Since I last posted (in mid-March), I've been thoroughly enjoying spring in all its various stages. I love early spring, with its barest hints of growth; this picture of our house on a misty mid-April afternoon might seem bleak, but there's the faint green of new grass in the meadow, and the faint red of flowers on the maple trees:
And I love later spring, when everything's bright and new and so colorful; here's a view from our meadow just a month after the previous picture, on May 16:
The time frame for this current post almost exactly matches my two-part spring summary post from 2018 (which, while not planned, is convenient for me, because in the future I'll be able to look back and directly compare these two years). We actually got to spend more time at our house this year compared to last year (no lengthy traveling, and no house damage forcing us to stay in a hotel), so we were around to see more things. Even
so, spring has felt like a whirlwind, with so much change and growth
and motion, and not nearly enough time to take it all in. But I do what I
can! And I've seen some really wonderful things this spring. (With so many sightings, this will need to be two posts. Here's part 1!)
Mammals
All the usual mammals have been around this spring: White-tailed Deer (including a fawn as of yesterday, June 3), Eastern Cottontail Rabbits, Red and Gray Squirrels, and Eastern Chipmunks. A Groundhog has shown up to forage in our yard several times, and while we're fairly certain she's a mother, we haven't seen any babies yet. Here's a chipmunk posing near the edge of our woods on May 1:
This spring has also brought a couple of amazing mammal sightings. For a few chilly days (and nights) at the end of April, a tiny Tricolored Bat (which used to be called an Eastern Pipistrelle) roosted near the ceiling of our front porch. This bat was only a couple of inches long, and we worried about it a bit as it stayed huddled in the same rather open spot for so long; but as soon as the weather warmed up again, it headed off. I feel very lucky to have gotten to see this little creature, and we were happy to share our porch with it:
Also incredibly lucky: On the evening of May 25, I saw a Gray Fox in our meadow. We were both out walking through the meadow, we spotted each other, stared at each other for several seconds (I had binoculars but hadn't brought my camera, sigh), and then the fox turned and bounded off. I knew Gray Foxes were around because they showed up on our trail camera a couple of times last year, but I'd never seen a Gray Fox in person before. It was beautiful, and somehow sleek and bushy at the same time. What an amazing creature! Birds
Spring is a great time for birds, of course, with so many species leaving, arriving, passing through, and getting started with breeding. On March 23, I watched a flock of Snow Geese fly over the house, headed north:
A handsome male Yellow-bellied Sapsucker spent several days in April drilling and tending wells in our Shagbark Hickory tree:
A male Wild Turkey displayed in our meadow a few times, mostly for females who seemed uninterested (this picture is from April 11):
Turkeys are such strange-looking birds. Here's a flamboyant male who passed through the meadow on May 1:
Song Sparrows are among the cast of regulars in our yard during the spring -- I can almost always hear and/or see a Song Sparrow somewhere around the house or meadow if I try. But that doesn't mean I won't take the opportunity to make a picture of one of these handsome birds if they let me; I love Song Sparrows, and I'm very happy to have them around:
The male Chipping Sparrow with the white forehead arrived back in our yard this spring; this was the third year in a row we've seen him here, and it's nice to be able to greet a familiar individual bird:
Sadly, this is the last year we'll get to see this fancy fellow. At some point in May, he stopped showing up in the yard, and a few days later I found his body by the side of the road. I'm guessing he was hit by a car. Finding a dead animal is always sad, but this feels especially so because I could recognize the individual. I suppose these things happen, and I don't like it.
May brought all sorts of exciting avian arrivals. I watched this male Hooded Warbler singing from exposed perches in our woods on May 16:
The apple tree next to our house had lots of blossoms this year, and it drew in quite a few birds (who looked especially pretty surrounded by all those pink flowers). Here's a Blue-winged Warbler on May 17:
And a Tennessee Warbler on the same day:
I saw Tennessee Warblers in this tree several times this May, apparently because of some nice buggy meals hiding inside the blossoms. Here are some more pictures of the same individual from the previous picture, showing off some impressive foraging skills -- watch out, bugs:
Baltimore Orioles were also frequent visitors to this tree, although I kept missing them with my camera. Even at one of the more distant trees, though, a male Baltimore Oriole surrounded by apple blossoms made quite a sight:
See the next post (part 2) for the rest of this spring's sightings!
