What I Got

This winter, man. This winter. The challenge has been to focus on what I have, not what's missing. 

Bought myself a peppermint-striped rose to offset the greenhouse blahs. You can't ask for flowers, but you can go out and get 'em yourself.  If I can keep it going until spring it'll be a real feat. Candy striped, and candy for spider mites, too.

The yard has been full of blue jays all winter long. Maybe not the blue jay I need to see, but I have to say it helps a lot to be in their company all day long. It has effected a sort of desensitization which I sorely needed. I see so many jays every day it's impossible to keep expecting one of them will be Jemima. I have surrendered to the void, and now I enjoy jays almost like anyone else does, which is to say like someone who isn't completely obsessed with them. Until this winter, I never realized what a huge component of my intense focus is obsession.  Watching that. But obsession is a powerful motivator. It would be hard to write a decent book about one blue jay unless you were a bit obsessed. 

 I call this member of the 13 Canucks "Frost." As in Robert. Can you see why I call it that?

Frost has snazzy white  feathers just above the bill, on its "front." A marker like this is gold. I've felt quite at sea with this new group of jays, but seeing one I can pick out and identify helps so much to tell me that yes, it's a member of the same group that's been here since Christmas. The group that isn't Jemima's.

February 5 was sunny. I couldn't stay inside, even though cold air makes me cough. I took off for Dean's Fork. Debated about whether to bring the big rig, with all the ice and snow and the possibility of falling on it. Brought it and never took a decent photo. Oh well. There are plenty of times I bring it and get something awesome. I spooked up a beautiful large owl, watched it fly, big and blunt-headed, waay down through the trees. It gave a hook to the left and the upward swoop that meant it was going to land.  Barred or great horned? How to tell?  I couldn't see it at all, but I fixed my binoculars on the last place I'd seen it and settled down to wait for a glimpse.  Look hard where it's hardest to look. Along comes a curious red-tailed hawk, bombing right into the section of woods where I thought the owl had gone. Oh!! The owl revealed itself, spreading its wings like a displaying turkey. It gave a querulous "Whooooaaaaa???" Its head swiveled--big dark eyes. It was a barred owl! I breathed a prayer of thanks to the redtail who'd blown its cover. It had been years since I'd seen a barred owl like that. My photos are a mess of twigs and haze. Never mind. It filled my heart and my eyes.

This day, the sky took center stage. It was Nevada blue, Colorado blue, New Mexico blue. It was the blue of a western bluebird, with some red in it, tending toward ultramarine. The air was rinsed clean. It took my breath away. That doesn't happen much in Ohio in winter. Gray flannel is the rule.

I found a little patch of mountain laurel atop this sandstone outcrop. That doesn't happen much around here, either.

I can hardly believe it, but I'm starting to see grouse again. They've been gone for more than 15 years. A beautiful red-morph grouse came tiptoeing up alongside me as I descended into Dean's Fork, and I was so flabbergasted I couldn't even raise my camera. But I did take a photo of his last two tracks before he whirred off like a warm brown football down into the draw. Oh, joy. To have grouse around again--it's too good to be true. There are some things you have to have faith will come back, some things you must wait for. 

The negative spaces of a winter creek. Water and ice are such free-handed artists. 

The play of sky blue on warm tree tones, the violet shadows on snow.

The sycamores, leaning impossibly out over the creek, throwing out roots to catch themselves in slow-motion. As big as sycamores get, wouldn't it make sense to root yourself farther back on the bank? But a tree doesn't have a choice. It takes root where it takes root, then deals with the consequences of cut banks and underwash, of having the rug pulled out from under it with every spring flood. I feel you, sycamores. 

Perhaps the thing that helps most about getting out is having to climb steep hills. 

I feel my heart pumping, feel my blood being cleansed of the sluggishness that sets in when you sit and think too much.

Soon enough, the sun went back to bed, and it rained and rained. The ground was so cold that ice formed on everything. 

The land took on a peculiar glazed look, the pines drooping with its weight.

At dusk, these deer wandered through a rosy wonderland. 

Worth clicking on these photos to enlarge them. I think this is Jolene and her band, but they're so wet it's hard to tell.

The ice has stayed for two days, stubborn and resolute. I've asked the sun for help and get nothing.

I love the textures of this unruly meadow. There's so much wood in it, but that gives it color, texture and life.

All day long, I've been watching for the tired sun to peek out from under the covers. I finally got perhaps ten seconds' worth, just enough to skid outside and grab a shot. I'll take it. Click on this one. There is glory out there for the finding, if you don't mind that it only lasts a few seconds.

