Tag Archives: birds

Feeder Visitors

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I’ve been down with the flu or something like it, so have been watching the birds for hours the past couple of days. We’ve had some less common (for us) birds at our feeders, as well as many of our common visitors. I’ve sketched and photographed as many as I could, but there were quite a few more I was unable to capture. (click on photos to view larger)

Downy and Hairy Woodpeckers

Mourning Dove

Male Hairy Woodpecker

Male Brown-headed Cowbird
Chickadee gathering Rowan’s hair from suet cage

Chipping Sparrow

Pine Warbler
Female Purple Finch

Male Purple Finch
White-throated Sparrow

Tribute to a Tree

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Last fall we said good-bye to our magnificent Horse Chestnut tree. For the past twenty-five years I have watched its sticky, reddish buds swell throughout April, then burst forth at the beginning of May in red-tinged white mounds standing up on the curved branches like candelabras. I know I have photographed the tree lifting its blossoms and large palmate leaves over the peak of the roof, but amazingly, I can’t find a single photo of the whole tree as I search my files. I do have a number of photos I took from the window by my desk of the squirrels and birds that found shelter in the tree.

I still catch myself looking out the window to see if a squirrel is poking his head out of the hole in the trunk or sunbathing on a branch.

Red-bellied Woodpecker

Pileated Woodpecker

When we moved here, we found an album of old photos, and this one shows our house circa 1941, with the Horse Chestnut standing tall over the roof the behind the house.

We also found this old painting, done in the fall of 1942.Unfortunately I can’t decipher the artist’s name. You can see the Horse Chestnut tree just to the left of the house (this is looking at the back of the house). The person who bought the house in 1941 (Dorothy Dunbar Bromley) put new siding and a new roof on, which is why it looks like a different house in this photo.

Watercolor painted from my desk window

As a project in a watercolor forum, we had a “Conker painting contest,” when I was just starting to get serious about art after years of homeschooling my children. Many of the forum members were British, and there they call horse chestnuts “conkers.” My tree provided an abundance of conkers to use as subjects, as I tried new watercolor techniques.

When PJ was visiting us in the spring a couple of years ago, she spent most of every day outside, sitting motionless for hours, watching the tree. She was watching for squirrels, but whether they were visible or not, she sat or lay down, never moving her eyes from the tree.

How to Appreciate a Tree by PJ

The wood of the Horse Chestnut is dense and hard, so my son Jonathan saved much of it to use in woodworking. For Christmas he made a checkerboard for my nephews Oliver and Felix.

Jonathan and Steve stacked the logs out by our stream, and I plan to do a watercolor of the woodpile. I miss my tree, but perhaps we will yet have ways to enjoy and cherish it in art and memory.

Ducks in Trees and Other Delights

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I slipped quietly onto the boardwalk after watching the sunrise over Lake Erie at Maumee Bay State Park. As they were the day before, the Red-wing Blackbirds were again the most numerous and clamorous of the birds, but suddenly I heard a louder rustling than one of them could have made. I looked up and saw…a pair of Wood Ducks perched in top of a tall tree! The photo on the left shows the tree, a ways away from me and quite tall, with the duck perched near the top. I knew Wood Ducks nested in holes in trees a fair distance from the ground, but I had never seen them perched so high. During this morning walk, I observed many of them flying to and from tree tops. 
Wood Duck perched in center tree
Zooming in on perching Wood Duck
Next I spotted a bright-eyed raccoon watching me through a screen of reeds…

You can’t see me…

A couple of Hermit Thrushes hopped and perched in the underbrush, bobbing their tails as they  watched me passing by.

Hermit Thrush

 After almost three hours rambling along the boardwalk, I headed back to the Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge. When there, I found only five Trumpeter Swans where there had been thirty-four the evening before. Were they on their way farther north?

Several Blue-winged Teals were feeding– the first I’d seen in many years. The blue on their wings was beautiful when they flew.

Blue-winged Teal (male)

There were two families of Canada Geese on one pond; one pair both had bright white chin straps…

whereas the other pair both had chin straps that were more of a tan color. I am trying to determine if they are a different subspecies. Does anyone reading this know? I know there are seven subspecies of Canada Goose (and four of the related Cackling Goose), but I can’t find descriptions with photos.

Everywhere I went I heard the Red-winged Blackbirds proclaiming their ownership of reeds, trees, and shrubs. It was a privilege to visit this land that belongs to them and all these other denizens of the wild, and I look forward to visiting again someday. In the meantime, may they be fruitful and multiply and live in safety in their beautiful world.

Red-winged Blackbird

Birding in NW Ohio

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Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge

I
knew I’d be ready for some time alone after three days with 2,000
people at The Festival of Faith & Writing (more on that in a later
post), so I planned a meandering journey home with plenty of time for both
planned and spontaneous birding breaks. I spent this afternoon and this
evening along the coastal marsh areas in NW Ohio, stopping at nearly
every wildlife refuge and natural spot I came upon.

Maumee Bay State Park

The
soft pastels of the cattail marshes spread far and wide, dotted with
clumps of trees, alive with a plethora of Red-wing Blackbirds singing,
squawking, and flitting by. I’ve always liked the showy males with their
red and yellow epaulets, but I’m finding that now I especially love the
more muted, yet still striking, colors of the females. These blackbirds
filled the air with their song, perched on reed
and small trees throughout the marshes, watching me walk by on trail and boardwalk.              

Great
Blue Herons, gulls and terns of various sorts, Egrets, and Bald Eagles
fly over the marshes. At Magee Marsh this evening, there were about ten
Great Egrets feeding in the pond, standing still, bill poised over the
water, then suddenly striking. 

 

The ponds are filled with water birds,
and I saw my first American Widgeon, Greater Scaup, Northern Shoveler,
and Trumpeter Swan. Thirty-four Trumpeter Swans! They were dotted
throughout a waterway in the Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge, reaching
under to graze on water plants, then lifting their graceful heads to
look around. I didn’t want to leave, and kept stopping my car to watch
them.

Trumpeter Swan
Northern Shoveler

I
walked a mile or so back in the Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge,
enjoying the sights and sounds, the wind blowing so hard I couldn’t hold
my binoculars steady. That wind meant few songbirds were active, but it
also meant that, when I was downwind of a muskrat, it had no idea I was
there and so it came fairly close, ripping grasses to carry away.
Eventually he had gathered enough, then he slid into the water and swam
off with a tremendous mouthful of grass.

A
refreshing day of solitude immersed in the beauty of creation. From the
excitement of “firsts” to the quiet wonder of watching a muskrat
gathering grass, my soul was nurtured and filled as I savored God’s good
handiwork.