No Regrets - Great Egret

Great Egrets are elegant birds, standing almost four feet tall. They are migratory in Maine. I only see one or two each year.

Great Egret, Center Pond - Phippsburg

     Though I'm a wildlife photographer, I've never been on a safari. I'm not waiting for big game on an African savanna. I'm mostly just in my living room wearing my bathrobe, very much in the little leagues of the ball game. Just the same, I have to be prepared for whatever presents itself, even if it's unlikely to be a tigress slurping water from a pool at sundown, warm light filling her deep brown eyes. The birds and animals here in my home town are all the big game I have and generally, all the big game I need.
     To be ready for them, one of the first things I do every day even before I brush my teeth, is adjust my camera's exposure settings for the light of the day. I pick the film speed, shutter speed and aperture that will give me the best advantage if suddenly, something appears. I intend to be at least minimally ready by hedging my exposure bets as best as I can. Frequently, when a bird or or animal has turned up, had I spent time fumbling with the camera settings, I would have missed the shot. I always have the camera with me, because I don't ever want to be looking for it in the golden moment a subject pops out of the bushes. Preparedness has served me well. Nonetheless, I often don't get the shots I hope for and find something wrong with nearly every photograph I take.
     Sometimes, when a subject shows up, I have to take the shot even though I know the conditions aren't good, because the beast may not come back. That aside, I also have a merciless inner critic crabbing at me constantly. "Those feathers should be sharper," "there's too much background business behind the bird," "I wish I'd used a flash." Frequently, I wish I could take them over. Invariably, I look at an image and think "Oh, if only my aperture had been smaller! I would have had more depth of field!" Or, "What the hell was I thinking? ISO-schmiso! I should have had a faster film speed." And so it goes, leaving me like an exhausted race horse, flogged nearly to death by a rider it can't shake. About the only regret that I never have is not taking the photo at all. I haven't quit and I keep trying. I've learned something from every photograph I've taken, regardless of how frustrating or disappointing its outcome. Each time I press the shutter, I'm hopeful that this time, I'll nail it.
      There have been a lot of things in my life that I wish I could do over. Many people asked, even assumed that I would have photographed  those hunters that terrorized me a few weeks ago. Had I photographed their boat, the warden could have tracked the registration and caught them. But, alas, I wasn't thinking about my camera when that happened. The gun fire, yelling, and barbaric threatening dumped me back to a horrible place I had not been in a long time.
     Having nothing to do with demonic duck hunters, I already had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). PTSD is a neuro-chemical problem some people acquire after experiencing traumatic events. The "flight or fight" brain chemistry gets turned on as it should, but then never completely shuts off. My brain simmers in a brew of fear all the time. Something as innocuous as a slammed door or backfiring engine can send me diving under a bed or running for the nearest exit. Though my thinking self knows that all is okay in my world, my primal protective mechanisms over react. My heart races, my breathing quickens, chest pain pushes on my heart and often, I cry. I take medications that help. I've also lived with my quick-to-startle jumpiness for fifteen years, and I've learned to manage it, to some extent. But, every once in a while, something happens like the duck hunting episode, that suddenly sends me overboard, awash in chemical messages that I'm in danger.