Carry on, February. The woodcocks are on their way.

News from the Hill

Two festivals back-to-back--one in Tennessee, and one in Florida, have just about laid me flat. I breathed something in on the germ tube to Tennessee, and it hit me the Saturday of that festival, and by gum it's still here, 12 days later. Sick as a dog in Florida, but managed to muster enough voice to give a talk and sing a two-hour gig with the Rain Crows. One thing I'll say, being that sick and having to soldier through makes one re-examine one's priorities. I've got one more year of total craziness coming up, with a couple of dozen festivals and talks, and then, by God, I'm gonna stay home and do my real work. I've been slathering myself in Vick's Vapo-rub, sucking on Fisherman's Friend lozenges, and going to bed at 8:30 every night. Tell the coroner when they find me to check for menthol overdose. 

With few exceptions, all I really want when I'm away is to come back home. I think about my neighbors and friends and know they're missing me. 

Buffy definitely misses me when I'm gone. She looks pretty good this winter! She's easily 9 or 10, but her weepy left eye looks a lot better than usual, and she's keeping the weight on. Proud of her.

I never see Buffy without Ellen's daughter Flag. I love seeing them together, love believing Buffy adopted Flag and Pinky when Ellen was murdered. And I wonder where Pinky might be keeping himself. Haven't seen him since fall, but I'll know him when I see him.

Weirdest thing: my chipmunks have stopped hibernating. They're here every day, no matter the weather. You'd think they'd crawl into a well-lined burrow and sleep away the single digits, but no. What is with that? Anyone else noticing chipmunk activity year-round? O Powers that Be, what does this mean?

The males are fighting a lot these days, which I always find amusing to photograph.

Whoop! that's two chipmunks in a pancake and syrup blur of motion. I'm thinking of the tiger running around the base of the tree until he turned into syrup in the problematically titled story Little Black Sambo, an 1899 vintage kids' book still popular when I was young. Dating myself, much? Man. I'm older than dirt. This happens when you blog for 13 years.

In case I had any doubt as to their gender, I figured it out when they took a breather...mighty fine pair there, sir.

I really dig photographing chipmunks. They're always up to something. And one really nice thing about them is that when they strike a pose, they tend to hold it for minutes on end. That's hard to find in a mammal. 

In other news from Indigo Hill, the greenhouse is beginning to show signs of life. Toughest winter yet for my plants. Most of my beloved geraniums have a black stem rot that is killing them off, and they're dropping like flies. I suspect it's fungal, or perhaps bacterial, and it seems there's nothing I can do about it. It just keeps spreading. This little alpine geranium, Erodium reichardii from Cyprus and Corsica, is a welcome exception. As in: Not croaking. We like that!

 The other geranium that isn't croaking is "Happy Thought Red." Great Scott, what a plant it is!! I took this photo today, with my glove for scale. Yep, she's 5' across and going for 6. Here's to plants that aren't dying. I'm so glad this one is prospering. I've taken a bunch of cuttings just in case.

If you're going to be overtaken by a geranium, this is a goodun' to be overtaken by. I adore this plant. Its velvety lime leaves, splotched emerald; its brilliant scarlet-cerise flowers. What's not to love?

One of my occasional fantasies was to be a grower of specialty geraniums. Root rot has put the kibosh on that dream. Let it go...

There are other plants to love, like this "Weeping Blue Ginger" that's actually a spiderwort, Dichorisandra. 

Speaking of letting go, I haven't seen Jemima since Christmas Eve. I've no idea where she's gone. A big flock of 13 swept in right around Christmas, when the severe cold came in, and they stayed until the cold broke. It seemed they replaced Jem's clan, which disappeared altogether. Now I've got seven jays in the yard, and I don't recognize them. Sometimes I think I'm seeing Maybelline and Darko, but I just can't be sure. My frame of reference is gone. I sure am not seeing my Jemima. Even though I put out the good stuff every day. Jay stuff. 

The letting go was incredibly difficult. Having Phoebe home for a month really helped with that, gave me some perspective and welcome diversion, someone else to love and care and hope for. I am given to obsessing, and I still look carefully at every blue jay I see, hoping one will turn out to be Jem or one of her clan. I've made progress though; I don't watch and hope all day long now. No, I just watch. 

I lost my favorite rabbit Notch last summer, probably to Cindy the bobcat. I then fell in love with a rabbit I named Red, a languid, lanky animal who lounged around artistically in the heat.