What a hectic and fully-packed couple of months this has been! When I last posted, on March 23, winter was just barely starting to hint at spring. April turned out to be a wild month, with winter clinging on as long as it could, despite the lengthening days. On April 8, a series of quickly passing storms let me take a picture of basically all of April's weather in one frame -- thickly falling snow on the left, and blue sky on the right:
When spring finally took hold (toward the end of April, and later than last year's spring arrival in this area), the change was solid; we haven't had a snowfall or even a frost (as far as I know) since late April (this area's average last frost is May 15).
I mentioned in my last post that storm-born damage to our house at the beginning of March landed us in a hotel. Well, we were eventually able to move back into our house, but not until April 27. (That's almost two months, you'll notice! The insurance company took their time with our claim.) We visited and worked at the house as much as we could during that time, but it wasn't the same, and I'm sure I missed a lot of things (the first rainy-warm amphibian night of the year, for instance). In between attention to work and house repairs, I also made a big push to get our first vegetable garden going at the house (my first real garden in four years). And then for a big 10-day chunk in May, we took an international trip (where I saw many amazing things, and I hope to post about that adventure here later). Whew! And through all of that, the seasons have changed, new animals and plants have shown up in the yard, and I've done my best to keep up with all of this in what is our first spring on this property.
So here's a summary of the natural goings-on (at least what I saw of them) at our house in the past couple of months!
Mammals
Red Squirrels, Eastern Chipmunks, and White-tailed Deer have continued to be the most commonly seen mammals on our property. An Eastern Cottontail rabbit seems to be living on the edge of our meadow, and Gray Squirrels have shown up a few times as well. On April 6, a beautiful Red Fox wandered through our meadow around dusk and did a bit of hunting (there are plenty of voles and mice here, too). This was the first time we'd seen a fox on the property, although I'd suspected they were around. The fox paused for a moment on top of some rocks we'd left in the meadow, then it moved along:
Toward the end of April, we saw a Groundhog carrying mouthfuls of leaves and grass into a burrow at the edge of our yard. If there are Groundhog babies down there, we haven't seen them yet. On May 16, I watched an adult Groundhog foraging near the bird feeders; here's a picture of the Groundhog on alert, with a dandelion bud hanging from its mouth, listening to Paul doing yard work and getting ready to dive into a nearby burrow in the raspberry patch:
Birds
April and May brought so much change in the bird population around here, and it was especially exciting to welcome back some individual birds who were summer residents last year. A Chipping Sparrow with a uniquely white forehead was a frequent fixture in our yard last summer, and when the Chipping Sparrows started showing up again in April, there he was! Here's a picture of this striking fellow on May 11:
And here he is on April 28, posing in spruce tree with another (more typically outfitted) Chipping Sparrow:
I
was already fairly certain that our white-browed Chipping Sparrow was
a male, because I've seen him singing boisterously from the tops of trees. As it turns out, Chipping Sparrows are not secretive about copulating, and as of this spring I can confirm that yes, he's a male. I love having an easily recognizable individual bird as our neighbor (as I'm writing this, I can see him right now outside my window; that flash of white really is eye-catching).
I took this picture of another Chipping Sparrow under the feeders on May 2nd -- the white-browed sparrow's mate, perhaps?
