This is my catching-up-with-April post! This month has been so busy that I can't tell whether it's gone by really fast or really slow.... Either way, there have been a lot of good things happening, and in between all the busy-ness, I saw some very cool creatures while wandering outside this month. I can't let May start without sharing some wonderful sights from April!
First: Peepers! I started hearing a few scattered Spring Peepers calling in our neighborhood way back in late February, but these tiny frogs definitely reached their peak activity in April. They called basically all month from the marshy area across the street from our house, and we got pretty good at going out at night and finding the creatures amid their clouds of ear-blasting sound. On April 9th, we first tried looking for the frogs during the afternoon because many of them were already calling, but they were too well hidden in the marshy grass. I found one peeper that jumped out as I walked by, but he wasn't about to call while I watched; still, I got to admire his subtly intricate camouflage:
What a handsome frog, even with his weird baggy throat:
When we returned with flashlights the same night, it took us quite a while to find our first peeper, but we did it. Look, a tiny inflating bubble in the reeds!
Sorry, little guy, just one picture with flash, because you're so cool (look at those veins!):
We got better at finding peepers every time we went out looking for them: two the next time, then three the time after that. As I'm writing this, only a few peepers are still calling, and I'm so glad I got to see these tiny neighbors up close while they were doing their springtime thing.
Here's my second awesome sight from this month: On the afternoon of April 23, I went for a walk at the Mulholland Wildflower Preserve with friends. It was sunny and warm, and we were admiring the wildflowers and a few birds, when wonder of wonders, a bat flew past over the creek, and even more incredibly, it landed on a tree just ahead of us, right next to the path, at eye level. Oh my goodness, a bat!
As best as I can tell, this is a Little Brown Bat. (But I'm happy to be corrected! I haven't had much opportunity to build bat identification skills before now.) This is one of the most common bats in New York, and probably the species we used to get in our family's house every once in a while when I was little. But common or not, I hadn't seen a bat at all in quite a while (even nighttime sightings seem rare now), and this is by far the closest and clearest I've ever seen a bat in the wild. So pardon the small explosion of photos!
The bat took a nice break on the tree (I'm guessing it had been busy hunting over the creek) and it stayed there for a few minutes while we watched. I can't imagine having to maneuver with all those membranes between limbs. There's its tail!
Look at that face:
The bat even scratched for a bit under its arm with its back claws, so much like a fuzzy little dog:
Ah, that looks like a good scratch:
Really though, how adorable and beautiful is this creature?
The bat took off for another fluttering lap over the creek and came back to land on a different tree for a few seconds (look closely to see a tiny bat tongue!):
And then it was off and down the creek and out of sight. What an amazing encounter!
The rest of the walk was filled with lovely ephemeral wildflowers, and I'm so glad I got to be in these woods in early spring. Trout Lilies are some of my favorite first flowers, not only for their yellow lantern-like blooms but also their pretty dappled leaves:
White Trillium (Trillium grandiflorum) was just starting to bloom:
We were just a bit too early to see Wild Ginger open its blossoms, but I was still happy to see this cute little plant for the first time (at least as far as I can remember):
Also new to me (outside of seeing pictures of it) was lovely Sharp-lobed Hepatica (Anemone acutiloba):
Spring Beauty flowers with their tiny pink stripes are always a happy sight:
And that's April! Today, on the last day of the month, I went for a gray-day walk (not good light, so no pictures) and saw Palm and Yellow Warblers, a female cardinal building her nest, and many Trout Lilies already past their peak. The earliest stages of spring have finished, and now the really intense part of the season begins. Here comes May!
We got a sprinkling of snow last night, and temperatures were hovering around freezing when I went with some friends to check out the Etna Nature Preserve this morning:
It may not look it, but spring is happening, I swear! Up until today, we've had a streak of rainy and warm-ish weather, and these woods were showing signs of spring. Skunk Cabbage was blooming (although it's probably been blooming for a while) and starting to unfurl green leaves:
Tiny Trout Lily leaves were coming up, looking like little spears in the snow:
We even found pink flowers on a small leafless shrub that turned out to be a non-native garden escapee, Daphne mezereum:
A couple of Eastern Phoebes were calling and flycatching and working on constructing a nest under the eaves of a nearby house. Hello wonderful birds, and welcome back!
So yes, it felt like winter today, but we're well into the beginning of spring. Spring Peepers have been singing loudly every night (except last night) around our house, and I saw this Red Eft (juvenile Red-spotted Newt) wandering across marshy water at the Roy H. Park Preserve earlier this week:
Hooray for amphibians and flowers and returning birds! Hooray for spring!
