20 April 2013 - Birding

I think I have mentioned this before, that I do not consider myself a birder: that I just like to know what it is I see.  Well, hmm. I may have to rethink that. Today, for the second time in three months, I went on a birding field trip.

The DWR offered a guided tour to see the sandhill cranes on a piece of the bird refuge that is closed from April 1st to September 1st.  Wow! Sandhill cranes and getting to go into the migratory nesting area? Oh yeah. Jack and I made plans to go.  We needed to meet up with the group and leader in Layton at 8am. Layton is about 45 minutes up the freeway.  I set our alarm for six.  

When we went to bed it had started to rain. It rained all night. It was still raining, albeit lightly when the alarm went off. I decided I didn't want to be tromping around in the muck, turned off the alarm and went back to bed, where I promptly tossed and turned until 6:30.  Decided that I had to go. Kissed Jack good bye and ran. Got to Layton just in time. I was so glad I went. Our leader told us that last year 60 cars went through. People at the end of the line didn't get to see anything. With the rainy morning, we only had 8 cars since everyone doubled up.  It was great. The rain had stopped by the time we got to Ogden Bay.  The entrance to the refuge was solid phragmites. Looking east you can see the mountains are socked in with rain, but up Farmington Canyon, the sun was behind the storm.

It was an interesting place, many estuaries for swimming birds between large wetland areas. It is just barely starting to green up. 

 
Did we ever see birds!  Before we even started on the dike roads, our guide set up a scope and showed us a Bald Eagle's nest. The female was on the nest, and the male was in the tree next to the nest. The ranger who was with us said three babies had hatched. This particular pair has been coming back to the nest for six years. They show up in January and start fixing up the remains of last year's nest, lay eggs and by March babies have hatched.

Next we saw pelicans. Literally hundreds of American White Pelicans. They are huge--wing spans of 9 feet. Amazing. Several of us ducked when they flew overhead.

  

 At one point we stopped and our guide set the scope up again so we could look at a mess of birds quite far away. Settled down on the road was yet another flock of pelicans including a couple Canadas and two or three Sandhill Cranes. There was a large tree right next to this group with a peregrine falcon being harrassed by yellow-headed blackbirds. My little camera could hardly get this in focus it was so far away, but in the scope you could count the feathers on the peregrine. 

The American Avocets are also migrating back north and now grace the waterways around the Great Salt Lake. 

Along with the avocets, the black-neck stilts were represented in very large numbers. 

 

The grebes are also coming back. There were many Western grebes out on the water. I was lucky enough to see some mating behavour. A male grebe came up from a dive with a 6 inch fish crosswise in his bill. He offered it to a female who did not hesitate to swallow it down. I could just hear the dialog, "See what a good provider I will be? Marry me and lay my eggs!" The guy in the car in front of me said there was an eared grebe, and showed me a great picture he had taken, but (insert pouty lip here) I didn't see it. 

Grebes are an interesting bird. They can only land in and take off from water. Their legs are in the far back of their body because they are diving birds.  We had a horrible incident last week during a spring storm with with high winds and rain.  A flock of 12,000+ eared grebes was migrating back north to the Great Salt Lake. They got confused in the storm and tried to land on a wet parking lot. Thousands were killed, or injured to the point where they had to be euthanized.  This was near or on the Toole Army base so hundreds of soldiers and volunteers were out picking up the birds, putting them in boxes, crates or bins and trucking them over to the lake. 

 
 









 





The phragmites were filled with both red-winged and yellow-headed blackbirds.  They are so exotic! Not to mention loud.

And of course, where there is water, there are cormorants. 

Near the end of the trip I thought I saw an eagle in a dead tree off in the distance. I stopped to look. The people behind me were laughing and saying it was just a big knot in the tree.  I took a picture and still couldn't tell.  Back home, after downloading my photos this is what I found. 

 
I have a pair of sharp-shin hawks that often leave similar remains in my yard, consisting of a polished clean breastbone and wings. 
I wonder who was eaten by whom. In my uninformed opinion, these look like raptor wings-- not cormorants or herons. It also reminds me of Native American coup sticks. Quite a sight. 