    My PTSD is the legacy of a violent marriage. For nearly two decades, I lived with a sick man in an even sicker relationship. After all, there were two of us to make it that way. I knew the day that I married him that I had made a terrible mistake. It was a mistake that would cost me for the rest of my life, long after he was gone. Those dark, ugly times crash in on me when a here-and-now event busts open my flood gates. I ask myself, "If there was a do-over, would I do it again?" The obvious answer is "Of course not," but, it's not that simple. Like a failed photograph, I don't always know what I should have done differently, only that the end result wasn't what I had imagined. From that marriage, I have two of the most incredible children a mother could ever have dreamed of; I wouldn't trade them for anything. And, now, with David, I have the fairy tale life I had wished for with their father. Had I kept my heart in my pocket way back then, I wouldn't have any of these things now. It's for all the bad photographs I've taken that I'm a decent photographer today.
     In the midst of the scary, stressful times before I escaped my children's father and took them into hiding, our lives behind closed doors were living hell. On the outside, though, we looked Hallmark good. I kept up such exhaustive pretenses of health and happiness that neither friend nor family knew what was really going on. To this end, I hosted elaborate holiday dinners every year. When I bought groceries for Thanksgiving, I always filled two carts. As I shopped, I arranged my purchases carefully so that there would be room and things didn't get crushed. One year, toward the end of the marriage when things were at their worst and my organizational skills were rapidly eroding, I had a shopping disaster.
     While pulling one full cart behind me and pushing a second ahead, they were becoming too much to maneuver around the aisles. So, I left them, sought out items, then came back to the carts and tossed them in. On one of these forays, while trying to choose vanilla extract, I became aware of an odd sound. Over the tinny Christmas carols issuing from the supermarket ceiling, I heared a shooshing noise. It was coming from one of my carts at the end of the aisle. Thinking I imagined it, I turned back to the vanilla extract, but the noise got louder.
    At the very bottom of the fullest cart, under a ton of carelessly piled groceries was a can of whipped cream. The weight of the groceries crushed the cover then forced the nozzle through the wire grid of the cart bottom. Whipped cream was discharging full throttle from my cart! Panicking, I tried to get to it, but there were just too many things piled on top. A mountain of whipped cream was building as if tectonic plates had collided under my cart! Helplessly, I watched Mount Everest grow. I tried to move the cart, but the cream kept coming! The loud, shooshing sound was building as the pressurized can spewed forth.
     When I started laughing uncontrollably, customers stared nervously. A lady ventured near, keeping her back to the opposite wall, as far away as she could get but still pass by me and snatch a bottle of vanilla extract. Her husband scurried after her, both of them staring at me and the mounting, suspicious looking mess on the floor. "It's just whipped cream, folks!" Tears streamed down my cheeks as I laughed. I could hardly breathe! I laid my head onto the groceries and squeezed my legs together trying not to pee myself (I always have to pee when I'm in the supermarket). Between bouts of hysteria, I babbled to the nervous shoppers "REALLY! It's just whipped cream!"
     Eventually, the can was emptied and I stopped laughing. A store clerk appeared with an inadequate roll of paper towelling and an orange 'wet floor' hazard cone. I apologized profusely and tried to help her clean up the mess. "Oh, don't worry about this," she explained. "It happens more than you know. Out in the warehouse, those cans are going off all the time. We call them 'cream bombs!'" Good to know, I thought. I felt like a cream bomb myself. A passing customer surveyed the two of us just as the clerk asked if I'd like for her to get me a replacement can. Eyeing me, he said "Lady, if I were you, I'd stick to Cool Whip in a tub."
     If, one day there are do-overs for these things, this is what I've learned for the next time around:
1. I'll be ready with the camera if the hunters return. I'll shoot back in the way that I know how.
2. I'll always take photographs, good ones and bad ones. You don't get any of them, unless you commit to the shutter.
3. I won't ever hide my heart in my pocket and,
4. I'll always choose real, whipped cream, no matter what the risks.


