January-March, 2024

Wow, where does the time go? Somehow it's August already, and I still haven't posted any of the pictures of nature from around my property that have been gathering on my computer since January. So let's start to fix that! In this post, I'll share some highlights from the beginning of the year up through March. Get ready to time-warp back to winter!

This was another relatively mild winter, and there were some spans of time without any snow on the ground. These White-tailed Deer looked very handsome in the brown meadow at dusk on January 3:

Snow arrived a few days later, though, and I loved watching this little Carolina Wren as it searched for bugs in the many cracks and crevices on the snowy deck on January 7:

On January 8, I peeked through an open window while a flock of American Goldfinches fed on goldenrod seeds near the house:

On a walk around the property on February 4, I was charmed by this little frost-covered White Pine tree in the meadow:

And this Black-capped Chickadee was investigating the many holes in the old apple tree next to the driveway:

On February 18, these fertile fronds of Sensitive Fern made stark shapes against the snow-covered pond in the woods:

This Red Squirrel chattered at me from its tree as I passed by:

And these two male House Finches looked so lovely perched on the colorful twigs of this peach tree:

This winter, at least one Dark-eyed Junco became a regular visitor to the tube feeder that I kept stocked with nyjer seed; I'd only ever seen juncos eating seeds on the ground and on the platform feeder before this, but I guess this individual junco was up for trying something new!

 

The junco seemed quite comfortable with this feeding situation, even with the goldfinches jostling and chasing each other nearby:

This collection of lichen and moss on March 3 struck me as especially pretty, with such interesting shapes and colors:

Flowers emerged this year even earlier than they did last year, which was previously by far the earliest blooming I'd seen here. The snowdrops opened all the way back on February 10 this year, compared to last year's February 16; in all the previous years since I moved here, the snowdrops didn't start blooming until sometime in March. Here's a picture of one of the many honeybees that were visiting the snowdrops on sunny March 4:

On the afternoon of March 18, I noticed something small rustling in the front yard, and I got closer to find a shrew munching away at some meal in the middle of the grass. I wasn't able to figure out what the shrew was eating, and I'm not even sure which species of shrew this is, but it was very cool to get to see this creature so close up while it was just doing its thing:

Pine Siskins made a good showing at the feeders this year, especially starting in March; here are a few siskins along with House Finches, a goldfinch, and a junco on March 20:

I guess those Pine Siskins didn't want to share that corner of the feeder:

Black Bears have started showing up in the yard with greater frequency this year, including pulling down the feeders a few times.... (Notice the teeth marks in the nyjer seed feeder in the earlier pictures.) I haven't seen any bears in person yet this year, but these big tracks on March 21 made it clear that they were there, as if the damage to the feeders wasn't a big enough clue! (I bring the feeders inside at night now.)

A pair of Eastern Bluebirds chose to raise a family in the yard again this year (yay!), and here they are getting acquainted with the nest boxes on March 31:

Finally, also on March 31, this Pine Siskin stayed at the feeder while I walked nearby, so I was able to see it unusually close up; these are such fun and feisty little birds:

That's it for now! It's nice to get past the winter pictures and into spring, at least. :)

January-April, 2023

Oh look! Somehow it's been another half-a-year since I last posted sightings from around our property on this blog. :) I seem to be falling into a pattern of gathering pictures on my computer for months and then sharing these highlights in bursts -- but ah well, better late than never! It's time to start catching up with 2023!

The first few months of this year were especially busy, and I'm sure I missed a lot of the goings-on in our yard, meadow, and woods (sadly). But even so, I got to see many cool things, and I've had a lot of fun getting to know my brand new camera (thank you, family, for the Christmas gift!). My old, much-loved, 10+ year old DSLR camera simply wasn't working very well anymore, and it was time for an upgrade. So I've been playing around with this new toy, learning some new things, and so enjoying having a fully functional camera again.

In this post, I'll share some highlights from winter and early spring -- January through April -- and then I'll have much more to share from the rest of spring and early summer in later posts. Here we go!