I'm now trying to figure out if the rabbit I've been calling Julie Fatbottom could be Red, disguised in winter fur. Her ears look too short to be Red's. But maybe it's because her fur is so thick? They share a wide thin white collar...I just can't be sure.

The only other thing Red and Julie seem to share is a deep red blaze between the shoulders. Maybe with spring and thinner fur, the mystery will be revealed. Maybe Julie Fatbottom is really Red. It doesn't really matter who the rabbit is, I know. But I reach, again and again, for these connections, this continuity, with the wild things around me. It keeps me going, keeps me hopeful. It gets pretty lonely out here.

My heated dog dish birdbath crapped out on me in the middle of the coldest period. I called every feed store and hardware in the area, and finally had to drive 1.5 hr. to Athens to get another because they were all backordered. I get such a kick out of this simple device. I understand from retailers that they rarely last two years. If there's anything I dislike it's built-in obsolescence, and having to throw out a perfectly good looking dish that no longer works. Ugh! But I'm hooked on the birds who are hooked on it.

I think that the female flicker who uses it may be the same one who visited the year I first acquired mine. This photo was taken Dec. 8, 2014. This little gal, to my great delight, was one of my first customers at the heated dish!

And lo and behold, here's a female flicker looking very much like her on Jan. 31, 2018. Coinkydink? I think not. Flickers aren't that common around here in winter, and female flickers who visit heated dog dish baths are an even smaller subset. Grasping for a thread of connection, again. I grasp with joy.

And while I was photographing her yesterday, wondering if she might have been visiting the yard for four years, a drop-dead gorgeous jay landed on the bowl beside her. WOW. What's gonna happen now? I can tell you, if that were a red-bellied woodpecker, there'd have been a rumble!

But she didn't bat an eye. She regarded the jay calmly. Dipped for another drink.

There's room here for both of us, she seemed to say. 

And my heart swelled like to burst when the jay dipped its head and drank, too. Little matter that the flicker could have put its eye out with one quick strike from that scimitar bill. The jay seemed to know she wouldn't. 

Ahh, birds and little plug-in dog dishes. They bring me such joy. 

So the winter days roll by, and I work and cough and cough and work. I've just put the finishing touches on a slideshow about the Vienna snowy owl. I never dreamt I'd be working on it for weeks, but I have been. When all was gathered together, I had 15,000 words and 160 images to sort through. I realized that, over the past month, I've written a book on that owl. I know why I did it. It's because Jemima left. I needed another focus. Gathering his story together and tying it all up with a bow has been a deeply absorbing pursuit, one I'm grateful to have had. I'll present it Tuesday, February 6, at 6:30 pm in Athens, Ohio.

Maybe I'll see you there. Until then, grab that last light of day. Get out there.

This evening marks Imbolc, an ancient pagan holiday that celebrates the midpoint of winter and the turning toward spring. I learned that from my friend Gale on Instagram. And I am ON IT. Listening for the woodcock, grabbing at those connections.

Second Chance For a Snowy Owl

A 3,112-acre happy hunting ground for Owl!

Presque Isle State Park is a mighty nice hunk of habitat for a snowy owl. Comprised of marsh, dune, and Lake Erie shore, it undoubtedly looks a whole lot more like home to an Arctic owl than do the  unbroken forests of West Virginia and southeast Ohio, described by Project SNOWstorm co-founder Scott Weidensaul as "hostile territory."

This map makes me happy. Find Erie on the south shore of that inland sea. Owl originally made his way far enough south to be just off the map, just below the lower notch in the Ohio/West Virginia border. By being driven to Presque Isle, he's been given a great boost north, 260 miles or more, the best chance the team could give him. There's lots of great snowy owl habitat all around.

 This wild beachy finger of Pennsylvania has the creatures Owl should be hunting: voles and rabbits and gulls, sea ducks and geese. No more quail and rat, served up on a wooden shelf. He's on to bigger game, and he's fit, fat, and ready to hunt.

photo by Joey Herron/herronbirding.com

A flight of scaup,  part of Owl's food base in his new home. He might be watching where they go to roost at night. He may swoop soundlessly down and pluck a scaup from the water's surface at 2 AM. Who knows what he will do here? Wouldn't we love to know!

The owl was packed in the same wild turkey box in which he traveled to Morgantown. It's tall and narrow and confining; it won't let him spread his wings or beat up his feathers. The rush about releasing him is that the longer he stayed in the small wood-sided mew, the wilder and more rambunctious he got, and the more chance he had of battering his feathers into uselessenss. And we didn't want that. 

photo by Joey Herron/herronbirding.com

The long trek to open ground, hearts beating in anticipation.

photo by Joey Herron/herronbirding.com

I got the sweetest email from photographer and saw-whet owl researcher and bander Joey Herron when I asked to borrow his photos for this post. I wanted to share his own words, because they show  how this bird touches lives, and the kind of awe and respect he inspires.