Well that was definitely a snow storm! We had heavy snow and wind throughout Tuesday and Wednesday, and then when it was all over, Thursday morning was clear, bright, beautiful, and very snowy:
The reported snowfall in the area was around 15 inches, but there was so much wind that some spots (like a patch of yard next to our house) ended up with almost no snow, while other spots (like the garden bed out front where some hopeful daffodils were thinking about blooming a couple of weeks ago) are now under 3-foot snow drifts. So I didn't get very far when I somewhat foolishly tried to walk in the Roy H. Park Preserve on Thursday morning without my snowshoes. I'd forgotten how hard it is to walk while repeatedly sinking into almost-knee-high snow! Before I turned around I was at least able to admire the walls of snow-covered conifers:
And I enjoyed these dainty alder catkins (not yet in bloom) that were dangling next to the path:
When I got back home, I strapped on my snowshoes and added another layer of clothing (it was sunny outside but the wind was intense!) and I headed back out to walk along the fields near our house. I wasn't about to miss out on one of the only substantial snowfalls we've had this winter!
I love the combination of snow and bright blue sky, and this sky was amazing:
The wind really was strong. Big clouds of snow kept blowing off the trees on a neighboring hillside:
And when I turned around after 15 minutes or so of walking, the wind was already working on filling in my footprints:
A Turkey Vulture soared overhead, showing off wing and tail feathers that look like they could be made of steel:
What a cool sight: huge majestic Turkey Vulture and huge billowy clouds:
One more picture:
I'm glad I got to enjoy these post-snowstorm sights. Today has remained sunny and beautiful, and our neighborhood American Kestrel even stopped by again, looking extra handsome in the bright afternoon light:
With all the sunshine, the snow is already on its way out. I'll be curious to see how long it takes for this snow to fully melt!
It's snowing heavily outside right now, and many places around here (and the roads, too) are closed to wait out the storm. This is only our second real snowstorm of the winter, and it's the middle of March! Have I mentioned that this winter is weird?
Yesterday afternoon, while the weather was still calm, a male American Kestrel showed up to hunt along the road next to our house:
A kestrel has been hunting in our neighborhood on and off all winter, and I wonder if this is the same bird. Either way, he's such a gorgeous fellow, and his fancy costume looks especially bright amid the still brown-white-gray landscape. He flew off to perch on the roof of a neighboring house, a tiny raptor on the lookout for a meal:
Somewhere off in the woods, a flock of Red-winged Blackbirds was making a lot of noise. I couldn't easily see the flock, so I'm not exactly sure how many birds were out there, but they were certainly vocal! I don't think I've ever heard so many Red-winged Blackbirds calling at once! Here's a recording:
I hope all these birds (not to mention the Spring Peepers I heard the other week) are hunkered down somewhere safe in all this snow!
This is my first winter in central New York, so I don't know exactly what the winters here are supposed to be like. But having lived in other not-too-distant locations, I have some guesses about what a normal winter should be like, and I'm fairly certain that this one is not it.
When I last posted, in late January, we'd had more than a week of warm, wet weather, and no snow. Well, the snow did return soon after that, and it stuck around for a while. We never had more than a few inches on the ground at a time -- never enough to get out my snow shoes -- but it did make for some nice wintry scenes. I especially enjoyed seeing the dark fertile fronds of Sensitive Fern (Onoclea sensibilis) sticking up out of the snow like flags at the Roy H. Park Preserve on January 30:
And then it got warm again, the snow melted, and it started feeling decidedly spring-like! On the afternoon of February 24, we walked walked along the fields near our home wearing sweatshirts:
A very handsome American Robin was foraging among the dead leaves and wet ground, and it perched on a convenient rock long enough for a photo. I've never noticed such a perfectly clean dotted-line ring around a robin's eye before. What a beautiful bird:
On the same walk, I thought I heard a Killdeer calling, although I never saw it, and I definitely heard a lone Spring Peeper peeping. And things just kept getting more spring-like. I heard a whole chorus of peepers a few days later. Red-winged Blackbirds showed up and started calling. Bulbs were sprouting up in gardens.
And then yesterday... snow and frigid temperatures returned. Today was sunny but with a high of 16 degrees F (and a blasting wind that made it feel close to 0). This might actually have been one of the coldest days of the whole winter. The fields that looked so much like a prelude to spring a few days ago are now white again. They're still beautiful, though, especially with that strip of blue sky:
I hope the daffodils in our yard will be able to handle this weather roller coaster:
I love winter, but this has been a very strange season, and now that I've had a taste of spring I'm ready for winter to be finished. March means the start of growing greenery and flowers and birds and amphibians.... Here we go!
