The Robin

“The robin flew from his swinging spray of ivy on to the top of the wall and he opened his beak and sang a loud, lovely trill, merely to show off. Nothing in the world is quite as adorably lovely as a robin when he shows off - and they are nearly always doing it.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden 

One afternoon last week, when the temperature was unusually mild for mid-February and allowed me to wear a light coat instead of a parka, I was walking down my street and heard the "chuckle" of a robin overhead. I looked up. First a couple flew over, heading southeast. Then another few, then more. I started counting. I stopped at 25. Altogether it must've been 100 or so flying in small groups from the edge of the Central Park of Morris County.

November 2017 (Margo D. Beller)

Robins are considered a harbinger of spring, even though there are robins that will remain in the snowy, colder north as long as there are fruiting shrubs or the ground has thawed enough for them to pick at worms and insects.

The American robin is a thrush, like the hermit thrush, wood thrush and bluebird. Its cousins are the catbird and the mockingbird. Despite having the same name it is different from the European robin, which is more of a songbird. (The English colonists likely saw one and were reminded of the robins back home.)
  
I continued my walk and turned eastward. As I approached a large white pine girdled with English ivy (not poison ivy) several robins flew in and started thrashing around in what I guess was a feeding frenzy. What could they be finding, I wondered. I took a right and started southward toward my home and more robins, likely from the same flock that had passed over me earlier, were now heading back north, stopping at every holly or cedar they could find. Unlike the pines and spruces, ivy, holly and cedar have softer leaves. So these robins were going after - what? Likely seeds, fruits or insects that came out in the milder weather. 

Why the large flock? Safety in numbers. Grackles form large flocks in winter before pairing off to mate in the spring. Sometimes the large flocks include starlings, redwinged blackbirds and cowbirds. I never know when the flocks will invade my yard but when they come down it is to look under the leaf litter for insects or probe the soft ground or mob the bird feeders. Sometimes there are robins following along. Like the grackles, the robin's bill is more suited to pecking into soft ground than cracking a sunflower seed. Unlike the grackles they stay out of the feeders, which is why I don't mind seeing large flocks of this particular bird.

Robin in fruiting red cedar tree (Margo D. Beller)

Lately I've been seeing robins on my front lawn and those of my neighbors, with some grackles and starlings. On the day before our most recent snowstorm I drove down the driveway and found at least a dozen pecking into the grass.

In his book, "What the Robin Knows," author Jon Young says the robin is a "sentry" that can tell us about the health of our environment -- if we choose to slow down, listen and observe. When a human is respectful, the robin doesn't fly away (even if it does watch warily). So when I see several dozen robins feeding while walking down a street named for our first U.S. president, I stay away a respectful distance and watch and then, when I must move, I move slowly and make no threatening movements.

You can learn a lot watching a robin. Watching these robins I learned which fruiting shrubs I should consider for my yard to draw robins and other birds. I learned that owners of even the most manicured suburban lawn can't kill off all the bugs or poison the grass since otherwise the robins wouldn't be feeding. I've also learned that when you see a large flock of robins eating like there's no tomorrow, they might know more than you do about changing weather. Luckily for the robins there are shrubs where the fruits aren't palatable until after a few frosts.

The most important thing I've learned from the robin is that no matter how bad winter can be, spring is always around the corner.

Long Island, NY, November 2017 (Margo D. Beller)

 

The Strangest Month

 February is the strangest month.

In the year I was born, my birth was on the coldest day of that winter season in New York City, according to my mother. MH looked it up and it is true.

Backyard, 8 am, Feb. 18, 2018 (Margo D. Beller)

Today, a week after my most recent birthday and after several days when it was warm enough to take a walk in a light jacket rather than a parka, I awoke to five inches or so of light, powdery snow. A cold front had swept through and clashed with the rain from the day before. Now, with the temperature above 40 degrees, snow has already been coming down from the trees and my plowed driveway is dry thanks to the abundant sunshine.

According to weather.com, this coming week in New York City the temperature will gradually rise from 47 degrees Fahrenheit today (Sunday) to 70 degrees on Wednesday before cooling to 47 degrees Friday and then rising slightly (with rain) over the weekend.

Oh boy, Mud Season!

This is not so unusual for February, even at a time of increasing global warming. Last year, at around this time, MH and I traveled down the Jersey shore to Island Beach State Park on a 70 degree day. Two years ago, the ground was frozen and I was seeking signs of life in the garden. Many years ago, when our nieces and nephew were much younger, we took them to New York's Museum of Natural History on what turned out to be a February day of record warmth, 72 degrees. Even longer ago, on my birthday in 1979, the man who became MH and I met in NYC for supper and it was so windy and so painfully cold we could not go more than a couple of storefronts down the street before ducking inside to get warm. We had supper in the first open restaurant we could find.

