End of Spring Bird Tally

In April and early May it's all about the songs of courtship here in southern Ohio. Now, late May it seems to be all about the fighting to defend breeding territory and resources. Males are diving and chasing one another, while some females are already feeding babies and training fledglings.

In northern Ohio...Magee Marsh to be exact...birders were still getting good sightings as migrants tank up on caterpillars and insects in the surrounding wetlands and forests for their journeys even further north. I am experiencing a tinge of regret that I didn't make a second trip up after going at the end of April before The Biggest Week in American Birding began. The Facebook reports and photos from the boardwalk indicated a convergence of warblers, good weather and good winds. But I wanted to take a beginning birder friend who had never been on the boardwalk before, and not overwhelm her with the crowds that would show up the following weekend. We had a good time together, saw some beautiful warblers, and she got started on her life list.

While I love going to other places where warblers congregate, I love taking my binoculars and camera out at Prairie Pond Woods even more. There is such a comfort knowing which habitat...prairie, pond, woods, thicket or riparia...I can walk to so I can spot the Common Yellowthroat or Scarlet Tanager or Yellow-throated Warbler. No, I don't get some of the sexier warblers, but these birds on my list are like returning friends. Many have probably made the long journey and returned here year after year. That warms my heart. Every spring, when I hear the first song or see the first migrant I always make a point to say hello out loud and welcome them back.

Below is a list (in taxonomic order) I like to tally of the birds that were seen or heard at Prairie Pond Woods this March, April & May 2016. Since I am not always at the retreat, if I hear a bird, I am confident that given enough time I would have seen it...or have seen it other years. For this reason, I am sure I am also missing a few warblers whose songs I am still not familiar enough with to confirm. I've thrown in a photo or two...I am not the best at capturing rapidly moving creatures against the sky or hiding within foliage...so you'll have to use a bit of your imagination!

Great Blue Heron

Black Vulture

Turkey Vulture

Canada Goose

Wood Duck

Cooper's Hawk (who is this Cooper?)

Red-shouldered Hawk

Red-tailded Hawk

 Wild Turkey

American Woodcock

Mourning Dove

Yellow Billed Cuckoo

Barred Owl

Chuck-will'-widow

Whip-poor-Will

Ruby-throated Humming Bird

Belted Kingfisher

Red-bellied Woodpecker

Yellow-bellied Sapsucker

Downy Woodpecker

Hairy Woodpecker

Northern Flicker

Pileated Woodpecker

Eastern Wood Pee-wee

Eastern Phoebe

White-eyed Vireo

Warbling Vireo

Yellow-throated Vireo

Red-eyed Vireo

Blue Jay

American Crow

Tree Swallow

Carolina Chickadee

Tufted Titmouse

White-breasted Nuthatch

Carolina Wren

House Wren

Golden-crowned Kinglet

Ruby-crowned Kinglet

Blue-grey Gnatcatcher

Eastern Bluebird

Swainson's Thrush

Wood Thrush

American Robin

Gray Catbird

Brown Thrasher

Blue-winged Warbler

Northern Parula

Magnolia Warbler*

Cape May

 Yellow-rumped Warbler

Yellow-throated Warbler

Pine Warbler

Prairie Warbler

American Redstart

Worm-Eating Warbler

Ovenbird

Northern Waterthrush

Common Yellowthroat

Hooded Warbler

Yellow-breasted Chat

Scarlet Tanager

Eastern Towhee

American Tree Sparrow

Chipping Sparrow

Field Sparrow

Song Sparrow

White-crowned Sparrow

White-throated Sparrow

Dark-eyed Junco

Northern Cardinal

Rose-breasted Grosbeak

Indigo Bunting

Red-winged Blackbird

Brown-headed Cowbird

Baltimore Oriole

House Finch

American Goldfinch

That's a total of 79 species...well short of the overall 98 species recorded at
Prairie Pond Woods

CAMERAS, COLORING & COLUMBINE!