Also saw a Marsh Wren and several Black-crowned Night Herons. 
The last thing I saw was a nest built in the rigging of a steam shovel. Great place for a nest. I have no idea who built it.


You can see what a a great day I had! Leaving the bay, it began to rain, so hard I could not see to drive. Decided to stop for lunch and hoped to wait it out.  A couple sitting several tables over were commenting how they had been on Antelope Island and it was bright and sunny, and they had driven into a wall of rain coming east. Eureka! I'll just wait out the rain on the island!

It was indeed bright and sunny. The mountains to the east were black with rain and clouds. Headed west, the lake and sky disappeared into each other. Gorgeous. Can you find the horizon line in this photo?

  
 Driving across the causeway took a long time. It is only seven miles long, but I had to keep stopping to look.  Along the shore,  cranesbill (how appropriate is that?) was starting to bloom in great swaths of purple. That is a lot of color for a plant that averages three inches high.

The shoreline along the causeway was also filled with large populations of avocets and stilts.  I had great fun watching these long-legged, long-billed birds poke around in the silt.


But better yet, there were lots of Eared Grebes. They spend most of their time diving. I was absolutely elated to see these birds.

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They are really fast divers. I got lots of pictures of tail feathers disappearing into the lake. Took me quite a while to get a good shot. 

 I am continually surprised to find how many birds have red eyes.Grebes are another in this list.

 Mixed in among the grebes were coots, red-head ducks and lesser scaups. Lesser scaup males and female below.  Love that bright gold eye.

I haven't figured out who this little bird is yet, but it is charming. 

I also saw a raven, about 20 great blue herons, more meadowlarks and yellow-headed blackbirds. 

 











 



Along with the eared-grebe, I had two other major triumphs for the day. 

One was this loggerhead shrike. 

The other was a chukar. Talk about some interesting markings. The very conspicuous red beak and eye circle, bright pink legs plus the barred sides are just beautiful.

 Quite the day!   Oh, and the funniest part? When we were all convoyed up driving to Ogden Bay, we passed a field filled with the stubble of last year's corn crop. There may have been as many as 15 sandhill cranes poking around the field.  When we got to the Bay and were waiting on the ranger to come open the gate, I mentioned seeing the cranes. Not another person had noticed. In retrospect I wish I had pulled over and taken a few pictures as they were closer than any of the cranes we saw during the trip. 

Driving home, the further east I got, the more rain I drove through, but you could see the mountain tops all had a new frosting of snow. 

I was exhausted and happy when I got home. But my eyes hurt, I was looked out.   

17 April 2013 - Fruitless

April is such a fickle month. We started out with wonderful warm days. We have even mowed some of the lawns--twice. Last weekend it got cold and snowed on us for a few days. It didn't stick for very long. Even today it snowed. Big flakes. I lay in bed and watched the snowflakes drifting through the apricot tree. The tree had just started blooming so the snow filtering through the branches made it look as though the petals were falling.  Between the snow and our forecast for a hard freeze tonight my best guess is there will be no apricots this year.

Jack and I ran some errands that took us down into the valley today. Once off our hill you could really see that spring has arrived. All the early trees were in full bloom: purple plums, pink cherries, white pears punctuated by bright yellow forsythia. Daffodils, tulips, grape hyacinths galore.  Lots of purple, pink and red creeping phlox in large mounds. The big trees are surrounded by an aura of green. I could hardly drive for looking. I love this time of year! 

There is a small house with a huge yard that is always filled with spring flowers. We passed it today and I had to stop. The early red tulips are almost gone, but the grape hyacinths were gorgeous. In the sun they are electric! This picture isn't even a tenth of the yard. It is a wonderful sight. Makes me want to plant them in my lawn and let them take over, but the deer love them. Drat.

 

It was bright and sunny down in the valley. Looking back up at the mountains, the sky was gray, clouds lowering over the peaks, most likely snowing. Typical April dichotomy. 