Apple tree, Feb. 18, 2018 (Margo D. Beller)

What is it about February?

About a year ago, writers for NorthJersey.com asked the same question. In what seems oddly prophetic they wrote:

Blame the jet stream for the wild gyrations in the weather.

“Most of this winter so far we’ve fallen into this progressive pattern where nothing has stayed more than a few days,” said David Robinson, the state climatologist and a Rutgers University professor. For much of the time, a steady west-to-east flow of upper winds has trapped colder air to the north. January was the 12th-warmest on record for New Jersey, dating to 1895.

But occasionally, because of an array of variables that affects atmospheric patterns, the jet stream bulges to the south, letting colder air down from Canada.

The Old Farmer's Almanac for 2018 has this prediction for the mid-Atlantic region that includes New York and New Jersey:

Winter temperatures will be above normal, on average, with the coldest periods in early to mid-December, late December, early January and early February. Precipitation will be above normal with below-normal snowfall.

The snowiest periods, it says, will be mid-December and mid-January. Most of the prediction has been correct but not the part about the snowfall. The snow on the ground today in mid-February is the most we've had this winter season.

Feeders and baffle with snow helmets. (Margo D. Beller)

February is the tail end of winter. By the meteorological calendar, spring starts on March 1. (The vernal equinox is March 21.) The days are already noticeably longer, with darkness at around 5:30 p.m. EST, about an hour later than in the dead of winter. As I was shoveling out a path to the bird feeders I was hearing cardinals singing out territorial songs. House finches and a tufted titmouse was singing, a flicker called and a downy woodpecker drummed against a tree. Overhead there were a couple dozen grackles flying by, angrily chucking. Just a few days ago an equally large flock of robins were all over my thawed front lawn, scrounging for worms and other food. Maybe they knew what was coming.

My indoor plants have also noticed the increase in light and have started sending out new shoots. It is far from warm enough to put them on my back porch but you can see they are ready to go, especially on the damper, milder days when I can turn off the heat and open some windows. Several plants are flowering, showing some welcome color.  

Before the snow fell I was already seeing some of the earliest weeds growing in one of my garden beds, a reminder of all the work I will have to do once spring - meteorological, vernal, whatever - becomes a reality. I can wait.

A Tree Grows

Several winters ago I was taking a walk in the cold early morning along a road near the local dog park and happened to see this little tree rising above the packed snow. Why had I never noticed this before?

Spruce, Feb. 1, 2018 (Margo D. Beller)

I looked at it as closely as I could because it was up a little hill and I didn't trust my footing on the snow. It is most definitely a conifer, a spruce from the way it is holding out its branches. It was getting lots of light thanks to the taller oaks having lost their leaves. Somehow the deer had not browsed it to nubs. Deer, as a rule, don't browse spruce trees because their leaves - the needles - are hard and prickly compared with the softer leaves of a yew or an arborvitae, something I know from painful experience.

But when a tree is small, a deer will taste the leaves and see if it is to its liking. That is why when we bought and planted Spruce Bringsgreen 10 years ago, I put in fence posts and strung deer netting around the little tree for the winter. I did it only the one time because Spruce, like all blue spruces, has proven to be a quick grower. It is now over 15 feet tall and its leaves are hard and sharp. The deer have left it alone.

This little tree is not a blue spruce, I think, but it is very much alive and growing thanks to taking advantage of its location on the top of a small hill.

Later that year, weeds surrounded the small spruce, obscuring it. I would not have seen it had I not known it was there. Thick stands of the invasive Japanese knotweed grew along the road in front of that hill, making it hard for a deer to get up there even if it was so inclined. Besides, with all the barking dogs at the dog park most deer, I've found, keep to the other end of the road where there are more open fields and, in summer, tall grass for browsing or bedding down on.

Down the road are much taller spruces, several of which were destroyed by Hurricane Sandy in 2012. Somehow a seed got blown or carried up the road by a squirrel or chipmunk, was planted and then left alone, allowing a tree to come up and replace at least one of those that fell.

There are so many seeds floating around us during the warmer months. This is how plants perpetuate themselves. Sometimes they put out fruits eaten by birds or rodents who either plant them as droppings or put them in the ground to store for the coming winter. Some seeds, like those of ragweed, make us sneeze. Some seeds blow into places where they manage to grow where least expected. Early on in our ownership of our house, we had many more apple trees and many more apples eaten by squirrels and deer. Several times I had to dig up apple tree seedlings from another part of the yard. Now that we only have the one tree whose apples I use, we have not had any seedlings in years. But I'm still vigilant.