If you would like to see more photographs of Great Egrets, click here: Great egret    

"Look! It's It A Bird! It's A Plane! It's.......SUPERMOTH!" Hummingbird Sphinx Moth

Hummingbird or Clearwing Sphinx Moth

Last night, at a big party in Phippsburg, a lovely man asked me when I was going to post again, as I had not in five days.  He went on at some length about my past posts and how much he enjoyed them. He was animated in his descriptions of some of his favorites, all of which I found very flattering. As he told about the Bald eagle tearing the guts out of a rotting seal carcass and my tales of various wildlife image captures, I felt like a blushing school girl. Little did he know, that I already had this post in the works. And, by odd coincidence, I took these photographs the day before in his gardens!
     This is a Hummingbird Clearwing Moth, also called a Hummingbird Sphinx Moth. It's feeding on the nectar of a Monarda or Bee Balm. Using it's long proboscis to probe deep inside the flower, it feeds while hovering in flight. The side to side flight maneuver is called 'swing hovering,' a talent evolved only three times and only in nectar eaters: bats, birds and insects. Elephants do not do this, nor do any people I know, though I'd love to meet someone who does. It's an example of classic convergent evolution, when unrelated species have developed the same biological traits.
     This moth's wing span is about two inches, pretty big as insects in Maine go. Sphinx moths are the fastest flying insects on earth and having been clocked at 33 MPH! I don't know who figured that out, nor how. Were they raced around a closed track, wearing little saddles? Was some fat guy smoking a cigar standing by with a stop watch and a racing form?  "And they're OFF!" shouts the announcer as the gate snaps open. "It's Bizzy Bee on the inside, Hairy Hummer in the rear, Sticky Stan pulling into the lead!" I can smell the horse manure and dust...........snap out of it! These moths have never been confused with horses, to my knowledge. But, they are commonly mistaken for hummingbirds, thus the common names. Each year, someone tries to tell me that they are hummingbirds, which I consistently can demonstrate through photographs to not be true; many races are decided by a photo finish.

The moth's proboscis extends as much as two inches to get to the nectar.

There are 1,200 different kinds of these moths in the world. Maine only boasts two or three. The larval stage of one of Maine's species of Sphinx moths is the dreaded Tomato Horn Worm. The Tomato Horn worm can eat its way be a huge, 3-4 inches long as it devastates tomato plants. 

Not In My Backyard - Wood Duck & Canada Goslings

A few weeks ago, I had noticed these Canada geese swimming in a private pond. The youngsters were at the sable-brown powder puff stage. I did take photos, but nothing I was really satisfied with as I couldn't get close enough.  Each time I drove by the pond, I gazed longingly toward the geese wishing I could get closer. I coveted that pond and the birds it hosted. The rushes on the pond edge are almost six feet tall now, a foot taller than I am; shooting through the rushes was a definite challenge. Between the pond and I was also a broad expanse of lawn. There was no way of sneaking up on anyone. Remembering what they taught me at Quanitco, I did think I could lie down on my belly and slither like a snake, camera aloft. However, whenever I went by, I was never in my bathrobe, so I never had on the right outfit for that maneuver. Plus, the home owner would probably have had a problem with that. I often saw fresh laundry on the line there, cars moved around and the grass unfailingly mowed, sure signs of occupancy. Then one day, the home owner himself was out by the pond edge throwing cracked corn to the geese! I leaped from my car and scampered across his lawn to introduce myself and tell him how much I enjoyed his pond and all the wildlife it supported. I admired his brilliantly green lawn. "You must really work at that lawn. It's so lush and green! My husband really loves good grass," I said, ingratiating myself. Men always like to hear that they've got a great lawn; he was  in fact, very pleased. He sheepishly admitted that he shouldn't feed the geese and ducks, but couldn't help himself. He told me he had dug the pond when he built his house in 1970. Clearly, he was a man who appreciated do-it-yourself initiative. He invited me to come sit by the pond any time I wanted to and for as long as I wished. He even invited me to use some of his lawn furniture. "Sure! Take a load off! Sit right there under that pine in the shade if you want to. Me and the misses don't mind one bit. Nice someone likes it."
      Walking back to my car, I noticed that the emerald green lawn was actually the work of the geese as much as the home owner. It was a mine field of fertilizing bird bombs the size of Cuban cigars! In spite of trying to avoid them, I stepped into a few which stuck like two part epoxy to my shoe. Knowing that my new found pond pal would have been watching me return to my car, I had to ignore the poo goo so it didn't look like I disapproved. Having used my good 'man material' by blowing smoke about his lovely lawn would have been completely waisted had I let out a squealing "Eeeeeeeeeeuuuuuuuuu!" while doing a grand Pas Du Chat. I decided that having Canada geese in my yard wouldn't be so great. Like deer and grandchildren, they are better appreciated in someone else's yard. 