On January 8, I wandered through our meadow and woods, admiring the sunny blue sky and snow-free ground. Most of this year's winter was quite mild; it's strange to see our meadow in January without snow:

In the woods, I was having too much fun taking pictures of the jungle of moss on this fallen log:

I spent some time figuring out how up-close I could get to another patch of moss with my new camera (much closer than my old camera could go!) -- I also love the tiny ice crystals in this next picture, showing that yes, it is really winter:

We did have some snow in January, although not a lot. Here's a crisp wintry view of the hills across the valley from our house on January 16:

This male Downy Woodpecker was in the apple tree outside our window during a light but driving snowfall on January 13, and I can't resist sharing this picture of this cute little bird with his heart-shaped cap:

On February 12, without snow on the ground in which to build their usual network of tunnels, this Meadow Vole was foraging around a wood pile, quite exposed. Be careful, little vole:

Nearby, I was surprised to see a spider out and about in the sunshine, climbing on a peach tree twig (I think this is some sort of Long-jawed Orbweaver, genus Tetragnatha):

There usually isn't anything blooming here in February, but with all the mild weather and lack of snow, our Snowdrops bloomed on February 16, a good three weeks earlier than I'd seen these flowers bloom before, in the six years we've lived in this house.

And although they're not actually flowers, I also loved seeing the little flower-like bracts on the American Witch Hazel shrub in our front yard; the bracts are left over from last year's blossoms, and they'll host the expanding seed pods in the coming months. Here's a picture of these bracts from February 12:

On March 5, I spent some time admiring some of the birds hanging out in our yard. I love how the underside of this Mourning Dove's tail seems to glow:

A male Red-bellied Woodpecker and Pileated Woodpecker sat in the same tree across the meadow from our house for several minutes, preening and apparently keeping watch over the territory (this tree was sooo far away from me -- yay, camera!):

A male House Finch looked handsome in the branches of a fir tree in our yard:

And here's another (or the same?) male Downy Woodpecker in the apple tree again, this time without a window pane between us:

On March 12, a few inches of puffy wet snow made a pretty frame for this American Goldfinch:

And some mammal's tracks led the way through the pristine snow into our woods trail:

Speaking of mammals in the woods, here's a selection of mammal sightings from our trail camera in February and March; the camera was watching a spot just a little further down the path in the picture above. This video includes six brief clips, featuring a Gray Fox carrying an unknown object (something hard? a bone?), our very first Fisher recorded on our property, a Raccoon, an Eastern Cottontail Rabbit, a White-tailed Deer, and a Red Fox with a mouthful of voles:

 

It's so amazing to be able to see these creatures as they passed through our woods!

On March 26, our American Hazelnut shrubs were blossoming, with tiny female flowers:

And dangling male flowers:

That evening, as it was starting to get dark, this fancy male Dark-eyed Junco spent some time displaying right at eye-level in the blooming Silver Maple in front of our house:

What a puffy, handsome fellow!

 

A burst of warm weather in April meant that a lot of the early spring flowers bloomed and faded quickly, and I missed many of them this year. Fortunately, I was at least able to grab a view of these Bloodroot flowers at their very brief peak, since they grow in our front yard (next to emerging Virginia Bluebell buds):

And I was very happy to get to see our one Red Trillium blossoming in the woods on April 19:

April was also the time when our neighborhood birds started building nests and laying eggs. This is the second year in a row when the Eastern Phoebes declined to build a nest in their traditional (and as far as I've seen, always successful) spot over our front door, so I suppose that time has finished. Instead, they nested in our old shed again, where they were parasitized by Brown Cowbirds. The phoebe's April nesting attempt failed -- they actually removed the cowbird egg, but then they didn't continue on with that nest.

In happier April bird-nesting news, this was the first year since we put up bluebird boxes in 2018 that we've actually had an Eastern Bluebird family come and stay! (A pair of bluebirds made a brief attempt in 2019, but they disappeared after they laid one egg.) It's been so wonderful to have bluebirds as a common fixture in our yard this year -- usually they're only infrequent passers-through here. I don't have any pictures of the bluebird family from April, but don't worry, I'll have plenty of pictures of them in the next posts.

On April 19, I was surprised to see a Black-capped Chickadee checking out the nest box containing the fully-constructed bluebird nest (the first egg appeared the very next day):

The chickadee even went inside the box to take a look around, but it left again quickly:

Sorry, chickadee, this spot is taken.