In the woods, seeds fall and, if they are in an area where light comes in because of a gap in the taller trees, they may grow, presuming they are left alone and get enough moisture.

Every tree puts out hundreds of seeds every year because not very many will be lucky enough to  germinate.

This little tree, however, managed to be planted, left alone and given the right conditions to grow. It is a survivor, which is why I celebrate it. I hope to see it grow as tall as its parent.

A Taste of Spring

For a few short moments, I could forget it is just a week after mid-January. The temperature had gone into the upper 40s or low 50s F and the last batch of snow and ice had melted. The frozen soil was turning muddy in parts as I walked our nearly 1/2 an acre, picking up brush and other garbage blown in from other pails and then caught in fencing and snowed over.

Brook, once the ice melted (Margo D. Beller)

There is a titmouse singing its high-pitched spring song. The white-breasted nuthatches are singing their high-pitched, nasal song. They seem to think it is spring. The black-capped chickadees are searching the bushes and tree branches for any grubs or insects foolish enough to think it spring. I see a couple of daffodils and at least one hyacinth has been so fooled, sticking their noses above the defrosting soil.

I leave my property and take a walk. I feel the need to get out now that the ice has melted and the road is merely wet and not treacherous. Just a few days ago local waterways were thick with ice. Along the linear park near me called Patriots Path, the Whippany River was solid ice and you could see where the heavy rain that fell before the recent freeze caused the river to overspill its banks, creating a frozen wonderland.

Today, however, as I walked the water was flowing in the local brook and the nearby dog park had 18 cars parked in the lot and across the road - 18 people (at least) taking 18 dogs (likely more) out in the mild air to let them run around, not minding that their feet (man and dog) were getting mucky.

Whippany River overflow and freeze (Margo D. Beller)

I continued along the road and saw a number of robins flying around, picking at branches and also at the thawing grasses and dirt. Until now they have been living off what they can find, including the fruits left on the poison ivy and other vines or shrubs. (Some need a good freeze until they are palatable.) Now, the robins are looking for protein.

I walked and I was not alone. There are others out walking or jogging along the road. When it is arctic cold and wind chills in the negative numbers, the inclination is to stay in and hibernate like a bear, at least for me. So when it is finally warm and the sun is out, I try to be out too. I want to be part of a greater world, not stuck indoors. (However, I hope the bears are still in their dens!)

One particular woman is walking much faster than I am. I watch her move on, earbuds in, ignoring the world. I was stopped at a pond and saw that in the thawed part there were mallards - first a pair, then (when I moved out of direct view) about a dozen, males and females. And something else, a lone American black duck, a pleasant surprise. Like the mallards, black ducks are dabblers. They will swim on the surface and put their heads into the water to feed. Unlike the mallards, male and female black ducks look alike. So while I don't know whether this particular duck was male or female, I do know I got to see something the woman bopping to her personal soundtrack in her own little world did not (presuming she'd even care).

Ducks on pond - mallard pair and, on ice at left, a black duck (Margo D. Beller)

Reluctantly, I came home through the community garden where lately, for the first time in a while, I've heard the honking of the Canada geese that come down to the grassy field to feed and rest. Where were they during the freeze? Some office park lawn, no doubt. There are lots of those out here in the NJ suburbs.

As I write, the clouds have moved in and it is getting close to sunset, nowadays right around 5pm ET. There will be clouds and drizzle tomorrow, heavy rain the day after. It will be even warmer but then, as usual, once the rain is gone it will turn colder. Soon it will be the end of January. Then it's February. "Spring" is over until the real thing comes along.

When I was born, that particular February day was the coldest on record. I have to remember that when we have these January thaws. They are but a respite, a taste of spring, a reminder that no matter how bad (or cold) things get there is always another chance for a better day.

Bearly There

On this last day of 2017 the air temperature is in the teens, some 20 degrees colder than the average for this time of year. When I wake at 6am it is dark and, because I have lowered the heat and it won't come on full until 7 am or so, it is cold. I am curled up under two quilts, a sheet, with one fleece blanket below me and a smaller one over me. MH snores by my side. I am not inclined to rise before 7am and so stay huddled up in a ball until forced to leave my warm bed.

Just like a bear.

