Foggy Day, Fiddle Tune

Every once in a great while we go down to the river just to look for birds. We used to do that a lot. Now we seem to need an excuse, like having Corey here for a New Year's visit. But when we do, we find the birds were out there waiting for us, anyway.

Whipple Flats produced a young red-shouldered hawk. I know, it doesn't look identifiable, but there are obvious clues that might not immediately present themselves unless you've been seasoned by experience. The two species in contention for this buteo ID are red-shouldered and red-tailed. First, it's sitting on a power line, something most redtails are too large to do comfortably. The red-shoulder's small feet and short toes fit better than a redtail's on such a small-gauge perch. Second, those blobby, heavy streaks all down the front of its breast are typical of a young red-shoulder.  A redtail, even a young one, usually has a clear white or buff upper breast, with finer streaking across the middle of the belly. Third, it's got a small, fine bill. Fourth, the tail seems short and the bird overall compact and cobby. A redtail would look more elongated and much more massive. And it wouldn't be sitting on a wire! For those who are wondering, the call between broad-winged hawk and red-shouldered is much closer and more difficult to make. For the purposes of this ID, we are safe in assuming that all the broad-wings are in Costa Rica by January. Red-shoulders stick around, hence their folk name, "winter hawk."

We didn't have to give our second raptor of the day a second look, other than to ogle it. An adult bald eagle beats its way up the Muskingum. Fantastic. I love the impossibly long arms of the sycamore in the foreground. And I still can't take an eagle sighting for granted, no matter how much more frequent they are.

We got out to bird Devol's Dam, only to find it hopelessly fogged in. Waiting around didn't help. The rivers stayed foggy all day. 

Bad for birding, good for photography.

If Corey couldn't find any birds, there were no birds to be found.

I buy Phoebe's outerwear (Eddie Bauer) at the Eddie Bauer Warehouse in Columbus. The really nice stuff that winds up in the warehouse tends to be in wild colors. We're good with that.

I like imagining those colors against her hair when I'm holding up a prospective purchase. 

Corey and Phoebe are standing on the oldest existing hand-operated lock in the country. The system of locks that segment the Muskingum River are still operated by hand-cranking, and I've seen the guy come out and do it, when I've locked through in my Wee Lassie canoe. It's so cool to see a human being turn a crank to singlehandedly open the giant gate to drain the lock chamber. It's even cooler to be in a canoe and sink quickly down along the algae-slimed sides of the lock, or rise up as the water rushes in (if you're going upriver). 

Canada goose tracks in old mud below the lock.

Hey. Act like you're birding, even though the fog's too thick.

We walk across the Harmar railroad trestle to Marietta. Liam looks back to see if I'm still back there. Yes, slow as usual, drinking in the sight of you all.

I'm trying to capture the enormous old sycamore I love so well, that threatens to grow completely over the Marietta end of the trestle, and is succeeding.

Out at the confluence of the Muskingum and the mighty Ohio, a raft of Canada geese shelters one redhead duck, near the right end of the main flock.

Bill stops to read a sign next to an old engine, something my dad would have done. He's framed by crabapples.

I feel so lucky to spend time with these people, lucky that we all love watching birds on foggy days, walking around Front Street, and so many other things.

 

If they mind being followed around by their personal paparazzo, they haven't said anything. I think they like reliving these moments, too.

Seems like time for another fiddle tune from Corey and Bill. For your foot-stomping pleasure, here's "Coon Dog." I could listen to these fiddle tunes all day, or forever, while the cauliflower burns in the pan.

More Wildlife Rumbles: Turkey Vs. Turkey Vulture-Which Will Win?

I don't much like the kind of nature writing that starts out, "Turkey vultures are the Rodney Dangerfields of birds. They get no respect." I mean, I would never write a sentence like that.  To me, it smacks of pandering. It's a too-obvious ploy to ingratiate yourself with the reader. Bleh.

It might not be immediately obvious, but this immature red-shouldered hawk is dissing this vulture by swooping in and perching right next to it. You can't see the vulture's head because it's hanging down in shame.