Joey Herron bids Owl adieu.   Photo by Vince Slabe

"As I downloaded these pics I was overwhelmed with emotion  at the honor of being a part of this!

The experience will ever be etched in my soul!.....sorry you did not make it. I know you would have felt the same!

These birds have such a presence about them.....as my wife said when you spread their wings it's like an angel from heaven! Majestic and beautiful!

On their way out the point, the team found a red-morph eastern screech-owl. 

I've also included a couple Screech owl pics....this guy was just sitting along the road!

There were a dozen people or so with scopes and cameras across from it looking and taking pics......we stopped to see what was happening........little did these people know that in the back of our  car was a Snowy Owl in a box!!!......if they only knew!!!"

photo by Joey Herron/herronbirding.com

I'll let Katie Fallon of the Avian Conservation Center of Appalachia tell it now: 

RELEASE:  January 20 2018 (a month after being taken in Dec. 21).

We are very happy to announce that the snowy owl from Vienna, WV, successfully returned to the wild today! 

The injured snowy owl was captured several weeks after being hit by a car; the owl suffered a fractured coracoid (a bone in the shoulder) and was emaciated at the time of capture, weighing only 1100 grams. Today, the owl weighed approximately 1800 grams, and he had fully recovered from his injuries.

While we would normally release injured birds back where they were found, this snowy owl was out of his normal winter range. We released him several hours north -- on Presque Isle along Lake Erie -- where snowy owls are routinely sighted in the winter. This area is near the southern edge of their normal winter range.

Thank you so much to everyone who sent the snowy owl well wishes, donations towards his care and feeding, and healing thoughts. He certainly has a lot of friends, and he touched many lives. 

Thank you to everyone who assisted and participated in his capture; thank you to the folks who documented and photographed the owl and his progress; and a huge thank you to the ACCA's volunteers for feeding, medicating, monitoring, cleaning up after, and nursing the owl back to health over the last month or so.

Thank you again -- and best wishes for a long, healthy life to this young snowy owl!

           

         Video by Vince Slabe, courtesy Joey Herron and Avian Conservation Center of Appalachia

And so it ends. But his story goes on in our imaginations, and perhaps in the binoculars and spotting scopes of lucky birdwatchers who come out expecting a wee red screech-owl and find a big white snow-owl. Of course, I'll be eager for reports from Erie area birders, if any come in;  you can contact me on my website, juliezickefoose.com  I'd be happy to post any photos. Maybe we can match them to our beloved Owl. You never know.

And meanwhile, the work at ACCA never ends. This barred owl was hit by a car, and came in with a badly fractured beak and two broken coracoids. When Katie sent me his intake photo, I wouldn't have given you a nickel for that bird. I couldn't see how he could survive injuries that grievous.  Look at him on December 10, less than a month later.

Not all ACCA's clients attain celebrity status, but each one is cared for lovingly, fed and treated just that well.

 I thank Owl for the gift of his presence. I thank him for sweeping me and thousands of others away in the sheer drama and amazement of his story; for showing the cool, slit-eyed face of the Arctic to so many Ohioans and West Virginians who had never seen and may never see such a creature again. I thank him for making his way to the Grand Central Mall to ask for help, if ask he did.

 I hope from Presque Isle, he heads west or east then, when the time comes, north and north and still farther north, his strong white wings bearing him with ease, his magnetic sense telling him where home lies. I hope he sees the Land of the Midnight Sun again, where the lemmings swarm and line owl nests with fur and food, swelling small fuzzy owlets' crops with abundance. Most of all, I hope he never has to endure any of this, ever again.

Photo by Vince Slabe

I wish him strength and health and joy in flying free again, and I'm certain he feels all that. No creance to bring him up short now. Just air and space, sun and cold, and the promise of going home to the tundra as spring draws near. Fare thee well, Owl! You woke up this morning with a second chance.  

photo by Joey Herron


Two Zick Alerts: I'm speaking about Baby Birds at 1 PM Saturday, Jan. 26, in a Spotlight Presentation at the Space Coast Birding Festival, Eastern FL State College, Titusville, FL.  $15.00 Walk-ins welcome! Writing from a small hotel room as we speak.

 And I'll be telling the story of this valiant snowy owl locally on Feb. 6 in a special presentation to Athens Area Birders. Details on their boffo poster, below.