See You in September

It is always with mixed feelings of sadness and relief that I take the seed feeders inside for the summer.

Carolina wren at feeder, from another year.
(Margo D. Beller)

The signs were there. Few of the birds I like - chickadees, titmice, white-breasted nuthatch - were visiting but there were plenty of birds I don't like:  A grackle hogging the house feeder. A jay swooping in again and again, swatting away any bird, including a big cardinal, that dared come to the feeder between swoops. A family of house finches - a brood already? - swarming the caged tube feeder, eating more than half the seeds in a day.

With the feeders inside for the next few months the downys and redbellied woodpeckers will have to work a bit harder prying bugs from tree bark as they walk along the side of a tree trunk. The cardinal pair that would be sitting on the feeder pole waiting for me to bring out the feeders in the morning will have to spend more time searching the trees and the grass for insects to feed themselves and their young.

They will do alright without me.

Hanging baskets 2018 (Margo D. Beller)

To give myself something to look at from my corner porch chair, I've hung two plants that usually spend the summer sitting on the sunny window ledge in my front room. This is an experiment to see if these plants can do well outside where they'll be rained on, baked in the sun and visited by insects. Who knows, the pink geranium might even draw a curious hummingbird.

There is one feeder still outside. The hummingbird feeder is out, hanging above the pink flowers of the perennial geranium and the coral bells, and I am hoping a hummer or two come by this year. The only other bird that concerns me now is this year's house wren, which has been singing continually to protect his territory. When the bird first claimed the box there was a second one, presumably a female that accepted the offered lodging. But lately I've only seen the one wren, singing from a tree, the feeder pole, on top of the nest box.

Apples in the making, 2018 (Margo D. Beller)

If there is a brood this year I should be able to hear it soon enough and I hope all will have fledged before the apples need to be knocked off the tree for me to use before the squirrels can ruin them. Based on all the flowers this year we'll be having another bumper crop.

So with apples and summer's heat and humidity on the horizon, it is a relief to not have to worry about taking the feeders in each night to avoid any bear, or put them out early each morning when my back is stiff. I do have water out for the birds and that is really all they need from me as long as there are insects to provide the protein. They won't need the fat from my sunflower seeds until it starts to get cooler and the days grow shorter after Labor Day.

And that is when the feeders will go back out. I'll miss the cardinals but I've no doubt they'll be back again.

Rainy Day Musings

The best thing one can do when it's raining is to let it rain.
-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

We have had rain for much of the last week. I sit on my back porch and listen to the rain fall, knowing human-made activity and noise will be at a minimum this Saturday morning and I'll have some unusual suburban peace and quiet.

Rain-swollen Whippany River, Morris County, New Jersey 2018
(Margo D. Beller)

In "Walden" Henry David Thoreau wrote that a "single gentle rain makes the grass many shades greener." This rain has done that, and also made it many inches longer. Weeds have sprung up and MH is going to have an interesting time using the mower, whenever things dry out.

There is little in the way of bird activity. A male cardinal looks for the seed feeder I did not put outside because I didn't want the seeds to get so wet they'd sprout. I can see the flowers from the forsythia, quince, apple and pear have already disappeared while the fading dogwood flowers are becoming overwhelmed by the leaves. The daffodils are finished but the azaleas, rhododendron, perennial geranium and coral bell flowers are opening. Out of nowhere purple columbine flowers have appeared.

There's always activity in the garden and in the woods but northbound bird migration may be slowly ending. I have been hearing a blackpoll warbler calling for the past four mornings. This bird, which looks like a black-capped chickadee, has one of the longest migratory routes of all the birds -- nearly 1,800 miles. Most years this would be one of the last warblers I'd hear in the spring, but the way the weather had been the birds were delayed, bunched together and passing through in a big rush, including the blackpoll. Still, when I hear its thin call I know migration is soon to end even though I still hear plenty of bird calls from those that will breed in my suburban part of New Jersey.

Friends south of where I live complain their gardens are becoming seas of mud and fear their plants will drown. Where I live we had a day off from the rain yesterday so MH and I could go out. As we took a walk around what used to be known as Greystone we sidestepped mud on the paths and saw lakes in the depressed areas of open fields. However, we also saw plenty of birds including hungry barn swallows flying over those fields that weren't inundated, hunting for insects.

2018 peppers, so far (Margo D. Beller

Rain is a necessary evil. It keeps you indoors when you have things you'd rather be doing outside, like looking for migratory birds or working in the garden (or doing more mundane but necessary chores like getting groceries). It forces ants, spiders and all sorts of creatures that live outdoors to come indoors - usually into the cellar but sometimes into the house, too. As long as we maintain power and the sump pump can keep running, I am not that concerned about rain.

That's because the rain has also woken plants from their winter slumber. Tree leaves have popped out and spread. Plants I knew I had but worried had died are growing. Plants I did not know I had make a surprise appearance. I have picked small but ripe peppers from one of the plants infested with white flies. This plant had to be put outside much too early, when it was still cool, to limit the damage to my other house plants. That these peppers, stunted but still edible, grew at all is amazing and no doubt helped by all the water. The other pepper plants I'm growing are flowering or showing fruits, the basil is growing nicely and the cannas have responded to the rain by sending up this year's shoots.