There are five of these young geese. Their adult feathers are developed enough that you can definitely tell they are Canada geese. These geese are quite habituated to humans and were not shy about being near me. The parents did hiss at me a few times which was a little nerve wracking. A Canada goose standing on the ground is about at eye level to me.

Amongst the Mallards in the pond was this divine Wood Duck in all of his colorful glory. He was definitely wild and would have spooked to flight very quickly if I hadn't been stealthy.

 

I could not get enough of photographing them, either. Maybe I will have to take up my new friend's offer of the lawn chair.

White-faced Ibis And True Friends

A friend stopped by yesterday. She had a death in the family some months ago and has just not been able to shake the doldrums. Tears wash over her and stop her in her tracks. She feels like an idiot and out of control. This was compounded by a stretch of weather that was pretty depressing, too. We had rain and thick fog ruling us for about a week. Things were beginning to smell like mold. When I would come into the house from outside I wouldn't want to take off my jacket feeling too cold and damp. I eyed the furnace thermostat a couple of times, tempted to turn on the heat. It was June 3rd; I resisted and kept on my jacket. When my friend came, I was trying to do some housekeeping making use of the dark days and hoping to at least feel like I was getting something done. I hadn't even taken any photographs in a couple of days. It was just too dark and dreary. My friend's despair gave me the perfect excuse to leave the house, "Let's go for a ride!" I wasn't asking a question. I grabbed my handbag and keys and headed for the car. "Are you going to take your camera,?" she asked, looking out the window at the pouring rain. "Yes, of course, I always take it, no matter what." But, truthfully, even I doubted the wisdom of that rule on a day that lowery. Nonetheless, out the door the three of us went - my friend, my camera and I. Was that redundant?

A White-faced ibis hangs around with a pair of Mallards. White-faced ibis are distinguished from Glossy by the white feathers around a reddish face and bright, reddish pink feet. They are the same size.

My friend had been nearly house-bound for eight years while she cared for a family member. Though she had lived here since childhood, there were many places she had never had opportunity to see. I took her on a tour of my usual  birding haunts. All the while, I chatted about the wildlife I had photographed in these places, trying to lift our mood. My friend wasn't really interested nor listening. She was struggling to pull out of her maudlin mindset as I was struggling to believe that we might see something exciting and that the fog and rain wouldn't matter. I drove down a dirt road into a low hollow where there is a pond edged by marsh. It's not beautiful. A landowner on one side keeps horses and the manure run-off has fouled the shallow pond. But, I do see good birds in there on occasion. And, low and behold! Standing on a hummock was a White-faced ibis! I was so excited I could have squealed like a pinched pig and maybe I actually did! I had never seen one of these birds before and knew them to be very rare in Maine. Recently, I posted about Glossy Ibises. They are interesting, but not rare. The identification differences are subtle. I knew the salient points of distinction between the two,  because years ago, I saw Glossy ibises and thought they were White-faced. Birders leaped out of the Ethernet to inform me that I was wrong and to tell me the differences. That stuck with me, so when I saw the White-faced, I knew exactly who I was looking at. My glee, in fact, infected my poor, downtrodden friend. I was ebullient with delight at the sighting of something rare and being able to prove it with many, good quality photographs, in spite of the rain and day's gloom. I told her repeatedly, "You are my lucky charm! You're part of it! Look, look! It's a big deal and that makes you a big deal, too!" She cracked a smile and even a couple of laughs. Caught up in my energy, she wanted to know all about what the steps would be for reporting the ibis. I gushed with all the technical details. Later that evening, I sent a notice of the sighting with photographs to The Merrymeeting Maine Audubon  and Maine Audubon List serves. I did receive numerous responses filled with wonder and wanting more information about the magnificent ibis and where to find it. The thing about great bird sightings though, is that once it's over, it's over. The same can be said of great photographs. As a photographer and birder, I've learned that you're only as good as your most recent shot or sighting. Once you've done it, it's over. Everyone is on to looking for the next bird or next great photograph. I can say that's not true of great friendships. Your friends remember when you saved them, or merely dragged them out of the hole they were in in a moment. They don't expect another great moment nor ignore you when you don't produce.