(Director Mike Anderson took this picture in 2014 at New Jersey
Audubon's Scherman Hoffman sanctuary in Bernardsville)

Ever wonder why you feel more sluggish at this time of year or eat fewer cold salads in favor of mashed potatoes, squash or anything covered in thick gravy? It is our body telling us that, like the bear, it is time to fatten up before a harsh winter when there is less food to be had and less daylight to find it. When I had to rise at 6am to commute on the train I needed an alarm to jolt me awake. Not now. But even with daylight it is a struggle to leave my "den" for the outside world.

I put out the feeders. Many mornings it is my only reason for getting out of bed.

At this time of year the bears should be hibernating but this intense cold is only recent. It was relatively warm for November into early December and there was a 16-day bear hunt that lasted until Dec. 16, so I thought the bears might be on the move and would menace my feeders and feeder poles, as they have done at least four times that I know of (one of those times a bear nearly destroyed my pear tree as it tried to climb to the one small pear still on it). I have been taking the three feeders in every night. Now I don't have to although I know the deer may put their front hooves on a baffle and attempt to knock the seed feeders enough to drop seeds for them to eat. At least one baffle was destroyed that way.

And yet, the number of bear complaints is down. According to a Star-Ledger article quoting the NJ Department of Environmental Protection, as of Dec. 20, "the activity of 965 black bears has been reported to the DEP, a sharp drop from the 2116 of 2016, the department's bear activity report shows.

"In addition to 261 sightings where nothing happened, 695 bears caused 'damage or nuisance' in 2016, a more than 50 percent drop from the 1,394 problem bears last year.

"In 2016, 722 bear sightings resulted in the animals simply leaving the area without doing anything."

My only reason for rising most mornings
nowadays (Margo D. Beller)

It was in 2016 that the pear tree was damaged. It was in 2015, on a bright late September afternoon, that a bear ambled through my yard, snapped off an iron arm from a feeder pole, nearly destroyed my house feeder and then ambled off to the next street. I guess that is considered not doing anything.

Still, despite the "few" bear sightings and the lower number of bears killed 409 versus 2016's 636, during what might be the last hunt for a while (the incoming governor pledged to suspend the hunt, at least for now), the thought of even one bear foraging in my yard is enough.

No, better to brave the cold at night and in the morning.

The intense cold is as hard on me as the high heat and humidity of summer. Bears have a thick coat to withstand the cold while they hibernate. They have the right idea, which is why you'll find me huddled in my quilts and blankets and flannels on this winter's night.

It is expected to be 5 degrees when I put out the feeders on the first day of 2018. Happy new year. 

'Interesting' Times

"May you live in interesting times."
  -- purported Chinese curse

As I write late in December 2017, the rain is falling and the temperature is expected to rise to 50 degrees. Not the type of White Christmas people in the New York area seem determined to have no matter how much trouble snow causes for travelers.

I sit on my porch, bundled against the damp coolness, trying to breathe it all in before re-entering my warmer, dryer house. Birds come to the feeder poles to find no seed outside today in the downpour, and their contact calls and the occasional cars driving by are the only sounds I hear. No leaf blowers. No lawn mowers. No shouting kids or barking dogs.

I think about this year. It started with a health crisis for me. On my birthday my main source of income dropped me and most of the rest of my co-workers. We lost two loved ones, a friend of 40 years' standing and MH's father, within three months of each other. 

Some would like to see a White Christmas. I do not. This is from several
years ago. (Margo D. Beller)

But there was also good. We got to New Hampshire to visit family more times this year, even though two of those visits were after, or because of, funerals. We celebrated our grandnephew's first birthday and learned that he will soon have a sibling. Our nieces, nephew and their spouses or boyfriend are gainfully employed, an increasing rarity for their generation.

We saw many friends including others from college days and some who have been friends since we worked together at other jobs, sometimes many other jobs. MH and I celebrated another anniversary and we explored much of the far end of Long Island.

And we saw the underpinnings of democracy be weakened by a president determined to blow up the good, rational parts of what makes our country work and replace it with lunacy - hollowing out whole departments by forcing out the knowledgeable, longtime people and not replacing them, or bringing in the type of political or religious hack (often a mega-donating billionaire) with no experience except a stated preference for closing the department he or she now runs.

We do not live in the age of statesmen, particularly in our highly partisan Congress, where working with people from the other political party is worse than a serious affront, it can lose you any power you've worked to gain through consistent re-election. Thus a tax bill that will hurt people in my home state, which already pays out more in taxes than it receives in government aid, while benefiting GOP-leaning states (and income brackets) that pay out far less and get far more in return. A tax bill that may result in my health insurance becoming too expensive for me to afford at a time when I am too young for Medicare and too old to be hired in the workplace, age discrimination laws notwithstanding.

