New visitors

I have been thrilled to see the hummingbirds each evening at the feeder. I think I have at least two different birds; one always approaches from the east, the other from the west. The one from the west looks like he/she has a small bald patch on his neck and I can’t tell if it is a ruby throat or a black chinned hummer. The one that seems to always approach from the east is a ruby throated hummingbird and will eat and pose and then flit to another portal and do the same thing.

I can count on seeing activity between 5:30 and 8 in the evening and I am completely fascinated by them. It tickles me that even though their approach to the feeder is always horizontal from one side or the other, when they are finished feeding they shoot straight up like a rocket being launched. I have multiple out of focus shots attesting to this but I captured the one immediately below just as he was about to launch. One of these days I will get the proper lens to do pictures of them justice; meanwhile, you will find me sitting for a couple of hours every evening by the open window where I have set up my camera gear because I can’t get enough of these extraordinary little birds.

Still bird watching...

The weather is still not cooperating for fungi and mushroom hunting. Nor is it cooperating for macro photography in general with pretty routine winds of 10-20 mph and sometimes gusts that are 30-40 mph. It’s been that way for weeks - either sunny and cold/windy or rainy and warm/windy, but very few nice days to hunt macro shots. And if they are nice, I’m at work.

So I’ve been going home and opening the window where my camera is set up so that I can block out the world and watch the birds. The orioles are abundant, the baby red-bellied woodpeckers have flown the nest and are visiting the feeders (the male has been all over all of them and is the one that would eat a little suet and then raise his beak straight up and just wait that way for several seconds at a time like he was still waiting on his mama to feed him, but he figured it all out), catbirds are eating as much jelly as the orioles, a red-headed woodpecker surprised me and, much to my delight, has been around every day as long as I have bark butter on the tree trunk, a juvenile male rose-breasted grosbeak stopped by for a few evenings, no activity on the hummingbird feeder yet except for the orioles to use it as a perch, and the starlings have descended like the pests they are to lay the feeders bare within hours. It has been a challenge to keep them at bay (no pictures, I refuse). It’s supposed to be warm with rain this weekend and I am hoping to find some fungi or mushrooms growing in my woods.

I can relate to the face first approach when it comes to certain foods.

The birds

The birds that regularly visit my feeders are currently staging a revolt over me having put an orange slice in the suet feeder and moving a couple of the seed feeders one hook over from their usual spot. I moved things around a bit so I could get a better view of them. Yesterday, I sat and watched for a couple of hours after making the changes and even the normally reliable goldfinches wouldn’t make an appearance. At all. The Northern Flicker flies in sounding like a helicopter but has so far refused to land. The Red Bellied Woodpecker, who loves the suet feeder, instead began using one of the seed feeders meant for small birds.

Apparently I have a bunch of toddler birds.

The chickadees were slow to return but eventually did so and the bluebirds were unaffected since I left the mealworm station untouched. And yet, I still get the hairy eyeball from the bluebird. Why do bluebirds always look annoyed? It’s like they’re perma-angry even though they are one of the prettiest birds out there. Maybe he’s just taking up the cause for his brethren.

The first two pictures were taken before I put the offending citrus in with the suet and I guess I will be taking it back out this evening when I get home.

California dreamin'

The west coast indulges me in every aspect of photography that I love - tide pool creatures and shells, banana slugs, mushrooms and slime molds that are far more exotic than in my own part of the country, and great weather. The grass is always greener, eh? I do love so many things about where I live, though, including snow, believe it or not.

But not being able to travel, at least without having to quarantine going and coming back, is the thing I have struggled with the most during the Covid-19 crisis. I can’t wait to go tide pooling again, and one of the things that always delights me when doing so is to find a sea hare. This was the smallest one I’ve seen yet, although it’s hard to get that perspective from my little phone video and picture. It was maybe three inches long. I should have filmed him for longer than ten seconds but I was up against time in catching my flight home this day because I had walked farther down the beach than I realized. The walk back to where I had parked, all while hauling 30 pounds of camera gear I never even used, was…challenging. I was just happy to get a little snippet for my “some day I’ll get back” album.

Forward progress

Usually I know I will make it through winter when, sometime in late January, I walk out of my office and realize it is after 6 PM but still light outside. I celebrate that day every year, but this year has been a bit different. Even though I still celebrated, the longer than usual, on again, off again, mostly off again, spring - on top of the world collapsing before our eyes - has greatly contributed to my inability to even begin to rise above the mild seasonal affective disorder that plagues me each year. I finally got outside last night to photograph my favorite part of my magnolia trees as they are beginning the end of their blooming cycle. Forward progress. I have to remind myself that two steps forward and one step back is still forward progress. Even if one of those steps is me tripping and falling face first into the dirt, it’s still forward progress and I’ll take those small victories.

I was grateful the magnolias bloomed this year since many years they are bitten by a hard freeze mid-bloom, which then die on the tree in a sad, limp, brown show. Next up will be my daughter’s cherry tree, the blooms of which you see on the front cover of this portfolio. The buds are out and as long as we don’t get a hard freeze this weekend (which is quite likely - sad face), it will be in full bloom over the next couple of weeks.

A new hobby

I bought a bird feeder to keep me a bit distracted when I’m home. When my kids were little, we had a whole array of bird feeders that we would sit and watch for hours, writing down each new type of bird we saw, until the starlings found us and the only way to get rid of them was to take everything down for a period of time. I never got around to putting it all back up. My sister has an awesome set up and I wanted to go back to the joy of seeing some of the same birds she has visiting on a regular basis. Except the acrobatic squirrel that routinely empties or dismantles some of her feeders. Those I can do without. So I put up the pole and four feeders late one evening and the next morning one of the feeders had been completely emptied. Of course. So I got out the Crisco and greased up the center pole. Haven’t had a problem since and saw my first bluebird over the weekend. This makes me happy.

The in between

Not much is growing in my patch of woods during this “in between” spring weather that can’t decide if it’s going to be warm or cold, rainy or sunny, and with or without gale force winds. I found virtually nothing in the woods during my walk this weekend but did find two of these in between the edge of the woods and the road. Possibly psathyrella candolleana.

Rainy days and scarlet elf cups

Sarcoscypha coccinea. Always a favorite find in early spring.