager, but the nestling was up for it. Mmmrf!

After lunch, she settled down to shade her panting children from the midday sun. Thanks, Mama.

 Eastern kingbirds are so tuff they sometimes build their nests right out in the open, as here, relying on their watchful ferocity to protect their young from any aerial predator that might try something. Tyrannus tyrannus is well named. A kingbird will ride a crow or hawk, punching holes in it, for just crossing the airspace near their nest.

A tangle of monofilament provided inspiration and perhaps a base for these kingbirds to place their low-hanging nest. It was at eye level for me in a kayak!

 Like it or not, he's there, and he's going to make it work. (You can tell he's a male by the white, not grayish, chest. Both male and female incubate).

Go ahead. Take my picture. 

 

 

We drifted past whitetails just resting and feeding. The deer at North Bend have an understanding with boaters, and can be freely observed from cars, as well. It's really nice to be able to see them unconcerned and behaving as they would were you not watching.

I hate to use a tired word like "magical" on this, one of my spirit places, but it is. There's always something special going on on its waters, in the skyspace, or in the surrounding forest. North Bend heals me. 

And the little town of Harrisville is such a treat. Here's a tiny cottage with a Gothic touch. I so wished I could go inside and see if the kitchen was as unchanged as the exterior!

We looked for the post office, a nice early 60's box of metal, brick and glass (probably mint green inside, too)

and found the courthouse, quite a fancy one. We were tourists in this quiet little town.

We got noseprints all over the glass at Berdine's Five and Dime. It's chock-full of little stuff you can't find anywhere else. How we wished we'd come by when it was open.

But the greater treasure was up in the porch eave as Shila indicates in this photo. Musta been Sadie Hawkins day, because here's a male mourning dove tending a nest.  I suspect this to be a robin nest that the doves took over, to which they added some flimsy plant material. Wise move, doves. It's not a typical mourning dove location, but they're flexible birds.

Pretty sweet, to see him there with us just below, and the old sign and some forgotten Christmas lights hanging.  

It had been a beautiful day. We'd shown Oscar some of the best of West Virginia, thanks to North Bend Outfitters and lovely little Harrisville. It had been a stress-free getaway into quiet waters.

 Dinner in Marietta (House of Wines, outdoors, of course!) capped a perfect day. Here's to good days, and love, and breathtaking beauty in the ordinary. You just have to watch for those moments.

Eastern Kingbird Nests

 So I'm floating along with my camera, marveling at all I've seen in a few hours of doodling around in my lil' peapod canayak. I just can't get over the array of active nests I've found. Just goes to show you what birds can accomplish when mammalian and reptilian predation is controlled by oh, four or five feet of water.

This snag intrigued me, just because the Virginia creeper framed the cavity so beautifully. I didn't see a vine running up the tree, and because it was standing in several feet of water, any vine coming from the ground would be drowned. I figured the creeper had rooted in the cavity. I circled the tree, shooting, and it wasn't until I saw the photo on the camera screen and blew it up (trying to figure out where that vine was coming from) that I saw that the tree hid another treasure.          

There was a nice nest inside the cavity, which could have belonged to a robin, but I suspected it might have been built by an eastern kingbird, because there were gobs of them around. Would a kingbird build in a cavity like that?

Well, would you?

I might.

More discoveries: I saw some stuff sticking out of the top of a rotten stub, which resolved into nesting material, and a setting kingbird. Well!

Well, hello, Missy! I'll pass by--don't you worry or get up, OK?

Luckily for you, she did leave the nest for a moment. I say that because this gives me a chance to tell you how to sex a kingbird.  See the gray wash on her breast? That's a female. Males have a clean white breast. Nice of them to have a little dimorphism, just enough to make it fun for a birdwatcher.

But my favorite kingbird nest of the day (and this was more kingbird nests than I'd seen in my life, for goodness' sake!) was the last one. I saw a beautiful kingbird fetched up on a snag, and shot a photo of it.

We bird photographers can have tunnel vision--we're trying so hard to get the bird in focus and framed that we often overlook what's around the bird. See anything interesting in this photo?

Yeah, it took me awhile, too. Sweet! There were two little heads bobbing in the nest. 

 It was a beautiful end to an incredible day on the water. All I want to do is go back to West Virginia's North Bend State Park. You can lose yourself at a place like that.