Pileated Woodpeckers in Flight

There are so many beautiful things to see from our towertop. I always take my big camera rig (Canon 7D with 70-300 IS L telephoto lens) because something lovely nearly always flies by. I've pulled the summer and fall's collection of flying pileated woodpeckers from my stacks and logjams of photos.

Since I'm usually up there in the morning, and the pileateds are most active then, I get these fabulous backlit creations winging by. This is a female, as evidenced by her blackish forecrown.

They give me plenty of warning, because pileated woodpeckers don't do anything without yakkin' about it. Cuk cuk cuk cuk cuk cuk cuk 

This is a male, with red running all the way to his nostrils.

Seems like there's not a whole lot of upstroke, but a lot of downstroke in a pileated's cycle.

I revel in the backdrops, almost as much as in the beauty of the bird. Virginia pines make a splendid screen. Another female. You getting it?

A bomb, a bullet, her wings pulled in, just slicing the air. These birds do not soar. They must flap all the time, but they rest in between flaps and let their momentum carry them. Wingbeats of a pileated under way are actually pretty slow--there's a lot of silence between the notes.

In the mist, a planted row of white pines behind her. My gosh.

Seemingly brushing the top of the tulip. 

All stretched out, her wingtips flaring upward as they bear her weight. 

And shooting downward as a hen rockets across our meadow. Wow. The tower is good good good for looking down on birds. I like to look down on birds now and then. Light's better.

Headed east, coursing our north border. It's a watercolor, for sure.

One of the nicest images, I think. Must paint this.

Would I had time to paint everything that tugs at my heart. A storm front in the evening, from towertop, our raggedy old meadow stretching and curving like a cat.

And a cotton candy sky.

When you read this, I will be making my way the nine hours to Cornell's Lab of Ornithology. I'm giving the Monday Night Seminar there at 7:30 pm on October 29. There's a big storm coming (Hurricane Sandy comes north, meets Arctic air, does a do-si-do, creates epically bad shizz) that might have other plans for me and my little Subaru. Wish me luck. And come see me if you're near Ithaca. I always have loads of fun at the Lab. From reading about it with reverence as a kid to going there to give a talk, well, it's been a long, strange trip. Fun, too.

Cooper's Hawk Raid

                    My favorite shot, with everything backlit as she fetches up in a snag. O beautiful!!

You see things from the tower that you couldn't from anywhere else. I always take my big Canon rig up with me, and most of the time I have it, rather than my binoculars, in my hands, held up under my chin, waiting for a shot. You never know what's going to fly by. Sometimes it's a yakky pileated woodpecker

 sometimes a squadron of machine-gunning blue jays, and sometimes it's a Cooper's hawk. Wooo! A Cooper's hawk!

Look at her head, up, and eyes searching...I'd hate to be on the receiving end of that stare.

This is where my Canon 70-300 mm IS L zoom telephoto shines--on birds in flight. Set it on AV, set it for central spot focus, and it will track and focus on the subject as it moves. I love, love, love shooting birds in flight. This immature Cooper's wanted mourning dove for brunch, something awful. So she blasted through the yard, scaring up the winnowing herds and slamming into the treetops where they were perched. Never got one, but I was rooting for her. Hoping it wasn't Libby Lou she ended up with.

The supremely elegant airfoil shape of a Cooper's hawk on the hunt. 

Made my day.

Danger Rocks

On the weekend Bill took the kids whitewater rafting in West Virginia, one of the things I did by myself was go canoeing on quiet waters. It was kind of a protest. I wasn't too happy about having my family on whitewater, being a rapidophobe myself. I had to chuckle when I saw this warning buoy at Wolf Run:

No, actually, it doesn't. Quiet waters rock.

Phoebe and I were on high alert this day when we went out together, and it paid off in spades, because the beavers I'd spotted on my last visit to Wolf Run were around again. The first thing I needed to teach her was to be conscious of keeping the paddle from hitting the sides of the canoe. I told her that you can spot a rube a mile off over the water by the clunk-clunk of paddle hitting canoe sides. You should always paddle as if you're sneaking up on something, because in all likelihood, you are.

There is great pleasure in silent conveyance on still waters.

In the first cove we checked out, a beaver floated quietly, watching us. It circled, always keeping an eye on us.

Finally, it drew close, and I could tell it was winding up to smack its big flat leathery tail on the water. I could just see it in that glittering eye. So I focused on his back and was ready when it happened!

He's taking a big breath in. Something's going down.

KER-SPLOOOOOSH!

This is one of my favorite pictures of the summer--it shows the enormous webbed paddles the beaver uses to swim so swiftly and dive so deeply. There is a big roostertail of water on either side of the tail, which has been smacked down on the water. Gosh, beavers are so cool. Beavers do this to let you know they see you--it's analogous to a white-tailed deer flashing its big white flag at you. Hey you. Don't bother chasing me. I'm already gone.

Herons were everywhere. I took a lot of heron photos. And no, I don't use the "burst" or rapid-fire/multiple frame function when shooting birds in flight--though I must try it soon. Probably would have been useful for the beaversmack.

Big birds that sit still and then flap off majestically are irresistible to me.Who says pterodactyls are all gone? His croaking rasp only enhances the metaphor--it sounds like someone opening a stuck root cellar door.

Speaking of irresistible, I saw a water naiad on the shore. Where's Maxfield Parrish when you need him?

Another heartbreakingly beautiful September 11 in southern Ohio. Soon enough, rain will come--all these hurricanes have to amount to something. But for now, it's pellucid and clear and the cool afternoon air is like a draught of Riesling. This morning before dawn I stood in the dissolving dark and listened to the calls of dozens of migrating thrushes--pips, peeps and queerps!--headed for destinations only they know. Most of them Swainson's, but maybe a grey-cheeked in there, too. There were so many, calling unseen from horizon to horizon, just as the shivering light broke. We marvel at them, so brave! flying through the starry night, but they have a clearer idea where they are headed than do we, and they have the wings to go.

I don't know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down

into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,

which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?

from The Summer Day by Mary Oliver

For you, of course, sweet B. Thanks for the sweet canoeing companion and the scowly little Art Elf; thanks for the 15 (17) years; thanks for the acreage and the warblers, and thanks for sticking around. I love you.
*thank you for this poem, Kris.