SPRING WILDFLOWERS AT PRAIRIE POND WOODS

 

Come with your CAMERA! Come with your CRAYONS!  

Come with your COLORED PENCILS!

Come with your love for COLUMBINES!

Come CELEBRATE Mother's Day!

(or just the other stuff :-)

Find out more at this link:

REGISTER by MARCH 10, 2016

 WILD COLUMBINE ON DOLOMITE ROCK

 JACOB'S LADDER

 DOGWOOD BRACTS & FLOWERS

 ONE OF ONLY A FEW LARGE-FLOWERED TRILLIUM...BUT IT'S A START!

 PHLOX

 

PHLOX by the ROAD
 

BLUETS

Bird Watching as Meditation Retreat

Just to give you an idea of what you might encounter at this year's Bird Watching as a Mediation retreat on April 22-24, here is a blog post from a previous retreat....  You can register online HERE.

 
A few themes emerged from the recent Bird Watching as Meditation retreat, but most prominent were the differences between Seeking and Discovering. Each has it's time and place to be sure...but I think we agreed that beyond the goal-oriented approach to encountering wildlife, or life in general, we enjoyed just placing ourselves in a "state of seeking," or acceptance, to let Life's gifts and discoveries unfold.

Pink Lady's Slipper

 "We sought and we found. We wandered and discovered...Pink Lady's Slippers, a Field Sparrow's Nest, a Baltimore Oriole, Warblers, Columbine, Rose-breasted Grosbeak, good food, good conversation, lovely and wonderful precious encounters with nature."  - D. W. 

Saturday's cool temperatures and wind during the day made it less than stellar birding...but on the night hike we heard a clear and very close song from the upper prairie of the Chuck-wills-widow...a rather rare night jar species in Ohio...with most populations being only in Adams Co!  

 "Thank you for a marvelous weekend filled with bird sightings (many firsts!).  Your guidance has helped open wide the door to local birding." - D. M.

Male Rose-breasted grosbeaks

Sunday was filled with lots of discoveries and gifts of beauty. We heard or saw 52 bird species...over half of the 97 species at the last Prairie Pond Woods end-of-year count...in one weekend!  And while it is nice to hike the woods, strain the ears and get "warbler neck," we also enjoyed watching the Rose-breasted Grosbeaks at the feeder, while having our scrambled eggs, fruit & yogurt and toast on the deck!

"The beauty here is astonishing! The land recovers when given love and stewardship. The diversity of the flora and fauna - the birds! - make this a most holy place. I spend my days and weeks when away figuring how soon I can come back." - S. C.

Showy Orchis by the creek

Below is a list of the bird species, a few more photos...and one last quote from a guest. 

"I am always blessed to be at Prairie Pond Woods.  It refreshes my spirit and soul.  I leave with a treasure in my heart."

Wild Columbine on Dolomote slump rock

Turkey Vulture

Canada Goose

Broad-winged hawk

Red-shouldered hawk

Wild Turkey

Mourning Dove

Chuck-wills-widow

Ruby-throated Hummingbird 
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Pileated Woodpecker

Eastern Phoebe

White-eyed Vireo
Yellow-throated Vireo

Red-eyed vireo

Blue Jay

American Crow

Tree Swallow
Carolina Chickadee
Tufted Titmouse
White-breasted Nuthatch
Blue-gray gnatcatcher
Eastern Bluebird
Swainson's Thrush
Wood Thrush
Cray Catbird
Brown Thrasher
Blue-winged Warbler
Northern Parula
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Black-throated Green
Yellow-throated Warbler
Prairie Warbler
Black & White Warbler
Ovenbird
Louisiana Waterthrush
Common Yellowthroat
Hooded Warbler
Yellow-breasted Chat
Scarlet Tanager
Northern Cardinal
Rose-breasted Grosbeak
Indigo Bunting
Eastern Towhee
Chipping Sparrow
Field Sparrow
Song Sparrow
White-throated sparrow
Brown-headed Cowbird
Baltimore Oriole
American Goldfinch