And that's it for 2023 up through April! I've got lots more to share from spring and summer so far this year, so more will be coming later. :)

A Cold and Snowy January

It's winter, all right! This January has been a month of very cold temperatures, and all those signs of life in my previous post have been buried under a secure blanket of snow for weeks now. The landscape is all white and brown and gray, with some dark-green conifers for good measure. Here's our meadow on January 19, for example, but this picture could have just as easily been taken on most days this month:

There's still plenty of life and activity to see above the snow, though!

This flock of House Finches looked quite decorative, arranged as they were at the top of a fir tree in our yard on January 19 (waiting for me to leave so they could come down to the feeders, I think):

Purple Finches are much less common visitors to our yard at any time of the year, but especially in the winter, so I've been happy to see a few stop by this month. I love the colors on this rosy-all-over male who perched in the apple tree outside our windows on January 23:

I've been thrilled to see American Goldfinches making good use of the dried seed heads of the Purple Coneflowers that grow in a flower bed near the house. I snuck open a window on a sunny January 22 to get an unobstructed view of these little birds at work -- I especially like the spiky shadow one of the seed heads is casting on the bird in this picture:

Although the sun was shining, the air was bitterly cold, so I kept the window cracked open only long enough for a few quick pictures; here's one more:

Did I mention that this has been a cold month? When I woke up on January 22, the outside temperature was -13 degrees Fahrenheit (!), and a Blue Jay outside our windows had frost ringing its face -- it's kind of a glamorous look, but spending the night outside in those temperatures doesn't sound fun to me!

This bold American Tree Sparrow came to the feeders on January 19 while I was nearby, so I got to have an especially close look at one of these very handsome birds:

I'd never noticed before how dark this sparrow's feet are, like it's wearing black gloves. And that's a dashing little bow tie on its chest. Here's one more picture of this fancy bird, at an angle where the rusty line behind its eye reminds me of a lightning bolt (I feel like I've just described a superhero's costume):

This past summer, I first noticed what I'm pretty sure is a large Common Barberry (Berberis vulgaris) bush tucked back along an edge of our property; I suppose I'll need to keep an eye on this plant -- and watch out for others -- since it's non-native and can be invasive. In any case, I was surprised to see a Dark-eyed Junco munching on this plant's berries on January 19, since I'm much more used to seeing juncos eating seeds:

Among the flock of Dark-eyed Juncos that's been hanging around our yard this winter, we have one individual with a smattering of white feathers:

I've been thinking of this individual as a female, because her coloring overall is browner and lighter than the starker male juncos, but I don't know for sure. Either way, she's very distinctive, and it's fun to have an easily recognizable individual bird visiting our yard:

I assume she's partially leucistic, which has to do with some patchy absence of pigments. The white feathers on her face look a bit like she's simply dusted with snow:

She even has a little white-edged feather on her wing, and the mostly-white back of her head is especially striking:

Even from a distance, it's easy to recognize this bird:

I hope that bright white patch doesn't make her a target for predators! Good luck out there, little bird, and we'll keep the feeders well stocked.

I don't get to see all the winter activity in our yard myself, but the snow keeps a record of unseen activity (until the next snowfall at least). Here's a neat trail of White-footed Mouse tracks crossing our yard on January 19, for example:

Finally, in our woods on January 5, I noticed this White Ash tree that's missing a great deal of its bark:

After some searching online, my best guess is that this is a sign that Emerald Ash Borers are indeed on our property; apparently woodpeckers will do this type of work on a heavily infested tree to get at the beetle's larvae under the bark. I knew that Emerald Ash Borers have appeared in our county in recent years, and I figured our many ash trees would be victims sooner or later. I suppose we've reached that time. Here's a closer look at this extensive woodpecker work -- I hope the woodpeckers got a good meal at least, and maybe this tree will make a good home for other creatures after it dies:

I wonder whether a particular one of our species of woodpeckers is mostly responsible for all that stripped bark, or whether all the woodpecker species contributed. It's hard to imagine our little Downy Woodpeckers (like the fellow below) chiseling away here, but who knows!

Male Downy Woodpecker working on a tree next to the meadow on January 19

The cold temperatures and snowy weather sure seem like they're here to stay for a while yet. Happy winter!