Thanks to Wikipedia, David Allen Sibley's Sibley's Guide To Birds, and allaboutbirds.com for information.

Her Highness Is A Lousy Housekeeper - Bald Eagle Stare Down

June 2nd, on my way home from grocery shopping, I stopped to check in on the Bald eagle's nest status. I believe this is Mom sitting here. If you zoom in on the photo (double-click on the image), you can see that there are lots of flies up there. On the ground in various places are parts of Seagulls and other larger birds which had been breakfast, lunch or dinner for the eagles. The bits of left-over bird parts, rodents and fish that remain in the nest must really stink it up. I suppose that's what is generating flies. You can also see the poo streaks on the branches where Her Highness is sitting. Lovely. I did see Junior in the nest. He moved a couple of times and flapped his scrawny wings. I did get some photos of that, but nothing worth showing to you. I'll keep trying. Mom chirped to the eaglet a couple of times and I could hear it chirp back to her. I tried pishing which got some stares from her, but I couldn't tell if Junior was responding to me or not. From directly under their tree, I took the top photo. It's an unusual angle for looking at an eagle. Suddenly, I remembered that I was in direct line for a major poo bomb and that I had melting frozen food in my car. That broke me from my spell and off I dashed for home. More to follow.........(Isn't this like a juicy soap opera?)!

Magnificent Acre- Bald Eagle, Lesser Yellowlegs, Eastern Pheobe, Pileated Woodpecker

 

Yesterday was a fantastic day. The weather was warm, in the high seventies, we are all healthy, including our dog, Perry, and I sold a mess of photographs. What could have been better? On my way home from delivering the photographs with a nice check burning a hole in my pocket, I stopped to check in on the Bald eagle's nest. The parents were around, but not on the nest at first. The one seen here was perched just off  to the side of the nest in the same tree. Under the nest, the grass and weeds are splattered heavily with eagle poo. It looks like a Jackson Pollock nature painting. I found a large feather stuck quill end into the poo like a javelin had been launched from on high. This eagle was panting because it was pretty hot in the sun and quite humid. I passed under the eagle's nest in pursuit of this female Pileated woodpecker. Believe it or not, I was more interested in getting a shot of her than the Bald eagle. I've taken lots of shots of perched eagles, even these same ones, enough so that I'm kind of bored with it. I need an eagle to do something interesting like fight with another bird, fly off with a sheep or perhaps my neighbor's dog. I have found getting a good image of a Pileated to be more of a challenge. First of all, there seem to be fewer of them than eagles, at least around here. Then, they are quite wary of people and fly away the second one moves. Also, being woodpeckers, they are always in places where the light is dim and there are lots of tree branches in the way. Their favorite food is Carpenter ants. Where I took this photo is a lumber mill with decades of milled wood stacked in the woods decomposing. It's a Carpenter ant factory. I have heard the loud "kuk kuk keeekeeekeekee kuk kuk" call in those woods before but never been able to get close enough, until today. This one was so busy bashing huge chunks of bark from this dead White pine that it didn't notice me. I could hear the slabs of bark falling from high up and followed the noise through the woods. So the bird wouldn't hear me, I only moved when I heard the woodpecker banging and the bark crashing to the ground. This Pileated was so vigorous about getting food in this fairly small area of trees that I think she has a nest with hatchlings nearby (of course, that's my next photography mission). My hands were trembling and my heart was pounding with each step I took advancing on her, sneaking along like Pocahontas with the feather jammed into my  pony tail. I have image stabilization on my lens, but it can only overcome so much movement. I was lucky to get good, crisp shots! I think the feather gave me good luck, carried me swiftly and surely of foot, silently through the forest. Ya. Okay. Next fantasy. After I had my fill of that,

 

The Pileated Woodpecker is our largest woodpecker at almost 17" tall. This one is female. Someone will probably jump out of the trees here to tell me that this isn't a female.