American Goldfinch Preening

Female Rose-breasted Grosbeak

And of course our companion throughout the retreat, Cyon

SHINING LIGHT ON DARKNESS

I’ve been caught up in reading the book Learning to Walk in the Dark by Barbara Brown Taylor. At first I thought it was going to be a book about how to walk through the trials of life – and in fact gave it to a friend, having never read it, who had been diagnosed with cancer. After skimming through an article in Time Magazine at a doctor’s office, I thought it might be appropriate for her and bought a copy. A practice I don’t really recommend. The book turned out to be not so much about learning to walk through our dark times but, fortunately, a delightful and thought-provoking book about how to reframe metaphorical and accept actual darkness. With the Super Harvest Full Moon Lunar Eclipse about to take place, reading and blogging about this book seemed serendipitous.

Ms. Brown took a year to study the dark and write about what it could potentially teach us. She dined at a trendy restaurant where real blind servers wait on customers in blindfolds. She spent half a day in a “wild” cave…the kind not open to the public. She walked in the dark to a meadow and waited for the full moon rise. She brought new light to the “darkness” often referred to in scripture, challenging some of the old dualistic ways of thinking. In the end, she concluded that we need as much “endarkenment” as we need 
enlightenment.

There is something about the absence of light, AFTER the sun goes down, that has always comforted me. It is a time of no expectations. Work is done. No one is going to call or need anything. It feels freeing. When I go outside for my dog’s last circling of the grounds, the dark night feels claustrophobic, which is also comforting to me.  Her book resonated within me because I have always loved the night more than the morning. I considered myself a “night person” all through high school and college and the first 10 or 15 years of my 32-year marriage. As far back as I can remember, mornings were a struggle. Most fights with my mother were about getting up and getting going. Most of my marriage I always felt a bit guilty staying up late and getting up later than any of the other women I knew. Most “morning people” were complete enigmas to me. How could they possible wake up and bound out of bed, ready to take on the world, or at the very least their daily work? I need more transition time. After all, I was just doing something completely different in my dream as far as my brain and body were concerned.

I had a revelation once that I both hate to go to bed and hate to get out of bed, which can be quite the dilemma. Night people generally don’t get their vision for the day until sometime in the afternoon. It’s when the creative juices begin to flow, ideas come, energy increases…then it’s time to make dinner. Damn! This is probably why night people have not taken over the world. And once night people are in bed, that’s where they want to stay. My motto has always been,

“I don’t want to get up until I’m bored with lying down.”

I guess I enjoy my Theta and Alpha waves; those slower, more calming and creative brain waves we experience as we drift from deep sleep (delta waves) to being fully awake (Beta waves). In her book Ms. Taylor shares a theory that proposes humans were never meant to sleep continuously through the night. It theorizes that since the invention of artificial light, we stay up later (after it gets dark) and so our bodies need longer, deeper sleep, but it was not always this way. He believes that humans used to sleep for a sleep cycle, wake slowly, and then remain in that dreamy, sub-conscious state, when creative and spiritual thoughts were allowed to incubate for longer periods of time before entering a new sleep cycle. Now, when we wake in the middle of the night, we head for the medicine cabinet and don’t necessarily see it as something to embrace. But maybe we should.

One evening last week I decided follow Ms. Taylor’s lead and take a walk in the dark up our long gravel drive to view the night sky from the top. My German Shepherd, Cyon, well-equipped to maneuver without hesitation, trotted ahead of me until I couldn’t see her at all, coming back only to check on me now and then. I took a flashlight, purposing not to use it, unless I heard rustling in the bushes or up in the trees.  I failed miserably at this intention. 

