Look! A bird!

[sinenomine]

I had a hawk get trapped on my screened porch this morning after crashing through a screen. Fortunately I was able to prop the door to the outside open and herd him out by walking around the perimeter until he found the door.

[mamselle]

Yesterday's delight: the swan family was back, with the cygnets nearly 3/4 their probable adult size.

They're still dark grey, and they're still lined up between their parents--cute little 4-swan defile' there--but it was nice to see them back again. I gather the downriver area they moved to suits them well.

They'd also apparently gone up on the beach earlier, there were a number of white feathers all over the place on the path.

Happy.

M.

[Puget]

Two parakeets visited my neighbors suet feeder this morning. I've posted on Nextdoor but so far no one has reported them missing. I'm sure they are having the adventure of a lifetime right now, but the poor things can't survive a winter outdoors here, and more immediately are probably not being to savvy about evading the local Coopers hawks.

[apl68]

This must be a season for escaped domestic birds.  Early this morning I saw a stray hen chicken at the city park.  She was heading down toward the pond, seemingly at a loss what to do next.  I heard a rooster crowing nearby, and found him perched in the bushes beside a fence a couple minutes' walk farther along. 

People keep chickens here and there in town, so it wasn't a huge shock.  The runaways still somehow managed to travel the equivalent of several blocks and cross at least one street to get where I saw them.  That's quite a distance for a yardbird.  Still not as impressive as the one that I once saw that had somehow managed to get all the way across to the other side of the pond.

[mamselle]

This morning I got some lovely backlit photos of the heron by the river.

I also got a shot of an urban turkey feather on the sidewalk where I saw the (?turkeyhen) and her 3 chicks a week or so ag--so they're back, too.

M.

[apl68]

I got about the closest approach I've ever managed to the great egret that sometimes hangs around the city park.  Not long ago I had a more distant view of two of them.  I've also continued intermittently seeing grey herons there.

[mamselle]

I have it on good authority that one of the two large waterbirds I saw yesterday was a night heron, which I mistook for a hawk (given its hooked beak and flight pattern), or (rather unlikely, really, no blue on it) a kingfisher.

The other was the same, persistent, consistent, lonely juvenile heron--the last of four larger birds seen over the past two years--I keep wondering where the others got to.

No swans, a few ducks; I saw the geese later: they were all in the ball field, on my way home. 

M.

[Langue_doc]

It's been a good couple of weeks for bird sightings.

Yesterday, on my way home after a bird walk, I came upon a great blue heron (one doesn't "see" birds; rather, birds decide to make an appearance) standing quite majestically on the shore of the small lake in the park. He seemed unfazed by the people taking his/her picture. A week earlier, on my drive home on Labor Day, sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic, a great blue heron flew quite low across the expressway. That weekend I saw yet another great blue in the bird sanctuary, standing in the pond, and then slowly wending his or her way upstream, looking for fish.

Bird sightings last weekend in the bird sanctuary yielded in addition to the usual cardinals, bluejays, red-winged blackbirds, grackles, catbirds, and other familiar birds, some green herons, wood ducks, a warbling vireo, a belted kingfisher, a solitary sandpiper, a pileated woodpecker, Eastern wood peewees, and common yellowthroats. On one of those days I also saw a red-tailed hawk fly just over the top of my car as I was parking in the sanctuary.

During the same weekend, I was sitting on the porch in a rural part of the state when I heard a buzzing by my ear. It was a ruby-throated hummingbird, saying "pay attention to me". After hovering in front of me for a few minutes, he flew off into one of the trees in the yard. The other highlight of that weekend was seeing an osprey in yet another nature preserve; I heard the calls first, and then saw the bird swoop down to settle on the platform.

On the bird walk yesterday, we saw several American redstarts, northern wood peewees, a red-bellied woodpecker, a downy, a northern flicker, a few chestnut-sided warblers, a Cape May warbler, a northern waterthrush, a very, a black and white warbler, and assorted other birds. There were also three or four raccoons leisurely climbing down a tall tree.

[mamselle]

Besides the shy, feathery-headed, neck-bobbing duck-like creature I saw this AM while walking at one end of the brook, I was startled by the night heron giving a "squawk" under the bridge at the other end, near the confluence.

He didn't quite get the timing right--the old blue heron with the huge wingspread would do it just as he was in the middle of the passage, so it really echoed--first time I heard it I jumped--but it was a reasonable attempt and I was glad to see him again.

He turned downriver, though, and took off, so I didn't get to confirm it was him, that's just been his 'spot' for the last few days, so I guessed it was and went on.

M. 

[cathwen]

Perhaps the "feathery-headed, neck-bobbing duck-like creature" was a merganser?

[mamselle]

I'll look that up, thanks!!

Without knowing where to start, I didn't try to figure it out.

M.

[apl68]

Sitting on a park bench, watching the dawn sky across the park pond, mind filled with troubling thoughts about yesterday, and the coming day's concerns.  Hearing early bird song as the sky grows lighter.  Then a heron flies high overhead, providing a timely reminder that:

He, who, from zone to zone,
Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,
In the long way that I must trace alone,
Will lead my steps aright.

You helped make my day, my feathered friend.  "Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given/And shall not soon depart" indeed.

[mamselle]

Glad it spoke to you, in that way.

This piece is a bit spine-stiffening, at times, too...written by a musician who was also a cleric:

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4lSauxyFWo

Words here (slightly different translation):

   https://hymnary.org/text/the_spacious_firmament_on_high

Simpler (read-as-you-hear) version here:

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwqqfbinUDY

I agree, it only takes one heron...

M.

P.S., another bird-themed meditation (Psalms, I think):

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCIKdjVooQ0

Also here:

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLGs_l6tFuA

[apl68]

Yesterday morning I awoke before dawn dreaming of a cat that kept making odd noises.  Then I realized that the odd noises were actually the sound of a nearby screech owl.  Funny how sounds can invade your dreams like that.

This morning I awoke before dawn to hear a hoot owl in the distance.  We're well-supplied with owls locally.  Appropriately enough, we have a children's program about owls coming up at the library the week after next.

[nebo113]

Canine barking madly on porch.  After awhile, I go out to see what's happening.  Little bird cornered but not reachable but no escape route.  Desperately attempt to melt into porch floor.  I put a thin cloth over the terrified creature, place gently on a bush....and it flies off in a flash.  Small titmouse.  No idea how it ended up on floor of porch, tucked between flower pots.