Sun!

A warm and light-filled February afternoon (we usually get at least one a year) being thoroughly enjoyed by a Mourning Dove... Alas, I was stuck inside at work. (Perhaps a good thing; no reason to get my hopes up that spring is near. ;o) )

"What's the green one?"

A customer was looking out the window across the store, studying the bird feeders and talking to the sales manager about what they were seeing. "What's the green one?" Despite a species list of over 400, unless someone's pet parrot has escaped, southernmost New Jersey doesn't have many green birds. But there had been (at least) one hanging out nearby off and on this past winter. Could it have found the feeders here at work?

Yup. Painted Bunting, possibly a young male given the strong, saturated color and tinge of blue. (Unnoticeable in this shot, alas, but I'm happy that I was able to get this one-off.)

(Of course I Photoshopped-out the twig!)

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 .]

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.

Hard-headed.

Hard-headedness is a good thing when you are a woodpecker. Being used to blunt force head trauma, this Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker was able to quickly shake-off his collision with the front door at work, give us flaming what-for while we checked him over for injuries ("yep, I'd say he's fine..."), and fly off nimbly after I snapped a few photos (this being the only one in focus).

Ecology: How It All Works Together.

For today's ecology lesson, we'll look at a tree, some bugs and a bird...

First, we start with the tree; a Tulip Tree in this case. (Once known as "tulip poplar" but we try not to use that name anymore as it isn't, in fact, a poplar. It's actually related to magnolias.)

Second: Tulip Tree Scale. Just like the scale that attacks your houseplants, only this not-as-little sap-sucking insect (the pinkish-orangish blobs) favors tulip trees.

A couple of summers ago, my tulip tree suffered a rather heavy infestation of tulip tree scale. "Not good for the tree," we humans would believe, but the scale insects were having a party. And what the scale excreted provided food for all sorts of nectar-eating insects such as this male Velvet Ant. (Which isn't really an ant, it's a wasp. It's the wingless female who scurries around on the ground that earned the species that particular common name.)

  

The tree survived very well, thank you, but it did lose the limbs that were most heavily affected by the scale. Despite winter wind and hurricanes, many of the dead branches remained on the tree. They started to rot where they were, and the outer bark started to peel away this year. Then the fun began again...

Tulip Trees are wonderfully useful to humans. Their typical tall, straight trunks were once much used for ship masts. (For trees growing close together there's competition for light, so they grow straight and tall and you don't see much branching off the main lower trunk--the leaves would be too shaded. Trees growing in the open, however, develop a different shape--more broad and branching and therefore less useful as timber.)

The inner bark of a Tulip Tree branch that is in the early stages of decay peels/can be peeled into long strips which can then be twisted into relatively strong rope. I can't say as to whether this ever achieved any commercial value, but it's fun to hand twist a bit of bark into rope for a necklace or lacing.

Animals, naturally, figured out the benefits of Tulip Tree bark a long, long time ago... First the squirrels started stripping the dead branches of my tree for stuffing to use in their late-winter nests. As the spring songbird nesting season came into full swing, the Carolina Wrens started grabbing their share.

This weekend, a pair of Cedar Waxwings were in the Tulip Tree, wrestling (with more or less success) their own fibers off the branches to be woven into their nest.

Moral of the story? Don't panic if a tree suffers an infestation; Mother Nature knows what she's doing. A healthy tree will survive, and much benefit can come out of what seems like a great harm.

Like A Duck to Water.

A local mooch of a mallard hen spent an afternoon napping in one of the bird baths at work. (Never mind the large lake across the street...) Of course I had to take her picture!

She wasn't too happy with me pointing a camera at her,

but I caught one last departing shot...

And I made sure to get a close up...