I headed back to my car. On a spit of rock sticking into the Kennebec River, I saw these three Lesser Yellowlegs. I'm going with 'Lesser' versus 'Greater' (not more) Yellowlegs because they look more delicate, with thinner necks and longer legs. I'm probably wrong about this, too. Yellowlegs, both kinds, are a migratory wading bird common here in the summer. It's breeding season so see how very yellow their legs are? Quite flashy! While I was shooting them, I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. This Eastern Phoebe landed on a piece of driftwood. I had seen it a couple of times flitting around the area with insects in its bill, so I'm assuming that it is also nesting nearby. There was a pair of Song sparrows also nesting there and Black And White Warblers, too. The area of woods sits on a point of land between the Kennebec River and Winnegance Lake. There is a good sized marsh on one side. It is a magnificent acre of wildlife.

A Woodchuck popped up onto this driftwood log barely 60 feet from the Yellowlegs. It was staring me down and humming, "How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?" When one of the eagles came back to its nest, this guy dove for cover. Maybe it's a she with a litter nearby, too. That seemed to be the order of the day. It seemed quite incongruous to see a Woodchuck alongside Yellowlegs. In the left foreground of the photo, you can see dreaded Poison Ivy. I was wearing sandals because I had gone to sell photographs, not shoot wildlife. It is fortunately my practice to always look where I'm walking or I would have stepped into it along with that pile of eagle poo. I did get a Dog tick inside my shirt, too. These photographs were worth all of it.

Redstart Riot - American Redstarts

Yesterday was a hard day. I was grieving the loss of  our little dog, Easy. Someday, I'll tell about that, but for today, I can't. I'm just too raw. After we buried her, I went off to Weed For Dollars to get my head out of some of the pain. I hoped that I would see some birds or beasts that might help to heal my broken heart. Nature never disappoints me; it was a terrific birding day here in The Burg. I'm only showing the American Redstarts for this post as to show all of what I saw would be just plain gushing. My father always used to tell me that anything worth doing was worth doing to excess. I subscribe to that most of the time, but if I showed the whole day's birds, you'd all think I'd gone on a birding bender to drown my sorrows and you would worry about me.

   At Alliquippa, here in Phippsburg, along the road is a hedgerow. It's an enormous, sensuous tangle of honeysuckle, lilacs, sumac and wild black cherry, all in bloom right now at once. The fragrance is deafening, yes, deafening. You heard me right. It's like trying to breath honey, an elixir of the sweetest, vanilla scented kind. Standing in it, I was awash with the perfume and couldn't quite tell if the buzzing I heard was the honey bees working or that feeling that precedes a faint or when you eat too much frosting and your fillings sing. The Cat birds were rustling and calling from within and there must have been at least six American Redstarts, males and females. They worked that area of heaven on earth for at least six hours. I left long before they did. I did get photographs of everybody, which was no easy feat trying to shoot in a thicket with high contrast of dark and light and hoppy flitty birds. The males called unrelentingly to the females that chatted back, jumping coyly ahead and out of sight whenever the males got close. I could have stayed there for many hours working for perfect shots. It was the kind of focus I so desperately needed to be able to apply to stop myself from sobbing uncontrollably, and a couple of times, I did anyway. The birds didn't care. They kept moving, darting, calling and enticing me to them. They lifted me from my despair up into the sky, up into the air. 

Honey bees love the wild black cherry blossoms. Those trees get that gnarly, black virus that mutates their branches and makes them hideous in the winter, as if they are festooned with gobs of tar. It would be tempting to hack them all down, but look who lives on the blossoms. 