Turkey vultures are the Rodney Dangerfields of birds.

They get no respect. 

 I do hate that kind of nature writing, but...oops, I just did it. 

Even a wimpy immature red-shouldered hawk thinks he can take a shot at a turkey vulture. Because he can. He's gonna get away with it. What's the vulture going to do? Vomit on him?

 And the big clumsy old vulture just ducks and takes it. I don't get it. I respect turkey vultures.
 I love  turkey vultures.  We need turkey vultures! So much so that every once in awhile when a white-tailed deer walks out in the middle of our meadow and drops dead, I just leave it there for them. And hunker down in the living room with my camera for the next day and a half, which is exactly how long it took seven turkey vultures to clean it up. The poor foxes and coyotes never got a bite!

 So I'm watching these vultures peacefully feeding on October 8, 2014, and I see three wild turkey gobblers (as distinct from turkey vultures) walk up on them from the far reaches of the meadow.  And my first thought is, "Well, this is going to be interesting."

I've never seen an interaction between the two species, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to see one now. I wait it out.

The gobblers just stroll along, doing this cool thing with the little bluestem grass where they fling their naked heads out to the side, grip about halfway up the stem of the grass, then run the stem quickly through their bills and strip the seeds off it all the way to the end.

La la la la la. We're eating grass seeds. Nothing to look at here. Vegetarians, we are.

Vegetarians with an attitude. Militant vegetarians.

But they nonchalantly draw closer and closer to the vultures, who had been happily stuffing themselves with deer liver. And as the turkeys moseyed closer and closer the vultures got their panties in a bunch and retreated to a handy snag (which we put there for them to perch on in the event a deer should drop dead under it).

Suwwounded!!

One vulture flies off, and the other flaps over to a fencepost near our bluebird box. 

Those meddlesome turkeys follow it.

By now it's perfectly clear what's going on. It's another rumble. A wildlife rumble.

When you're a Jet, you're a Jet all the way...

I absolutely love the aggressive poses of the turkeys. We so bad! 

I don't know why the turkeys would do this. It's not as if they want to eat deer liver.  It seems to me they're intimidating the vultures just because they can. Because it's fun. 

Because they're manturkeys and they need to dump a little testosterone, and the HogWild Gobbler Mud Run isn't until next Saturday. 

Something.

I mean, look at this! They're embiggening themselves, standing sideways. The poor vulture feels invaded.

I swear I heard him say Booga Booga as he flapped his wings! It was definitely not Gobble Gobble.

Vulture does a perfect Rodney Dangerfield take toward the camera.

Did I hear a NYAAAAHHHH!? Look at the tail spread, the open bill on that Musketeer!

 Vultures routed, the Meddlesome Turkeys go on their lazy, merry way. 

I flippin' love turkeys. Turkeys and turkey vultures both.

Here endeth the lesson.

Is She Really Going Out to Maine?

I've made it a policy since starting this blog in December 2005 not to apologize when I miss posting. I do my darnedest to get three posts up each week, but sometimes life rolls right over me like an ocean comber and it doesn't happen. I know that if you're here in the first place you probably are happy to see a new post whenever it goes up. Especially if it has a dog in it.

Gratuitous Chet/Demon photo.

Silver-browed Chet's finally mellowing at 9 1/2. He only bites Demon about once out of every four times we see him now. But note his spraddle-legged power stance. Turd-tail out straight. Gotta be The Boss. Always overdressed in a starched tuxedo shirt, too.

Chet and his best friend Wally get along great because Wally doesn't care who's boss.

Back to the blogpost at hand. Part of what's got me so tizzied and tied up is Phoebe's imminent departure for Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine. Which feels like a very, very long way away from Whipple. And is. Good for her. She's stepping out fearlessly on the untraveled path.

We're buying things like detergent and desk lamps and little rugs and extra long twin sheets. And seeing other parents buying those things too, a slightly lost and stunned look on their faces. Is it really all over, this fast? In August?

