Serendipity is...

Glancing out the window at work while in the middle of a discussion about bird feeding and seeing this:

The less dramatic but non-seasickness-inducing version:

I have seen far more dead River Otter in Cape May County than live otter. The peninsula isn't, or wasn't, ever truly solid ground; many creeks crossed and criss-crossed the land and in some places they still do. Unfortunately, highways now cross the creeks, and otter are only one of the many victims.

So when I looked out the window and saw a live otter, I perhaps screamed a bit. Not too loudly (I'm trying). I knew this oversized pond had otter although this isn't where I had my one live sighting. But to learn the lake also had American Eel was icing on the cake. (A frantic rush to Wikipedia jogged loose what I had learned a long time ago about eels: I knew that for some part of their life cycle they lived in fresh water and headed out to sea the other half but I couldn't remember which way they went. Adults in fresh; spawn in salt. Catadromous, if you wish to get technical about it.)

We used to occasionally catch small eels in our minnow trap off our dock in Avalon, about a foot long and maybe half an inch in diameter and I remember my great uncle used to catch and eat (blech!) much larger ones. I watched a Double-crested Cormorant swallow an eel about the size of this one (couple of feet and inches around) just a year or so ago, but those eels were all in the brackish tidal zone of the back bay salt marshes, not an apparently land-locked little city lake... Wow.

Apologies for the shaking video (iMovie actually was able to stabilize it a bit) and grainy photos (which I had to screen-capture).

Hell's fire, Mother Night...

And may the Darkness be merciful. *

I'd love to move out of New Jersey to a state more affordable to live in and with more job opportunities (and mountains, and no hurricanes), but where else would I find a house and property where I can learn how to better use my camera merely by spending a few hours at my den window, shooting pics and video of a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker three bloody feet away (or less, in the case of the insane Ruby-crowned Kinglet that keeps beating up said window)?

Yay! Shooting video with the DSLR was easer than I thought, and the quality is incredible...

(Turns out there are actually two sapsuckers using this tree.

This fluffy male visits most often, but there has also been a smaller, thinner female.)

Must. Win. Lottery.

* A wonderful oath from a series of novels by Anne Bishop.

Kamikaze Kinglet

Some weeks ago, I could hear at least one of the cats walloping a front window that looks out through a holly tree into the front yard, screen removed for clearer viewing (there's often a platform feeder attached to the outside of that particular window). It's not a native holly, but it does provide some nice cover, the berries do get eaten as winter progresses, and this year weird splits in the trunk (which are not shaped like sapsucker holes but which the yellow-belly is now definitely keeping open) have been providing (presumably) sweet treats for a number of birds and even the squirrels.

Upon investigation, I discovered that the hullabaloo was due to a Ruby-crowned Kinglet repeatedly flying up to and hovering directly in front of the window. This behavior had naturally attracted the attention of the house cats. I never could decide if the bird was picking insects off the window, was trying to get into the house to pick at the spider webs on the inside of the window, or was merely attacking its reflection. (Someone suggested it might be going after the cats…)

This went on for a couple of days, and then winter finally arrived (sort of) and the cats and I lost interest. Apparently the kinglet had as well. Peace reigned.

Fast-forward to Saturday… I finally put out seed for the yard birds; I had been lazy so far this winter but turned that into an experiment to see how much activity the yard would have without the feeders filled--just how dependent were the "wild" birds on my handouts? Turns out there was zip, zilch, nothin' in the way of noticeable avian activity anywhere around the house in spite of (or perhaps because of) the yard being a tangle of unmaintained, whatever-wants-to-grow-has-free-rein, vegetation. Which was more than a bit depressing because winter window-watching is usually better than TV (which we don't have since they took away the analog signals and I was too lazy to get a coupon for a digital antenna and too cheap and stubborn to pay for cable) for entertainment. So I filled a few feeders (the old seed needed to be used up anyway). I then decided more window decals might be in order (properly located on the outside of the glass, rather than inside as the old ones were) and the feeder-viewing windows could be cleaned at the same time for greater enjoyment (and in hope and anticipation of a photo opportunity).

I had just finished snapping some shots of my funky decals--

(I don't scrapbook so I hardly used the Cricut machine my mother gave me until some brilliant soul realized you could cut designs in self-stick vinyl sheets with one! They make great truck decals, too…) --when *smack*… There was a cat hitting that front window again. (Stupid plastic grilles: I only leave them on the windows because I get a bit too much vertigo looking out a big clear window without 'em.)

Uh-oh.

He was back.

Dang kinglets never, never sit still so although I managed some rather nice pics (ought to have, shooting as I was at point-blank range almost too close for the macro lens), they aren't as perfect as I'd like. At least these are mostly in focus and actually have the bird in them… (Except for the one below; he was bouncing around like a pinball at this point.)

At one point the kinglet was about as mad as I've ever seen a wee beastie--his hackles were raised as far as he could get them (these shots really don't do his mohawk justice)...

And he was screaming a song as he attacked the window. I can only conclude that this was some kind of seasonally-misplaced territorial behavior, something along the lines of "This is my holly tree and you can't have it…" (When he wasn't attacking the window, he was bouncing around the bush looking for nibbles, including frequent stops at the sap wells.) He wasn't bugging and he was consistently hitting the window with his feet well above the cat's head. He didn't even really need the cat to be there, but RitzCarlton's presence did sort of seem to add extra impetus to the kinglet's assaults.

Luckily for all of us the bird eventually gave up, presumably as the light (and therefore his reflection) shifted with the waning day.

I actually grabbed the point-and-shoot camera first, which has a video feature that is easy to use:

[Argh! This video shows up on my edit page but not on the website. If you can't see it either, you will find it here: http://youtu.be/IkHBW4ZGkNE .]

December Days, Cool Cats.

When sunny and blue-skied but windy and very cold, short December days are very well spent snuggled up inside with a cat or two (or more in our house, usually, especially if a fuzzy blanket and the comfy chair are involved). On the other hand, when the light is so tempting, a bright December day is also well spent photo-ambushing said snuggled-up cats…

Abby has never minded having a camera in his face.

Well, not much.

"Oh damn and Bastet, hours later and she's still pointing that thing at me…"

Costello, brother to Abby and in the house two years now, has finally given up his deer-in-headlights expression when having his photo taken.

He was being very patient, even though I still can't get cat eyes in focus. (Hey, cat noses are cute, too! And far less intense when in focus than cat eyes. Out-of-focus small predator eyes may not be a bad thing, really…)

And perhaps Tells has come so far as to vogue a bit…

Corson is about the most laid-back cat I've ever had. Cameras are to be be ignored or at the least tolerated just like everything else the crazy human does. (I can sooo picture Cory dressed in doll clothes and draped in plastic dress-up jewelry in his past life [whatever that was] with the world's most patient "Whatever" look on his face; he's just that kind of cat.) 

Toes are nearly as cute as noses, especially when crossed with such feline suavity.

I never could understand why no one even wanted to foster Snickers (let alone adopt her) when she landed (through no fault of her own) in a shelter nearly twelve years ago, for she has quite a sunny and silly personality. And with her tuxedo markings just a bit awry, she's cartoon-cat cute! Never understood until now, that is; her funny face can actually come across as quite intimidating…

Aw, she's trying!

See?! Isn't she adorable? That's my Doodle Cat…

Treasures on a November Beach.

Stone Harbor Point, New Jersey...

November Beaches: Stone Harbor Point.

Dunlin, dolphin and turnstones.

Ruddy Turnstones.

(This one has been hanging out on this jetty all fall according to the band re-sighting records.)

Dunlin.