American Redstarts are a type of wood-warbler. They are migratory and glean insects from the trees. This yellow one is the lady. The singer below is the male. They are about 5" long from head to tail.

For the couple of hours I worked for photographs of these guys, a male perched out of the canopy of leaves only this once.

Owl In The Hole! Barred Owl Pair and Owlet

At just about this time last year, give or take a couple of days, I took these photographs of this pair of adult Barred Owls. One of these shots has the owl's butt sticking out of the nest. They either did not lay eggs or did not successfully hatch the eggs. Barred owls will often use the same nest for years if they find it suitable each season when they check it out. Yesterday, I was able to get this shot of the owlet in the same nest. I think there are two of them in there, but I'm not sure. Barred owls lay a clutch of 2-5 eggs. I haven't yet seen the mom and dad, but I know they are around because I can hear them. I'll keep checking. The property owners have been gracious in telling me to come looking anytime; they ask only that I don't wear my bathrobe.  In the photos from last year, it almost looks as if the adult pair were consoling one another.

These are tail feathers sticking out of the hole last year. It was the tail of an adult, probably the female.

This is 'junior' this year in the same nest.

 

"Honey, it's okay. We can try again next year. Don't be sad."

Spring Flowers

I took all of these shots yesterday after clouds had moved in. I find that a slightly overcast day is best for shooting flowers. The blue tones resonate through and sublte colors are not washed out by the sun. These are all flowers in my gardens. Top left to right, clockwise are Johnny Jump Ups, Shooting Stars, a foliage-only show of thyme, Lady's Mantle, ajuga and Midnight Reiter geranium, buds of Oriental poppies, another Johnny Jump Up with Kenilworth Ivy and Corydalis lutea. The combos are random and seeded themselves that way. Sometimes, those are the combinations I like the most. I hope you find them as lovely as I do.
  For the photographers in the room, I shot these all with my Canon 50D with a Canon 100-400mm telephoto zoom lens, hand held. It does have image stabilization, but those of you into photography 'technology' will recognize that this breaks most of the rules for this kind of photo. This kind of work is usually done with a much shorter lens with a wider angle and on a tripod.

Scarlet Tanagers

Evergreen Cemetery in Portland is one of the premier birding spots in Maine. It's an old fashioned, 'garden style' cemetery that was established in the early 1800s. There are 65,000 people interred there. Through huge, old trees lovely paths and trails meander around several ponds on 239 acres. This is warbler migration season, so the birding is intense right now. Thousands of birds of all kinds can be heard in the dense canopies of deciduous and conifer trees. I am not good at vocalization identifications, but I'm learning. It's very difficult to see through the leaves to identify what one might be hearing, and even more difficult to take great photographs. The birds are very flitty and hoppy by nature and even more so with migration and mate choosing underway. The top photo is a Beech tree where I was looking for a Bay-breasted warbler when I saw these Scarlet tanagers. My heart about blew out of my chest when first I saw this blaze of red streak through the leaves. I almost didn't believe what I was seeing. The male landed several times then eventually sat still. It's a good thing I was able to get this photo because otherwise, I would have thought some of that old chemical stuff from the seventies was leaking out of my liver or from the fat cells where my brain used to be.
His mate obliged as well. She is nearly the same color as the new Beech leaves. I haven't seen a Scarlet tanager in seven years. I took photographs then, but they are terrible. The bird was here at Totman Cove on a feeder. It was evening and it was raining. In those photographs, the bird is an orange blob. Scarlet tanagers migrate to South America for wintering. They breed here in these kinds of woods. They are insect eaters and spend most of their time up in the trees just as I observed them at Evergreen where they glean bugs from the branches. Evergreen is lovely. If you ever get the chance to go there, you should take it. Take a lunch. It's beautiful and relaxing and there is loads to see. You'll get a natural high just sitting there listening - no chemical enhancements from your youth required.

If you want to know more about Scarlet tanagers, check out allaboutbirds. There is a great recording of their song, too.
Thanks to Wikipedia and David Allen Sibley, The Sibley Guide To Birds for information.