This is more like what we expect for Christmas 2017.
It adds a bit of prettiness. (Margo D. Beller)

What do you do in such times? You hope. You hope the midterm elections bring about more people to undo the damage. (For how we got to this point, read Kurt Andersen's "Fantasyland." It explains a lot and is an easy but disturbing read.) You hope your grandnephew and the rest of his generation grow up to make the world a better place. You hope you live long enough to see it.

This doesn't have much to do with birds, does it. Well, here's something: My new year's wish is to see more birds for the first time and thus add to my life as well as my Life List.

Happy holidays.

Birding for the Soul

The natural world is a gateway to the timeless and the infinite. We can never understand it completely, and so for us it serves as a bridge to the infinite.
 -- Thomas Moore, "Ageless Soul"

"These are the times that try men's souls," MH tells me as we slowly walk down a gentle incline, kicking through beech, red oak, white oak and tulip poplar leaves, trying to avoid the rocks and roots. He is not talking about what's going on in the world now. He is quoting Thomas Paine regarding George Washington and the War of Independence.

Looking back up from the hollow. (Margo D. Beller)

We are on a narrow trail through woods at the Morristown (NJ) National Historic Park known as Jockey Hollow. Washington and his army camped at Jockey Hollow twice, the first time for a few months in the winter of 1777 and then for a longer period starting in the winter of 1779 - much more time than the better-known winter encampment at Valley Forge, Pa.

I do not like winter, and since my last post on the subject, MH's father died. As we walk in the woods, past tall, century-old trees that sprang up after Washington's army left after clearing the original trees to build huts and cook their food, it is cold and quiet, only us except for the occasional dog walker.

There are a lot of hills and valleys in this park. This particular trail, named for the New York State Brigade, is leading to what may be THE hollow for which this park is named.

Our hike here was not planned. I stopped here because I like driving the paved tour road through Jockey Hollow when we are headed elsewhere, and then I had to make a stop to adjust something. MH suggested we hike the path near us. Our motivations were different. I was looking for a place for us to walk and maybe hear a few birds. He was thinking of our recent hike at Washington Crossing State Park, the area where, on Christmas 1776, Washington brought his army across the Delaware River into New Jersey to surprise the British at the Battle of Trenton. We hiked near the river after looking at the artifacts at the park's museum. I was not expecting to find any unusual birds but I was pleasantly surprised to find a yellow-bellied sapsucker - a woodpecker I rarely see in our backyard - and a brown creeper.

Brown creeper, front yard (Margo D. Beller)

So here we were at Jockey Hollow. We walked a long while before we heard the contact calls of black-capped chickadees, tufted titmice and juncos, but MH heard something else - the scream of a red-tailed hawk. I did not hear it the first time but I did the second time, and so did the birds, which went quiet. I set about trying to find it with my binoculars. We slowly continued along the path.

Then, it flew from one tree to another.

I watched it watching me. It called several times. It must've been a juvenile - a male, judging by its size (female red-tails are larger) - because an adult would know that screaming would not get it any supper, winged or otherwise. Finally, it got tired of watching me and flew off. A minute or so later, the small birds started chattering again and MH said he wanted to start the hike back up the hill to our car.

I did not want to leave. A few winters ago I had to have surgery, and in the long recovery afterwards I only started to feel like myself again - well - when I went to the local park and started walking along the familiar trail and tried to find the birds I heard calling, something I enjoy doing.

Another red-tail in another tree
(Margo D. Beller)

In his new book, "Ageless Soul," Thomas Moore makes the point that there is a difference between aging well and getting old. As with the other book I recently read about global warming, this book has made me see another view of what I consider a negative experience. You can't change time. You can't make yourself younger, no matter how many pills you take or how much plastic surgery you have.

What you can do is enjoy the world around you, expand your horizons and make a difference.

"Work without play is a burden," he writes. "Play helps relieve some of the weight of labor."

For me, play is going outside for a walk and trying to find and identify birds, even if they are familiar ones I can see at the feeder from my kitchen. Birding is good for the soul and has been a way to help me heal through several winters of personal and professional changes.

The starkness of winter, Jockey Hollow (Margo D. Beller)

I think of all those Saturday mornings I felt compelled to get up and out of the house and go birding after a particularly hellish week when I was working in the city, away from home for 12 hours a day including work hours and the commute. Since working from home I sometimes feel a waning in my birding interest. "I've seen all these birds before. Why bother going outside?" I thought. That, I now know, is the wrong attitude.

As Moore writes, "[I]f you work without play, that soul work is neglected, and your work doesn't age you well. You get older as the years pass, but you don't get better as a person."

Like Scrooge on Christmas morning, I now know I can change my ways before it is too late.