Woods Wanderer

A couple days ago, while the sun was shining brightly at midday, I drove to the nearby Missisquoi National Wildlife Refuge to go for a walk. I took my binoculars with me, just in case. Good thing I did. A fellow birder pointed out a sandhill crane shortly after I left the parking lot. It was airborne a couple hundred yards away, crossing a huge field. I got a brief look at that huge bird before it disappeared.

At the beginning of a short walk around Stephen Young Marsh, I stopped by the viewing platform to see if there were any other birds around. I spotted a few Canada geese and a pair of ducks at the other end of the marsh. That is all. But I had a small bottle in my pocket to collect a sample of water from the marsh for later viewing. Good thing I did. I would find algae, protozoa and tiny crustaceans in the sample I took – the first stirring of microscopic life I’ve seen this year.

Then my walk began in earnest. I tramped through patches of mud and meltwater before reaching a boardwalk then slightly higher ground. With temps shooting into the 60s last week, I wasn’t surprised to find the trail completely free of snow and ice. With the sun beating down through the cloudless sky, I was quite comfortable walking despite temps no higher than 40 degrees. A woodpecker knocked, robins foraged on the forest floor, and red-winged blackbirds chattered in the treetops. Otherwise the woods were quiet and still.

I say I went for a walk, but it was really more of a meander. I was dressed for hiking yet moving ridiculously slow. I stopped repeatedly to look around. I scanned vernal pools for more signs of life. No peepers yet – too early for that. But I found clusters of their eggs in the shallow water. It won’t be long before their chorus begins.

I returned home with a touch of spring fever. Two days later, I’m still feeling that dreamy euphoria despite the winter storm now brewing at daybreak. Most people see snow and think winter, but I shrug it off this time of year just as the land does. It won’t stick. And a good run of 50/60 degree days is just around the corner, not to mention wildflowers awakening from their long slumber. This is my favorite time of year, chock full of promise.

Tags: awakening, bird watching, early spring, hiking, microbes, vernal pools

In the thick of winter, we have lots of visitors to our backyard feeders. I think of them as visitors, but most of them live in the surrounding trees. Robins and crows suddenly appear whenever the ground is free of snow, and migrators pass through the area in fall and spring. But this time of year, the denizens of the forest stay with us: woodpeckers, nuthatches, chickadees, etc. And goldfinches, of course. They’ve been coming around by the dozen ever since Judy hit upon the kind of food that they like: black oil sunflower seeds.

Credit where credit is due: Judy is the one who has developed our rather elaborate feeding stations. If it had been up to me, there would be one lousy feeder full of cheap bird food out there and the occasional visitor. But through research, along with trial and error, she has figured out what works best. As a result, we have birds in our backyard every day throughout the winter months.

Mourning doves forage on the ground beneath the feeders, accompanied by squirrels. The squirrels would get up into the feeders and clean them out if they could, but we’ve installed baffles on the poles that keep our feeders seven feet off the ground. One incredibly acrobatic squirrel managed to get up into the feeders anyhow, but he was the exception to the rule. So the squirrels, like the doves, are limited to what gets knocked to the ground. Or what we throw down there. Curiously enough, the squirrels and doves usually feed side-by-side without either party caring about the other. Go figure.

I’m partial to the woodpeckers, especially the red-bellied woodpeckers that feed on the suet we have hanging out there. I often whip out my binoculars to see them better whenever they come around, even though I’ve seen them a thousand times before. Their woodpecker nonchalance fascinates me. Unlike the skittish goldfinches, they aren’t easily spooked – short of us stepping outside. Even then…

The wild comes to me this time of year, even as I stay inside for the most part, doing my literary work. I love it. Yesterday I found deer tracks in the snow leading up to our feeders. Every once in a while, some other critter will stop by. Every wild creature is a welcome sight this time of year, even the sharp-shinned hawk who preys on the not-so-swift mourning doves. The birds and animals keep me entertained this time of year. They keep me from feeling disconnected, until I get out of the house on a regular basis in the spring. And Judy gets more photos of these birds than she can ever possibly use.

Tags: backyard nature, bird watching, wild birds, winter