Oh, Baby, Baby! Barred Owl and Red Fox Babies

This is a baby Barred owl or owlet. The little owl appears to be one of two. The other one stayed in its nest cavity, but I could see it up through branches. Neither of them can fly yet, so I'm not sure how this one got to this branch which is roughly thirty feet from the nest. The nest cavity is in an oak where a large branch broke off years ago. It's a typical Barred owl nest. Last year, I took photographs of the nest cavity and what turned out to be two adult Barreds. They did not have a successful nesting. If the mother laid eggs, nothing hatched. The property owners say that they have been aware of nesting in the same site for about five years and that probably, there were owls there before they realized it. The property owners where busy in their yard when I arrived. The second I got out of my car, I could hear an owl making the buzzing noise they issue when they are annoyed. The owls seem to think they own the whole block! The property owners say that they haven't had any Red squirrel problems there in the years since they've had the owls in residence. In Maine, Barred owls lay eggs in April. The owlets fly about 4-5 weeks after that. According to Wikipedia, the Barred owl is thought responsible for the decline of the Spotted owl population. Barred owls are more aggressive then Spotted and compete for nesting sites. On the west coast, a study was undertaken where Barred owls were shot to allow the Spotted owls nesting opportunities.

There are reportedly five kits in this litter. I only saw two. They were not shy. I'll go back to check on the others. I photographed these baby foxes and the owlet today, all in Phippsburg.

 

This little guy is about to yawn.

This was one of the two fox kits that I saw. He could hardly be bothered with me from his nap.

     Thanks to Wikipedia for information about the Barred owls.

Battle Serendipity - Red-tailed Hawk and Crows

Yesterday, I actually got to a job without being too distracted. However, while Weeding For Dollars, I was admittedly taking photographs and prepared to do so at the drop of a bird poop from the trees. Or, my hat, as it were. And let me tell you, Mister Man! It was a good thing I was or this whole event would have been lost to the history of mankind. This is a Red-tailed hawk being mightily harassed by a few crows. The one on the right that looks bigger might be a Raven. This battle went on for a few minutes as the hawk dodged and weaved and dove to try to shed the pesky varmints from its tail. As far as I know, RTs aren't nest robbers, so I'm not sure what this was about. Maybe crows just don't like any other dude on their corner for any reason. I was in Phippsburg when I took these shots. When I came home, I read my e mail as I usually do while waiting for my aching back to calm down. There's always lots of stuff from the Audubon List Serve bird reporters going at this time of year. Everyone's having palpitations about the warblers and everyone wants to be the first to report something rare. I must admit to some of the ego driven competitiveness myself. Plus, there is just the thrill of seeing the twitterers everywhere, rare or common. I didn't see anything rare yesterday. But I did catch this battle royal and lots of Baltimore Orioles and a lovely White-crowned sparrow. I'll share those in a separate post. Here is an unauthorized excerpt of one of the list serve e mails I read:
" Greetings, birding friends. Is it still called "birding" if there are no birds present? That was basically the deal on the Maine Audubon walk at Evergreen Cemetery this morning. Whew, it was dead. Deader than roadkill. We're talking slooooooooooow. And what few birds our group encountered, we couldn't see. They taunted us from the treetops or from deep in the scrub. The few birds we could hear, we couldn't quite identify. Their vocalizations were unfamiliar and possibly new to science. Until the wind picked up and we couldn't hear them anymore. By then, thankfully, it was time to say goodbye, sell my binoculars on eBay, and take up gardening."

I had to laugh as I saw what I did while gardening and captured it for everybody else. Tomorrow, I have a date with a fellow birder to go to Evergreen Cemetery. I bet I'll photograph something, anything, even if it's an interesting head stone. If I don't photograph something interesting, it will be because I'm not gardening.

 

This isn't an escort service. The Crow had dodged ahead of the hawk and doubled back on it.