And just a few days ago, I found out where Mr. white-browed Chipping Sparrow and his mate have their nest. I was working around the garbage cans at the side of our house, and I noticed that a normal-looking Chipping Sparrow (the female, I know now) was chirping and preening on a low branch in a nearby tree. I thought at first that she was being unusually sociable (how nice of this bird to hang out here with me), but after a few minutes it occurred to me that there was probably another reason why this bird wasn't flying away. So I peered into the small shrub near me, and yep, there's a nest in there! Here's the shrub -- it's so small and isolated, I really wouldn't have thought of this as a likely nesting place:
And here's a picture of the nest and the four beautiful brown-speckled-blue eggs, as of June 2 (this is as clear a picture as I could get without touching the branches):
I pass by this shrub frequently, and now I almost always see the female Chipping Sparrow on the nest; she's a stalwart mother. We were also happy to welcome back our Eastern Phoebe neighbor, presumably the same one who nested above our front door last year, because she's built another nest in the same spot. Even before she started building, though, she hung around the prospective spot for a week or so. On April 11, after it got dark outside, we opened the front door to leave the house (to go back to the hotel) and we must've startled the phoebe from her roost because she flew right inside the house! She flew gracefully around our dining room a few times (not hitting anything or even pooping anywhere), and then she flew right back out the front door. (We had to turn off the room lights and turn on the porch light to show her where to go, but she went out on her own.) What an amazing encounter. And more generally, I love seeing a phoebe in our front yard nearly every time I look:
She completed the nest by early May -- it's a lovely construction of plant fiber, mud, and moss, with some pink (synthetic?) stuff worked in as well:
When I peeked into the nest on May 10, I found five perfect eggs inside:
And a visit to the nest on June 1 revealed three quill-covered babies (I guess not all of the eggs hatched):
On April 5, we set up two bluebird nest boxes in our meadow, complete with predator baffles on the poles. It was looking at first like we wouldn't get any tenants in these boxes this year, but after a great deal of waffling a pair of Tree Swallows eventually settled in. Here's the female Tree Swallow sitting on top of the chosen box:
I don't think I realized before this year how subtly beautiful female Tree Swallows are. I love the muted blue feathers on her back and wings:
Here's the brighter male Tree Swallow keeping watch from atop the old Purple Martin house that's still standing in our yard; the Tree Swallow pair seemed to be considering nesting in this old box when they first returned this year -- which is why I haven't taken this box down yet -- but a group of European Starlings pulled out the Tree Swallows' nesting material and moved them along (and then the starlings didn't even try to nest in the box themselves):
I love having Tree Swallows around, and I think the male is one of our prettiest birds:
I also love the sounds that Tree Swallows make, which are something like strange burbling whistles. Here's a video of our male Tree Swallow grooming himself and singing outside our bedroom window on the morning of May 6:
The Tree Swallows were about halfway through building their nest on May 8, and when I checked the box on May 17 there were two tiny white eggs nestled among the feather-lined nest. On June 1, I saw the finished clutch, five eggs in total:
And just two days later, on June 3, the nest was filled with tiny day-old (or less?) babies:
I don't know yet whether that fifth egg has hatched. The other couple of times I've checked the nest box, the female has stayed steadfast on the nest, which makes it hard to see what's going on in there, but it's also awesome to see this beautiful lady eye to eye, with just a sheet of plastic between us:
May brought several other fancy new arrivals to our yard as well. Chestnut-sided Warblers have been hanging around quite a bit, and on May 10, I came across a group of at least three of these handsome birds foraging at eye level along the edge of our woods:
This one found a treat:
Chestnut-sided Warblers are my favorite of the warblers, not least because their outfits are so beautiful and interesting from every angle:
How awesome to have these birds here! (And I'm keeping my fingers crossed that some of them are sticking around to breed.)