Yet another strange dichotomy for April is that today is the anniversary of my father's death, and yesterday Bennett's.  Such sadness in the middle of this exuberant rebirth.  My very cynical self grouses about death and taxes, but my less cynical side thinks that maybe April is a good time to remember and reflect as it is hard to wallow in sorrow when the world is erupting into this joyous explosion called Spring. 

28 March 2013 - First seeds planted

What a glorious day. Our temps hit 71, which was wonderful in the sun and a bit cool in the shade. To celebrate, after work I walked the loop. All the aspens are covered in fat catkins. Other shrubs and trees are setting buds. Lilacs have buds big enough to see a green haze.  I saw lots of daffodils with buds and even two in bloom. Hyacinths and iris are poking out of the ground as well. The wyethia and rabbit bush are showing as green clumps now. Maples and cottonwoods are showing flowers. Spring! You have to love the changes you see every day. Hard to believe that five days ago we had 6 inches of snow fall overnight. 

Jack and I had lunch on the porch, then late afternoon had befores outside as well. Sitting on the porch, looking out at the raised beds we could see the garlic was up 4 to 6 inches. We wandered out that way and figured out how to do a temporary fix on the deer fence. The deer have been in the garden over the last week and you can see the tops of the garlic have been cropped off. They will be in for a surprise tonight when they come back for dessert. 

As long as we were out in the garden, we raked up the raised beds and planted three rows of chard. This is the earliest we have ever been able to get seeds in the ground. Pretty darned fabulous. Raking last year's mulch off the beds was rather instructive. The soil was alive with sow bugs, millipedes, centipedes and worms that had been warming up on the surface. A very busy community under all the straw. This beetle was particularly nice. I've seen many similarly shaped black beetles, but the bright blue edges on this one made it spectacular. It is hard to see in the photo, the blue disappears, but his wing cases are edged in blue as are the shield wings on his pronutum. So cool.

Our peonies are beginning to poke up through the soil as well. I love this stage-- little alien growths. The deer leave these alone--or at least they did last year. 

Meanwhile in our bird world, the yard is noisy, absolutely filled with overlapping songs. The house finches are pairing up and the males sing long complicated songs in the tops of the trees. They are also busy feeding their chosen female in part of their wooing ritual. Great fun to watch.

We have a pair of flickers that spent the winter in the yard and are both still with us.  They are very busy at our suet feeders giving us a really good look at them. This is the male, the female does not have the red on her face.
  

27 Mar 2013 - Full Worm Moon

Tonight was the Full Worm Moon. Because it was a beautiful warmish evening, Jack and I were able to sit outside and watch it rise over the mountain. 

Why Worm Moon?  Supposedly the full moon in March is when the ground starts to warm up and the worms appear, bringing robins back. Northern tribes knew this moon as the Full Crow Moon, when the cawing of crows signaled the end of winter; or the Full Crust Moon, because the snow cover becomes crusted from thawing by day and freezing at night. Back east where the maple sugar trees are, it is known as the Full Sap Moon. 

Want to watch the moon rise with me? 

  

Yep. Pure magic. Gets me every time. 

 

23 March 2013 - Hawks

Quite a surprise this morning, waking up to six inches of new snow. We were pretty fortunate it was only six inches as it was a lake effect storm which can really dump a lot of snow. Most of the snow was to the west of us. 

I went out to get the paper and was standing in the driveway admiring the sun on the snow, and how the aspen catkins were wearing little glistening snow hats. Decided it called for a camera. 

I was fussed because the camera was not picking up all the sparkle that the eye sees. I became aware of constant pek pek pek sound, turned and saw a pair of hawks right over my head. I took way too many pictures of the pair, but they didn't seem to be bothered by me at all which was great.  Unfortunately, they were high in the tree and behind branches. 

 

  I got tickled when a flock of blue jays showed up to jeer at the hawks.  Only three jays show up in this picture but the pine tree was studded with jays like ornaments on a Christmas tree. 

Does it get any better than this?