Day 17.081: Exile #2’s Sunday Column #474

Exile #2 writes...

Exile #1 and I were on duty at church for what was quite a packed service this morning. We arrived home to find Exile #3 fast asleep. She didn’t emerge until mid afternoon so we had lunch with E5N1, who is a somewhat unfamiliar face around the house at the moment, so that was nice. We also had a phone call, while we ate, from Exile #4, who was heading out to enjoy the sunshine with some friends.

Performing one of our duties (we both had several)

Exile #1 and I waited until the evening to head into town for a walk down by the river. The river was quiet, as was the town but we did find a woman gathering clay on the riverbank and got to enjoy the Amtrak train going by. I love the sound of its whistle - it has to sound it when approaching the road crossing. Although, maybe I wouldn’t be quite so keen on it if I lived next to the tracks.

Day 17.080: Butterflies fly

We spent some time at church this afternoon decorating for Easter. One major task was to suspend some butterflies from the fittings I put high in the roof some months ago from a scaffold tower. It was a fun engineering challenge and successful in the end. 

Day 17.079: Eastertide restoration

Maybe not a resurrection, but I’m happy to say that the basement is back to normal after our little water incident and even tidier - for now at least. 

Day 17.078: Purple finch

Since our earliest days in the US, I've been aware that house finches and purple finches look quite alike and even tend to feed together, so I've always checked for the brown cap on the males and the eye markings on the females. So, I was quite surprised that on identifying this visitor from Monday as a purple finch that it was the first time I'd positively identified one.

Day 17.077: Foxed

Spotted by the road on my way home from work today: a red fox. 

I only had my phone of course, but it was preoccupied with something enough to allow me to get a few shots. 

 

Day 17.076: Powerless

The ice storm brought a power outage, pretty trees and a few surprises on Sunday.

After waking up in a cold house, I got the generator going and then we got back to watching the birds.

and trying to photograph the ice in the trees with limited success.

One of the things we noticed was that without power overnight, our heated birdbath had frozen solid. I broke a large hole in the center and that worked for a while, but since the socket it is attached to is not one the generator powers, eventually - thanks to this goldfinch, I realized it had frozen over again.

This time, I was able to lift the whole disk of ice off:

An outing to get more fuel for the generator allowed me to see some more trees weighed down by their glassy coating of ice. So pretty, but very destructive.

Day 17.075: Counting the birds

It sometimes seems that we see many fewer birds on our Project FeederWatch counting days (Saturday and Sunday) than we do on normal week days. So much so that we have recently considered switching our days to get a more representative sample. In the first weekend in March, we saw exactly one bird over the whole weekend - a solitary goldfinch. 

This weekend may have made up for all that. On Saturday alone, we counted 100 individual birds (PF rules allow birds of the same species only if they are seen at the same time regardless of sexual dimorphism or other distinguishing features. By the end of our count, we had clocked up sixteen species. Our assumption is that the late but widespread and fairly heavy snow cover forced many birds to look for easy options suspended clear of the new snow pack. 

Here are some birds in the snow with our associated counts.

American goldfinch - we counted a season's best twenty of them at one point (there were probably more but they are tricky to count)

Eastern bluebird - one of our most reliable visitors - 3 this weekend (season's best is 4)

Downy woodpecker (just one this weekend)

Northern cardinal (two this weekend - equaling the season best)

House finch - two, season's best is five

European starling - we saw five (previous best was two)

Common grackles - our first sighting in the backyard as far as I know

At one point we counted 35

Mourning dove - two this weekend

American robin - another season first - and we counted ten

And yet another first for the season - red-winged blackbird - we saw 8 - several times in mixed groups with the grackles

Not pictured: red-bellied woodpecker, American crow, black-capped chickadee, tufted titmouse, white breasted nuthatch and eight dark-eyed juncos.

Day 17.074: Exile #2's Sunday Column #473

Exile #2 writes...

Yesterday’s storm caught us a little by surprise. It has been a mild winter and had really begun to feel like spring, so we watched the flakes fall with some amazement. E5N1’s school dance was canceled, so we hunkered down for the evening. Then the power went out. I retrieved the camping lantern from my bedside table, where it’s been sitting unused through the winter, and we finished out the night on mobile data and lamplight.

