We’re staying at a vacation farm house on the Skagit Plain. Every day for the past week, we’ve been taking road trips into the mountains or along the coast or out onto Whidbey Island.
We’ve seen bald eagles, snow geese, and deer. Hanging around this farm house is a species of hawk I’ve never seen before. His M.O. is to fly fast and low to the ground, veering abruptly around houses and barns, I suppose to surprise mice or gophers by coming upon them before they’re aware. I’ve never seen this habit in a bird of prey before.
At the edge of Samish Bay, I’ve also seen a dozen oysters, which were alive only a few minutes before. We were at Taylor Shellfish Samish Oyster Bar.
Also, I’ve only read about the wintering habits of ladybugs before, but have never seen it, since we don’t have very many of them where I live. But they are clustering on the south-facing walls of this farmhouse and somehow finding their way indoors. The first bedroom I tried to sleep in I soon discovered had dozens of them. I moved to another bedroom and that first room, the “bug room”, is closed off now.
The other day, I not only saw, but had the privilege to hold, a golden-crowned kinglet.
It wound up inside my house, and seemed to be in a bit of shock.
I warmed it inside my cupped hands - the thing is TINY, no longer than my thumb - then set it inside the smallest cardboard box I had, and put it back outside to recover & fly off.
You mess with nature and you get consequences. Our elderly neighbor feeds the foxes. Today in nature, and indeed in one of her planters, Mrs T found an uprooted plant and a buried chicken wing.
Yesterday on our morning walk thru our suburban neighborhood, we saw an eviscerated fox carcass. I’m presuming coyotes?
And later in the day, all of the local ginkgos dropped all of their leaves following the previous night’s frost. In case you are unfamiliar, many/all? ginkgos tend to drop all/most of their leaves on a single day. Kinda cool.
And I’m not sure if it is a “siting”, but last week our dog got skunked. We had been smelling more skunk recently and seeing fewer fox. Given the option, I prefer fox…
Last night I heard a great horned owl hooting. We’ve lived in this suburban neighborhood for twenty-two years, and I had never heard one before. I hope he stays around.
I do go on about buzzards, I know - sorry about that. But I see them most days when I’m out on the bike, and that makes me happy.
Today I saw something I have never seen before - a pair of buzzards being successfully mobbed* by a single crow. (I guess that should be “mobbed” as there was only one crow.)
I was riding along a ridge through farmland. The buzzards were flying pretty low in close formation, and the crow flew straight at them, splitting them up, and then chased one of the pair off, clean out of sight. I lost sight of the other buzzard as it headed in the other direction.
At this point I was wondering to myself, why the hell would that happen? Mostly when I’ve seen crows mobbing hawks, it was spring and they were (I assume) protecting eggs or chicks. But as I rolled along I picked up the unmistakable stench of charring animal flesh. You used to get this pretty often when I was growing up - the quick-and-cheap way for a farmer to dispose of an animal found dead, I guess - but I haven’t noticed it out in the countryside in, woo, decades. But like I said, the stink is unmistakable. So I’m guessing that birds on the lookout for an easy meal know this too, and the crow (or crows) were protecting a find - one they wanted to keep to themselves.
j
* - explanation of mobbing, should it be required:
We saw something last night neither of us had ever seen before. We were driving, when, on the side of a backroad we saw two deer. A doe was on the ground, on her side. Meanwhile, a beautiful 6 point buck was poking at the doe with his antlers.
They were so involved with what they were doing that they continued, lit up in our headlights. My gf eventually put her window down and yelled, “HEY, STOP THAT”. The buck stopped, looked at us, then sauntered off. The doe stood up and walked off as well.
We sat there a few minutes just digesting what we’d seen.
We’re off on a road trip for a couple of days to see friends, and when we get back I hope to have a first to post here - a first for this thread and a first for me. How’s that for a tease?
Just got back from our brief road trip to catch up with friends in Gloucester (rhymes with Foster). After we’d organised the date, I had a little look in this timetable and, wouldn’t you know it, our dates just happened to work out.
These events are rated one to five stars and the only one we could get to in daylight (this morning) was one star - but what the hell let’s do it. So this morning, for the first time in my life, I saw a bore - the Severn Bore. And it was great.
So today in nature I saw and heard the Severn Bore. The photos don’t really do it justice - even this one star effort was really impressive. Perhaps the most striking thing was just how loud it was. We were at Over Bridge, which is just about in the city of Gloucester and towards the end of the run; you can stand on the bridge and watch the bore pass under you. Even for this “teensy” bore the water level rose by something like a meter in a minute or so. After it was through, the river was left churning madly, with great clouds of mud roiling in the watercourse.
Hell, now I want to see one of the big ones! We’re putting plans in place.
