Fecal Sacs!

I've learned to expect the unexpected within my hour of observation, yet am always surprised by it. Today's mystery was to notice that after every few deliveries to open-mouthed babes at doorway, one of the housewren adults ducks its head inside the house and flies away with something white in its beak---about the size and shape of a large vitamin capsule, and bright white in the sun. Backyard Birdlover's Guide answers the question: "Both parents feed the young after the female stops brooding them, and both carry off fecal sacs."

By 7:30 a.m. I was on the swing with my breakfast and a day's worth of writing supplies, hoping to witness the moment of new freedom for the nestling housewrens. When this watch began 42 days ago I stood for long periods with camera poised, attempting to capture a photo of Mama or Papa Small entering or leaving the house. It required patience and resulted in weary arm muscles, not to mention many photos short of mark. Could never get camera still, shutter open, and bird in doorway simultaneously. When at last I captured a blurry shot I considered it a prize. Now, so often do they come to the door with special deliveries, I can get clear shots almost at will. Next prize will be the fledglings pushing off, if I'm lucky enough to be here at the moment. dkm

Halleluia Chorus / Nestwatch Day#41

NOW the housewren nestlings make the noise I was waiting for. The nest came alive in my absence. I had guessed the nestlings would have fledged in the eleven days I was gone.

Two wide open mouths at a time, poking through the doorway. How many in all? Do they take turns coming to the door? Time will tell, but only if I'm here to see it. Moe tells me he first heard them four days ago. Today they make a constant chit chit chit chit even when their parents are away hunting food. And when one of the parents arrives at the door with a new delivery they go stark raving mad. Halleluia Chorus or me first, me first me first!

I thrill to find I'm home in time for their first out-flying---the better to discover what happens immediately thereafter. The brown headed nuthatches disappeard completely on the lucky day I observed their first fledge, at 10:15 in the morning, never to be seen again. Heard but not seen. I was under the impression they would have returned to their house for a few days---wrong again---as in so many of my guesses based on limited observation and knowledge. Their fledge was a surprise to me, just four days after I first heard them. What a glorious moment it was, though. That was before I turned my backyard journal into a blog. Sorry you missed it.

Now hoping to be more attentive to housewren fledglings, as I'm home for almost a month before next trip. Mama and Papa Small no longer enter the house with the pizza deliveries. They only poke their morsels into the gaping mouths in the doorway and take off again. The nestlings are running their parents ragged, never to be satisfied, not unlike human families. If you look closely at the photo by the header of this blog, you can see the gaping mouth of a nestling through the doorway. That photo was taken today. Will try to capture a clear one of the nestlings as they emerge. That would make me sing.

Perhaps today or tomorrow will be their big day. Let me not miss it while I go to house for binocs. dkm

Remembering the Crane

Came a crane---large, slow, level, low, close, gray.

Each downward wingpump pushed 5 cubic feet of air out of the way as the crane moved along its path over the water. How can wings that slow keep a bird that size aloft? And it was silent.

A farewell gift from the bay. I drove home all day spinning Ch 11 and remembering the crane. dkm

Fresh Supper

An hour ago this mullet was swimming happily in the bay. A fisherman motored by, slow and close to the dock where I was sitting. He was throwing nets. I flagged him down to ask if he'd sell me a couple mullet for my supper.

F: I only got three. I'll give em to ya.
D: I'd gladly pay for them. Don't you fish for a living?
F: (Might as well have rolled his eyes) Yeah, but 3 or 4 hunderd pounds at a time. I'm just fishin today.
D: Trouble is, I don't know how to clean a fish. Can you fillet them for me?
F: You got a knife?
D: Not a sharp one. Can you do it with a dull knife?
F: If you hurry up!
D: (Laughing) Okay, I get the point.

Three large mullet and three smaller fish were flopping on the floor of his boat. I ran to the house and returned with three knives and a grocery bag. He chose a knife and set to work on my dock.

D: While you're at it I'm going after my camera.
F: I'll be done before you get back!
D: But I want to give you a couple of greenbacks for your trouble.
F: Suit yourself.

I returned in time to get several good photos. He threw the heads, backbones, entrails, and the three little fish into the bay.

D: What kind are the little ones?
F: Junk in the net.
D: The crabs will eat well tonight.
F: You gotta crab trap?
D: No, I'm leaving tomorrow. Take this for your trouble.
F: I can't take $20 for three fish. Don't you have change?
D: Keep it. It was worth it for the photos.
F: If I had a stone I'd sharpen your knife.
D: Buy yourself a good bottle of wine and have a nice evening.
B: Thank you, ma'am.
D: Thank YOU.

I dredged the fillets in salty flour and fried them in olive oil. Mmmmm. dkm

Quiet Interrupted / Red Shouldered Hawk

Oh, that I could keep my mouth shut. I might have been able to make a positive identification with the help of my friend Roger Tory. But who wouldn't have been startled by the loud crash in the tall grass on the other side of the screen? I had been deeply engrossed in revisions of Ch 10.

I looked up, directly into the eye of what I think was a red-shouldered hawk, not 5 feet away, with only a screen door between us. He flew away immediately, gone from sight by the time I hollered, stood, and got to the door. What I could see in his momentary landing and take-off, aside from that scary eye-to-eye part, were large rust colored wingtops and a distinctly striped tail as he pushed off. His body was about the size of a crow, with smaller head, larger wingspan. I'm pretty sure he was after the little green lizard that had been rustling around in the sunny grass, entertaining me as I worked. Imagine HIS surprise. I hope I saved him by my scream.

I couldn't tell if the hawk was successful. I'm thankful I have only to open a carton of yogurt and stir in a few almonds for my lunch. dkm

What the Titmice Taught Me

Watching this family of fledgling titmice at close range over my week of breakfasts on the front porch swing at the fish camp/bayhouse has been enlightening and confounding.