Friday night we threw a party for her and her school friends. 44 people showed up. Almost everyone we invited came. It was amazing. Bill and I were hopping for two whole days beforehand. When your catering staff is but two, and you're determined to cook, if not grow, everything you serve yourselves, it's a lot of work. But we'd have it no other way, and it's so worth it. Because in our world, growing and serving delicious food is a way to love your friends and family. 

The morning of the party, I got a call from someone on our county road that there was a hawk hopping around her meadow, and it had a hurt wing. Well, what I didn't need with 44 people on the way was a busted hawk. But who ya gonna call? I couldn't say no.  Out I went, gloves and cat carrier in hand. The second I stopped the car and raised my binoculars to look at this young red-shouldered hawk, it began hopping toward the woods. So pitiful, to see a hawk brought low. It knew I was coming for it. Hawks miss nothing. And they put two and two together. They are not slow.

I had no trouble catching it before it made cover. It was pitifully emaciated, and according to the homeowner a wandering cat had attacked it. The cat had been hunting rabbits in her field for several days. It takes quite a cat to kill a rabbit, and I believed her about that cat, because a cat like that would attack a grounded hawk. When I examined it, I found that the @#$#%#$ cat had broken the hawk's right wrist and dislocated its elbow, too. No hawk worth its salt should be attacked by a feral cat.  I knew from its painfully thin condition this bird had been struggling for awhile. Some young ones just don't get the hang of hunting, or they get hurt. And they don't make it. 

Hoping I could reverse this craptastic turn in its short life, I took it home and stuffed it full of raw chicken thigh and Ensure. Chet Baker told it that I was OK, that it was safe now, and with a full crop for the first time in weeks it slept peacefully in our basement while we went on cooking for the party. 

I put out an appeal on Facebook, and within minutes our wonderful Managing Editor at Bird Watcher's Digest, Dawn Hewitt, volunteered to take it to the Ohio Wildlife Center that same evening. I met her at a gas station as she drove on her way to Indiana, handed her a cardboard box full of hawk and a plate of nice party food, and she dropped the bird off that same evening. It needed antibiotics and perhaps surgery, and it would get that at OWC. If I had any extra  money I would send it to Ohio Wildlife Center.  Thank you Dawn. Thank you, OWC. Even if it doesn't make it back to the wild, we will all have done our best by it. 

When I looked up from feeding and housing and preparing the hawk for its journey, it was noon. And 44 people would arrive in five hours. YIKES! I started dragging ingredients out of the fridge, made two quiches, prepped a watermelon to chill, set the kids to shucking some of the 50 ears of corn Bill had brought home, made two confetti cakes and the frosting to go on them (Phoebe loves my almond buttercream!), helped Bill peel potatoes for mashed (she loves those too). Bill was grilling the chicken and vegetables and icing the drinks and bam! the party started.

Arrive they did, and it was wonderful. I really tied one on. Had two beers. I'm usually a party with one. Two? Look out. Sumpin' gonna go down.

Bill climbed up in the tower (you can see his shadow!) and got a rare photo of me sitting down (just beneath his shadow!) Oh, it was magical. Phoebe's in the middle of the little clot of girls at the left side of the circle. They're all playing with her hair. The almost full moon rose on the gathering and nobody wanted to leave, but eventually they straggled back down the driveway, bellies full of smoked chicken and garden vegetable quiche, mashed potatoes, Witten's sweet corn, homemade tomatillo salsa, watermelon and birthday confetti cake. 

Liam and Bill and Phoebe and Chet and I sat around the little fire Bill had built, and the katydids rang so loudly we could hardly hear the coywolves howling. And I thought about what a magical life these kids have had, growing up here, and I was grateful to have been blessed to raise them here.

As I was finishing this post, Phoebe came in, fresh and smelling of ozone, from a long bike ride on our steep foothill roads. She was bursting with the news that she'd found two stands of rose gentian and a red-headed woodpecker. 

She's going to do fine in Maine. She is a creature of the moment, a creature of place, one with roots that go deep and strong. And I will miss her like I miss the summer when November rolls around.

But we will still have the irreproducible and irrepressible Liam here, and he's going to get all that extra love, and we get to watch him blossom as we did his sister.

You don't get luckier than that.