I can put up with the rain. When life is hectic it is good to sit and stare out and let your mind go blank. Is that "mindfulness?" Is that "meditation?" Call it what you will, I call it a necessary, good rest. And at some point, the rain will end. It always does.

Catching Up

Spring is usually a very busy period for me because birds are heading north to breed and I want to see and hear as many as I can. Now that I am on a much more flexible schedule, I was looking forward to having the time to do that.

However, this spring was not the usual spring in my part of the world.

After having a warm February we had a cold, wet March followed by a roller coaster of weather in April. Plants that had started growing too soon in the heat were stopped in their tracks by the cold. In March we had several nor'easters within a two-week period. The first brought down trees with hurricane-like winds. The second brought down 20 inches or so of wet snow that buried the early flowers and took down my protective fencing in one area.

Apple tree after the storm, March 10, 2018. (Margo D. Beller)

Even after the snow melted in March, it was too cold for me to consider being outdoors and repairing the winter damage to the garden. So I rigged the fences as best as I could to protect my shrubs from hungry deer. I hoped for the best.

In early April I'd finally had enough and went outside to survey and do some repairs. There was a lot to repair besides the fencing. Luckily, the early bloomers were still very much alive and were soon followed by the vast array of daffodils. Slowly, very slowly, the other plants started growing or, in a couple of places, not growing. Was it winter kill or did the squirrel do damage where it could get into the area? I'll have to wait and see next year.

Meanwhile, where were the migrant birds? Reports were few in April. The lack was understandable. After all, if you are a bird that weighs less than an ounce and you meet a 35 mph headwind, you're not traveling very far, no matter what your instincts tell you.

So I concentrated on putting in new fence posts and new netting to protect the three garden areas where, in my ignorance as a new homeowner long ago, I had put some flowers and shrubs that deer find delicious, particularly when they are in bloom. I had not planned to do all three beds - one of them had been done in October and had to be redone because of the snow - and it was a long, tiring job to do that once I had weeded the beds and pulled out leaves, twigs and other debris.

Once that was done, and I recovered the use of my limbs and back, I could concentrate on the birds. Thus it was in early April and not the more normal mid-March when I saw one of the earliest migrants, a phoebe. The bird made it easy on me by appearing in my apple tree early one foggy morning while I sat on my porch.

Same apple tree, now with flowers and wren box. May 7, 2018
(Margo D. Beller)

Now it is May and the floodgates have opened. The maples, oaks, apple and dogwood trees have flowered and leafed out. Even my peppers, potted and put outside, are flowering and showing signs of production.

The birds, like the tree pollen, flooded the area at once. For instance, the day after I read a report of a house wren in a nearby area I put up the wren box. The day after that, a bird appeared to claim it. He's been singing ever since and a female is in the nest. There'll be young soon.

This has been the same with other birds. They are making up for lost time, quickly nesting and mating.

Nowadays I have the time to listen to the dawn chorus and get an idea what birds are around. I can go walking in nearby parks and find all sorts of visitors and sometimes find multiples of the same type of bird. By the rivers, there are yellow warblers hunting and calling "sweet, sweet, I'm so sweet." In the woods are red-eyed vireos with their monotonous "here I am, look at me, up here, in a tree" call. One day this week I found three male scarlet tanagers and one female in adjacent treetops (for good measure I found a male cardinal and could compare the shades of red on the feathers).

It's truly the most wonderful time of the year, when it's finally allowed to come around.

A Walk in the Woods

Let's take a walk together, Reader. It is humid but cool and still cloudy after the rain. MH doesn't want to leave the house and test his balky knees, so let us be traveling companions this time. We will go to a local county park called Patriots Path, and because I don't want to muddy my sneakers we'll walk along one of its paved areas.

Patriots Path (Margo D. Beller)

There are paved paths and unpaved paths, deep woods and hills to climb over if we walked the whole thing. We will only walk one relatively small area. We'll see trees and a host of plants, some of which are now blooming. There are even bears, although I've only come upon one once, in a different area, and this one was more scared of me than the other way around and just kept going.

You and I will keep an eye out for bear and an ear out for birds.

This place is not far from my home. When I have a tremendous need to get out of the house, as I usually do during the northbound bird migration time, I come here to walk, relax and test my memory when the birds call. Like a great blue heron seeking a meal, we can stand very still for a while or walk slowly and find out if that slight movement in the tree over there is something common, like a catbird, or more unusual, such as a blue-gray gnatcatcher.

Let us begin.

We are in luck. Besides being cool and cloudy today there is no one else parked in the lot except mine and one other car. That means there should not be many joggers, dog walkers or mountain bikers passing through while we are on the path.

Notice all the water. It rained heavily last night and this area is prone to flooding. There are even mosquitoes to annoy us.