Other warblers passed through, too, including a few Tennessee Warblers who spent a good deal of time working over our apple trees and singing almost constantly:
I've been happy to welcome back the Gray Catbirds; I miss their strange cat-like calls and rambling songs when they're not here, and they're such elegant birds:
One of the most surprising arrivals in May was a bunch of Rose-breasted Grosbeaks, surprising because we only saw these birds briefly last summer, and only toward the end of the season. But our feeders were apparently a big hit with these birds this year, and through almost all of May these gregarious birds were a strong presence in the yard. The males are really stunning:
The female Rose-breasted Grosbeaks are very pretty as well:
I never quite got used to looking out at the feeder and seeing black-and-white birds with what looked like a serious wound on their chest (really, what's with that blood-red color?). Overall, the feeders were very popular throughout April and May. Here's one picture of feeder activity on May 10, with a Rose-breasted Grosbeak among American Goldfinches, a Purple Finch in the lower left, and a Pine Siskin on the right:
Indigo Buntings have been another amazing May arrival, and they've been hanging around enough that I've now learned their song. I was surprised to see this male Indigo Bunting hopping around under the feeder one May afternoon, like a bizarrely colored finch or sparrow (I even saw him visit the feeder later, which I've never seen before):
May has also brought back the Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, including this delightful male:
This tiny bird is very flashy, when seen from just the right angle:
Spring is so amazing, and I have much more to share! But this post is getting too long, so consider this the first part of a larger post. Part 2 will be along soon!
Apparently the southern edge of Lake Erie is an amazing place to see birds during spring migration, because northbound birds often pause in the neighboring woodlands to refuel before heading off across the lake. So now that we're in the middle of May and migration is in full swing (yay!), I'm taking as many opportunities as I can to go check out some of these areas. On Monday morning, I visited Sheldon Marsh State Nature Preserve -- a park with woods and marshes on the shores of Lake Erie -- and there were animals everywhere. I ended up seeing 54 bird species (which is really good for me), including 11 species of warbler. Basically everywhere I went, something was moving around in the trees!
A male Indigo Bunting was showing off his astonishing blue feathers in a small clearing in the woods:
Indigo Buntings are awesome, of course, but I got super excited when a pair of Red-headed Woodpeckers showed up nearby!
Oh my goodness, what a beautiful bird. I've never seen a Red-headed Woodpecker before, and I love that sleek costume, so different from our other woodpeckers. And how cool to see two of these birds at once!
I wonder if they'll be raising a family here:
Near the marshes, a male Baltimore Oriole paused, panting, after a chase:
And an immature male Orchard Oriole (I don't see these birds very often!) was foraging not far away:
These flowering willow trees were a big hit with many of the smaller birds. Several Tennessee Warblers were going after these flowers:
Tennessee Warblers are very vaguely patterned (by warbler standards), but I was able to identify these guys because they were singing pretty much nonstop. Here's a video of one of the Tennesee Warblers at work:
A gorgeous male Yellow Warbler popped out of a bush for a quick picture and then went right back to his foraging:
This male Cape May Warbler (so pretty!) spent some time hunting directly above my head:
Hey, nice catch:
I didn't mean to take this flying-away picture, but I think it looks pretty cool:
A pretty little male Wilson's Warbler (another new bird for me) lurked in the undergrowth:
My favorite warbler sighting of the day was a male Chestnut-sided Warbler who was nice enough to come down to my level to hunt. I absolutely love this bird's costume, with those fancy brown sides, yellow-and-gray striped wings, black mask, and yellow hat:
Hello, beautiful bird:
This creature looks almost fierce from the front:
But from other angles he's just handsome:
Yes, Chestnut-sided Warblers are definitely some of my favorites:
There were some big birds hanging around, too, like this Red-tailed Hawk who soared overhead:
The birds were awesome, but there were tons of other interesting creatures around as well. A couple of Eastern Chipmunks had a standoff in the middle of the path:
And there they go!
Speaking of strange things on the path, I didn't expect to find this Crayfish making its way along the pavement; I hope it safely got where it was going:
Giant fish churned the waters of the marsh; I think these are some sort of non-native carp:
And there were turtles everywhere! Painted Turtles piled up on basking logs:
Some of the Painted Turtles were particularly small and cute:
This little turtle objected to the arrival of a bigger fellow:
It's OK, little guy:
I was also excited to see more Blanding's Turtles, which are listed as a threatened species in Ohio:
How adorable is this big Blanding's Turtle's face?
It was nice to meet you, lovely turtle:
It was quite an eventful morning! With May not even half over, here's hoping I can make it back up to a park next to Lake Erie sometime soon!