Enlightening in that titmice have a much wider variety of songs than the simple Peter-Peter-Peter that Roger Tory Peterson describes. They also have a chirring sound, a chip chip, and a meowing-like tune. And sometimes a cheer cheer similar to a cardinal, all directly observed. Not as loud as a cardinal.

Confounding in that the more I learn, the more I realize I don't know. They sometimes sound so much like a cardinal I would have thought I was mistken, if I hadn't been watching them produce the sounds. I may never again be able to distinguish between the two without an actual sighting.

And to complicate the conundrum, I did spy a cardinal in the driveway later, when called to the porch by what I thought was the song of titmouse, only to discover a mockingbird singing his heart out on the porch rail, making a mockery of the whole question. dkm

Mullet Shower

While most of my outdoor meditation this trip is done over WL ms, I've done enough yoga and think-sitting on the little dock to see on multiple occasions, single silver fish jumping straight out of the bay and landing with a belly flop. Long lean fish, about 12" in length, 3-5" wide, and irridescent in the sun. I wonder if they are the same fish of that glorious ferris wheel I saw here last year. This year I've seen only solos. Jumping as often as they do, I would have expected a more graceful arc, ending with a nose-first slip back into the water. But no---this is a sudden vertical burst from the water, a mometary flail in mid-air, ending in a clumsy side-slap drop into the bay. Is it sport or do they fear for their lives? And what kind of fish are they?

My questions might have remained unanswered in this isolated "fish camp." I see only one fisherman pass by in the mornings and return in the evenings in a small motorboat,standing upright on the bow in serious fishing attire. Classic fishing hat with sun and rain flaps, sometimes draped in a net (?). I see him several docks away after his evening return, throwing nets.

Until Mr. ___ _____came to build a ladder on the side of this dock today. Born and raised here, a character of considerable quirk---my favorite kind. The fish are mullet, he said. They jump to escape the dolphins that come in from the ocean to play, and with whom he is on a first name basis. The dolphins won't hurt them, but the mullet don't know it. If you're lucky, you'll see a "mullet shower." (That explains last year's ferris wheel.) The dolphins are responsible, he said.

He said a lot more, soaking wet. "Who else has a job where he can swim while he works?"

Wish I could recount entire conversation, but won't, this being a public blog. As he was leaving he indicated the dead live oak, "That tree needs to be cut. Tell Ms._______I'll cut it for her." He confirmed my guess that the bees are honeybees. "Well then, we'll just cut the top and leave this part for em. Look a there. You don't see that very often. They're endangered, you know."

I said it would make the animal advocates of the world happy, to leave the tree.

"And me too," he said.

dkm

Nobody Came to Choir Practice

As I become increasingly familiar with the song of the Carolina wren I learn the quality of the song varies by individual bird. All follow the same general pattern and rhythm but each has its own characteristic sound. I have yet to see any wrens on the coast but I hear them early in the morning. This morning two of them woke me with their echoing call and response pattern. The first was a loud insistent chee-boogie-chee-boogie-chee-boogie-CHEE, with extra-emphatic accent on the final CHEE, as if trying to teach the other. The responder had a softer flutier sound to her call---more like video-video-video. And she never added the upswinging tag to the end. The more she didn't add it, the more insistent the first one becme in flaunting his upward CHEE! Until the lovely video stopped althogether and the braggert chee-boogie man went on as unrelenting solo for quite some time. Bully behavior?

Where are the chickadees, cardinals, sparrows, swallows, nuthatches, and towhees of middle Georgia? Do they not live on the coast? From 7:00-8:00 a.m. on the front porch swing, the woods are eerily silent and not a breath of air. One turtle dove in the distance. dkm

Disconnect

Today I will take my meals on the front porch swing to see if there are more birds in the thick growth of vine & moss covered trees on the land side of the house. Have heard Carolina wrens nd tufted titmice in the mornings, but haven't seen them, but for the persistent titmouse after his reflection in the car mirror.

This morning a family of fledgling titmice cavort in the trees and vines not 20 feet from where I swing. Small and disheveled looking, they don't yet have their sunny colored sides. They appear to be having time of their lives, swinging and hanging from the softer more flexible twines of whatever vines have taken over these trees.

I think now the one that is so enamored of its own reflection in the side mirror of my car is a youngster. Again and again it returns to have another go at it. It pecks and flutters against the mirror then perches on top to rest a moment before trying his hand again. I'm thinking the poor bird will have a distorted view of the world in later life.

All at once the titmice are gone, and the trees are silent. Where are the other bird species? dkm

Shore Birds

Knowing Audubon wrote that he felt incomplete if he didn't kill 100 birds a day is shocking enough. That he was able to do it is even more of a wonder, first for the question of how (I assume he shot them down), and second---where did he find them? That was the 19th century. It's a sad commentary on the pollution and habitat destruction of the intervening generations that I can't, in the 21st century, imagine such an abundance of any one species, unless in a migrating group. I was on the porch or dock almost all day today and did not come close to seeing 100 birds. Those I remember are pelicans, seagulls, hawks, a blue jay, that purple woodpecker, and a cute tufted titmouse that kept pecking and flapping at my car's side view mirror. I'm surprised that I see and hear many fewer birds here than at home. Different kinds, but fewer in number. Aside from the shorebirds over the water, only the woodpeckers and jays in the trees between backporch and bay. Where are the swallows of last year?

Question: Who says "ta whittle weeet?" One loner I hear only at night, including the night I arrived. An owl of some kind? That particular voice not described in PFG, but it sounds owl-like. And in the daytime, somebody I can't see sounds like a loud cat meowing. Only one. dkm