Marsh marigold (Margo D. Beller)

Everything is so green and lush from all the rain, more like mid-summer than late May. There are all the weeds growing. Lamb's quarter, a form of spinach that is rather tasty when eaten when it is small. There are ones to avoid including garlic mustard, swamp cabbage, Virginia creeper and, yech, poison ivy. We have other colors, too. There are yellow dandelion and marsh marigold. These pink flowers look like a form of geranium. These small whitish flowers are hepatica, I believe, a buttercup.

Lots of robins and catbirds flying everywhere, and a calling great-crested flycatcher (FWEEP!) and what's that reddish-brown bird that has flown to that tree up the path? A veery, cousin to the robins and other thrushes. They skulk on the ground but have a lovely, electronic-sounding song.

Stop and listen a minute. I can make out singing yellow warbler, song sparrow, American redstart and - there! - the sweet, fast song of a rose-breasted grosbeak! They came through our yard earlier this month to use the feeder. We had at least two males and two females but they nest elsewhere, not suburban yards like ours. And what is that in the distance? Sounds like the "tea kettle, tea kettle, tea kettle" of a Carolina wren, one of my favorites.

Mosquito breeding ground (Margo D. Beller)

So many birds, it's hard to separate one call from another sometimes. And there are likely many more birds around here that aren't calling and so I can't see them because of the foliage.

Some people think the state bird of NJ is the mosquito (it's really the American goldfinch) and the one that just got into my face and made me miss the bird calling from the branch overhead seemed about as big as a bird. That's the problem with birding at this time of year. I know there are birds around but the tree foliage makes it hard to see them and once there is rain the mosquitos, gnats and other insects hatch and only make things worse.

So let us return to the car.

Hold on. Did you see that branch move? That is another problem. Unless a bird is singing, it is hard to know what's around until you see a bit of movement. Was that the breeze or a bird? And which bird would be moving on the ground between the bushes? Stand here quietly with me. It is moving along...slowly...slowly. Ah, good, it has come to a place where I can see it and turned its head - a male common yellowthroat warbler. See the mask? He acts like a wren but sings "witchety, witchety, witchety."

Now there are more dog walkers and here at the lot there are more cars. School will be letting out soon and the rush hour traffic will pick up. It's already getting noisy. Time to put the binoculars away and head home. But wait, did I just see a mallard male quietly swimming? Yes I did, somehow.

Always something. Always.

Gone Birding

I like fishing. Not actual fishing - I like the peace and quiet of being at sea. It's different.
- Rafael Nadal

At this time of year, when the trees are leafing out and the migrant birds are heading north to their breeding grounds, I walk slowly through the woods, stopping every few minutes or even few steps to listen. Most of my birding seems to be done by ear at this time of year because the foliage makes it difficult to see birds up in the treetops scavenging for food. Unless I happen to see movement, a quiet bird is invisible to me.

Being patient while birding can be like fishing. 

When MH and I used to visit the house his parents would rent in New Hampshire every summer, I'd see his father going down to the end of the dock with his chair and his fishing pole and just sit quietly, staring at the water. When he got a nibble, he'd pull in the fish and then toss it back. He'd also do this when joined by his grandchildren.

Great blue heron (RE Berg-Andersson)

He wasn't there to catch fish for supper. I suspect he was there to get away from family members who got a little too noisy for his tastes, or he wanted some calm and quiet to recover from his days as a commercial loan officer at a busy New Jersey bank.

I know that feeling, too well.

So I was away from home, walking alongside the river and listening for the returning migrants I would expect to find in this area: yellow warbler, phoebe, blue-gray gnatcatcher, Baltimore oriole. They were all there plus some surprises, yellow-throated vireo and prairie warbler among them. Had I been jogging on the path with headphones on or walking through quickly, in my own little world (as I see many do), I'd have missed all of that. I am not out for exercise, although I know walking is good for me. I am there for the peace and the quiet and the birds.

On this recent walk along the river I was passed by an older man who responded to my hello. 

Seeing my binoculars he asked, "Have you seen the great blue heron? I'm a fisherman, but he's a much more patient one than I am."

Yes, I have seen the great blue heron, I told him, just not that day. 

This heron is a common bird wherever there are rivers, ponds or marshy areas. The great blue will stand stock-still for long, very long, periods of time - unlike most human fishermen - and can be easy to miss because its blue-gray coloring helps it blend in with its surroundings when it's at the water's edge. If a fish or frog happens to get within its reach, it snaps it up in its long, orange bill. Or it will stalk its prey, slowly moving on its long legs.

The great blue, unlike its smaller relatives such as the great egret, snowy egret, green heron and little blue heron, will spend the winter in my part of New Jersey where it can find food. I found one once in the middle of a snowy field near an unfrozen river, to its consternation. This bird looks almost prehistoric, like a modern pterodactyl. 

But when it flies it looks majestic. According to National Geographic, these herons are 3.2 to 4.5 feet in size and have a wingspan of 5.5 to 6.6 feet. When they fly they tuck in their necks and their long legs stream behind, making them look like a giant S. Up close they can scare the hell out of you when they take off, as one lurking bird did when MH passed too close on a nearby path. These birds can fly fast, at 20 to 30 miles an hour.

When they go fishing, however, they are much, much slower. And so am I, when I am fishing for birds.