At first I took my time, in order to both alleviate the only fear I had…falling…as well as let my eyes fully dilate to fully take in the light from the stars. But the further I got from the house, with its glowing windows and porch light, the darker it got and the more fearful I became of a 90-degree ankle turn or a full-fledged face plant. So the flashlight kept coming on just to see the condition of the rough road for the next few yards, then back off again. It wasn’t until I got to the top of the drive, overlooking the black fields and the shadows of distant hills, that I was able to spend time with the embracing darkness and the 200 billion stars of the Milky Way.

"Even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you."                 -Psalm 139:12

And this was one of her points...if darkness is as light...then both are Divine. She even goes so far as to say that, according to the Bible, God dwelt in darkness before light was even created, challenging our notion that darkness is bad and only light is good. And that maybe our negative perspectives of darkness have been learned.

While I stood there letting my eyes adjust, I kept thinking about all the nocturnal animals out in that opaqueness, some of them probably staring at me at that very moment. How much better their eyes are designed to see what remains cloaked for us. How much better their ability to hear and smell, embellishing night time instincts of hunting, caring for their young, or finding a mate. The darkness is almost as light to them, too. So much happens outside after we turn the last light off inside.

A few nights later I woke up and looked over at the bedroom window to see what tint of daylight was seeping through the curtain. When I saw none, I checked the clock, which, from my perspective, warned me in red lights that it was only 5:00 in the morning! Then I wrestled with a foreign idea: What if I got up right now and went outside? 

What?! But I’m very comfortable right where I am and still pretty groggy, I internally protested. 

What would Barbara do, I asked myself?  She would attend this fleeting darkness and be a guest of the sunrise.

Twenty-minutes later on the back deck, wrapped in a fleece blanket and sipping hot tea in the dark, I heard, for the first time in the morning, the Whipp-por-will singing his heart out. Way past breeding season, I wondered if he was now just praising the darkness of the night, or the coming light. 

I hope you will spend time outdoors experiencing the darkness of the Lunar Eclipse on September 27...make it a family affair.

In North America, the crest of the moon’s full phase comes on September 27  10:51 p.m. EDT with total eclipse at 10:47 pm

9:51 p.m CDT with total eclipse at 9:47 pm

8:51 p.m. MDT with total eclipse at 8:47 pm

7:51 p.m. PDT with total eclipse at 7:47 pm

The Curious 'Shroom

I TOOK A WALK TODAY....and thought, "What a great summer to be a Mycologist!"

While strolling along the upper prairie and into the woods this morning, I couldn't take more than four steps without having a colony of mushrooms at or near my feet.  The forest floor is coated with them, all at various stages in their short life cycles.  I have never seen so much fungi my life!

All the wet weather we have had in Ohio this summer is to blame...or thank. And you know it's wet when even the fungus has fungus growing on it!!

 Mushrooms can seem magical...just a small ball crowning the surface of the leaf litter...and the next day it's a full blown toadstool!  This is especially true after a rain because for mushrooms all you need to do is "just add water!"  Unlike plants and animals, the fruit of the fungus (what we call a mushroom) does not grow by cell division at its early stage...it grows by cell expansion, as water fills each compacted cell it already possesses.  Nature's sponges.

 The true mushroom or fungal body actually lies beneath the fruit, spreading underground or within wood. Like the apple and its tree, the mushroom is connected to tiny "branches" or filaments called hyphae, that acquire and store nutrients as they break down organic matter. Because they gather and store nutrients this way, instead of through chlorophyll and photosynthesis, they are called saprophytic organisms.

Some mushrooms have a special relationship with trees and shrubs, penetrating their roots and delivering nutrients like phosphorus and nitrogen, while taking carbohydrates and moisture from them  This mutually beneficial relationship is called a mycorrhizal association.

Mushrooms are not only full of B vitamins (some are a favorite food of the box turtle), hold moisture, and recycle decaying organisms...they are also ephemerally beautiful. Below is a gallery of a few more responding to the recent rainfall.  You don't need to know their names to enjoy their beauty or appreciate their role in the ecosystem.