Icicles on the power lines shortly before we lost power last night.

When we woke there was still no sign of power. After a quick assessment, Exile #1 rigged up the generator and we restored power to some of the downstairs, enough to keep us warm and let us boil a kettle. Then we waited. For much of the day our street was listed as being assessed by the Power Company, but at 6:30ish, while Exile #1 and I were out trying to see if anyone was making food, we got a text from Exile #3 saying the power was back.

It was a great relief to turn off the noisy generator and to be able to turn on the lights this evening. Thank you to all the power line workers who have been out restoring service in the cold today and likely will be for the next few days too.

Day 17.073: Early spring?

I guess this is what an early spring in Maine looks like:

Either that or groundhogs can’t be trusted to predict such things.

Actually, that was early in the event, we had at least a couple of inches more before it transitioned to sleet and ice and rain. It’s a mess out there now and we may get some more snow on the tail end overnight. 

In other news, we had a bumper day of counting birds for Project FeederWatch and managed to move most of the large items back into the basement. 

Day 17.072: My contributions

My contributions to yesterday's bird photos were a new bird investigating the brush pile (the day after we'd submitted our March survey about its use), and a bird that caused a good deal of excitement among the local crows.

Not a great photo, but it's a song sparrow. The first sparrow of any kind we've seen here since before the winter.

As best I can tell, this is an immature red-tailed hawk. The crows were very unhappy he was here. The cowbirds just stayed at the feeder completely oblivious.

 

Day 17.071: Blustery; birds

We are expecting a storm starting tomorrow night - a snow-rain-snow sandwich. Today, there has been a bitterly cold wind to shake away the early-spring cobwebs.

The weather seems to have brought a lot of birds to the feeders through the day today. I was at work for most of the action - just catching a little at lunchtime and at the end of the day (now that I can get home before nightfall). Exile #2 however got some great photos of European starlings and brown-headed cowbirds.

Day 17.070: Tree trouble?

There have been some challenges for our comings and goings from our house for the last couple of days due a long line of vehicles half - or at times - fully blocking the street. They have been at our neighbor’s house taking some trees down. I suppose like the roofs in our neighborhood, the trees are also “of a certain age” and causing trouble at times, but I’ll never not be sad to see them go. 

Day 17.069: Goldfinch high-rise

We upgraded our Nyjer seed feeder from a net sock to this:

It has a clever arrangement inside to hold seed on several levels and can support more finches than the full sock and many more than a half empty sock (even when it is less than half full).

We regularly have a dozen or more goldfinches at one time and sometimes they will all fight for this feeder and other times they seem to ignore it altogether in favor of the larger feeder with mixed nuts and seeds. So far, any explanation for their shifting preferences is lost on me.

Day 17.068: Back to … normal?

Exile #3 is back and doing well after her fun week away, I was back at work today, and we’re back to deodorizing the basement. It’s a second - and hopefully final - round of vinegar spray followed (not immediately!) by baking soda to dry and absorb odors. It definitely did a lot of good the first time, hopefully a second round will clinch it. 

Day 17.067: Exile #2’s Sunday Column #472

Exile #2 writes...

E5N1’s busy weekend continued with a game of D and D this afternoon with a few of his friends. Meanwhile, Exile #3 arrived home, having had a lovely week in Florida. Exile #1 and I had slightly less fun things to do this weekend, following some water encroachment in our basement from last weekend’s heavy rain - we currently have a garage full of furniture and boxes - while we clean and dry things out. But we made the process of as entertaining as we could and have hopefully made some progress.

Day 17.066: Luck of the Irish

E5N1 managed to fit in another Jazz festival and a St Patrick’s Day party today. He left for the day party in some green pants and jacket but came back like this:

…having gained the headwear as well as a green shirt and socks.

The party house was decorated outside with more green lights and themed decorations than I’d ever seen. No-one is as Irish at this time of year as Americans with some Irish heritage.