We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
Feral pig, Wild Boar, Wild Hog, Russian Boar, farm pig. They are all pigs, all very slight variants of the one species Sus scrofa. (The tusks are removed from farm pigs at birth.) In the US, they are all called "pigs."
No sus scrofa is native to North America.
We have posted in the past about the pig/boar hybrids which have been expanding their range across the US, wreaking havoc in the process to woodlands and to agriculture. They are so prolific, and so destructive, that most areas of the US now have open season on the pigs. Hog wild: Feral pig population explodes in U.S
Distinguishing European (aka Russian) Boar from farm pig/boar hybrids is almost impossible, but it is thought that, in many or most areas, most animals are hybrid. Since they're all the same species, it doesn't really matter. Pigs.
Texas and California have seen enormous population growth of Sus, but they have spread around the country - even around Albany NY where the biggest pigs have traditionally been the NYS politicians.
Since every area in the US in which they have appeared is eager to be rid of them, year-round hunting opportunities are abundant. Hunting over bait stations is entirely legal. Some use AR-15s, some use bow, some use revolver, and some macho dudes use baying dogs and kill the pigs with a hunting knife.
There are simply not enough pig hunters to control these creatures, so I propose releasing Wolves into areas where the wild pigs are a problem. The Wolves would have a field day.
Some people do not enjoy the taste of wild pig, which is a bit gamier than the corn-fed farm pig. I have had the wild boar, the same Sus scrofa, which lives in the Appenines of Umbria, and it is a special treat when cooked the ways the Umbrians do it. "Cinghiale." I've had it there cooked several ways, and the sausage too. Even snuck some cinghiale salumi home in my bags.
If you live in a flood zone, you should expect floods. If you build in a forest prone to fire, you should expect fire.
Flooding is nature telling you that you should not build a house there. Fire, likewise. Fire is part of a forest's natural cycle. Fire suppression only makes the next one hotter and more violent.
Floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, forest fires. Mother Nature is a harsh school-mistress. As the sea-captain said, "I love going to sea, but I do not love the sea. The sea is my enemy because it is always trying to find a way to kill me."
The same goes for the deep woods.
If you recall, the last big fire in Yosemite was a boon to wildlife and to the forest's health. It's like a natural ecosystem, ya' know?
Photo of Semipalmated Sandpipers from Being a sandpiper - Animals have thoughts, feelings and personality. Why have we taken so long to catch up with animal consciousness?
12-20 hummers at the feeders - Rufus and Calliope. The Rufus migrate from winter breeding grounds in southern Mexico to summer HQ in southern Alaska. That's a female Rufus with the little red throat patch.
My wife and I have been scuba diving for 20+ years, and we've seen all kinds of fantastic sights. I was lucky enough to meet a Sea Turtle on my first open water experience, at 120 feet. Barracuda have eyed my wife and I hungrily, while we off-gassed on the hang line. An octopus shot some ink while we watched him in his lair. Probably the most amazing thing we experienced was being buzzed by a pod of Atlantic Bottle-Nosed Dolphin while we ascending from a WWII wreck.
It was a disconcerting experience, at first. As the video below only hints, baitfish will suddenly move in a unified direction as a predator approaches. We were surrounded by baitfish and they disappeared suddenly, as if being washed down a funnel and into the darkness of the ocean. You don't need much experience to know what that mean. Our eyes as big as plates, we anticipated the arrival of a shark. When the Dolphin suddenly appeared, it was as if playtime was declared. They whipped around us two or three times, encouraging us to let go and join them.
But I've never, ever, come this close to being lunch.
Our yellow Trumpet Vine on our entryway arbor - a mini- nature preserve - is having a good year.
A Robin is nesting in it right now. Her second batch this season. They get annoyed every time you walk through.
I devoted yesterday afternoon to manual labor because the heat wave passed. Weeding, vine removal, some mid-summer pruning, stacking logs for winter, etc. While taking a little iced-tea and cigar break sitting on my wood pile, I got free entertainment from two Ruby-Throated Hummingbirds fighting over the ownership of the entire vine. "Why not share it?" I thought. "There's enough nectar and tiny bugs for all." Nope.
Nature is not nursery school.
Elsewhere at the Maggie's HQ, I have a red Trumpet Vine. I think they prefer the red, but they seem to find the yellow worth fighting over.
In New England, haying - or at least the mowing - is generally done by the 4th of July depending on the weather. It's been a wet Spring but it's drying out now.
At the farm, we wait until a few weeks later so as not to destroy or disturb the nests of the meadow-nesting birds. We have Bobolinks, Savannah Sparrows, Woodcock, the occasional Meadowlark, and Mallard and Black Duck in the tall grass along the stream.
For our wild brushy fields, we'll brushwack them anytime we can between August and October.
Here's a detail from that painting. Peening, I think:
Here's our reader Buddy's scythe. I do not think he has used it lately.
Two notes to that unfortunate rancher. First, if you live in Griz country, it is intelligent to be armed, on a horse, or in a vehicle. If hiking, at least make plenty of noise to warn them away. When we have hiked in a Griz preserve in Montana, we clap our hands and talk loud. Some hikers bang on pots, some use Bear Bells.
Second, Grizzly Bears are not mountain creatures at all. They are primarily creatures of the lowlands, especially river valleys and foothill marshes with the succulent vegetation they like to graze on. In berry season, they will go into the hills but not the mountains. Historically, they were common on the Great Plains of the US as far east as Ohio. They are not really predators except to fish, young helpless mammals, and anthills, but people can piss them off sometimes. They do not like to be bothered. Who does? They are powerful and fast and meat is a rare dessert for them.
When they are in forest or mountains, they are remnant refugees from their preferred habitat, trying to survive in marginal areas.
They have good choices of blades and accessories too, some for brush and saplings. (h/t, reader)
I don't know whether I would have the time or energy to scythe the 8-acre brushy hillside meadow which sits above the bridge, but it would be good for some areas that we can't get the brushwacker into due to slope or boulders.
One of my grandpas, a capitalist industrialist who hated paperwork and hated business, loved nothing more than a weekend day scything at the farm until the sacred cocktail hour. Then Dewar's on the rocks, well-deserved. Usually two of them; one for the blood and one to stimulate the appetite along with Pall Mall cigarettes or a Habanos ceegar. He taught my Mom how to use a scythe, and she taught me. We still have his pedal-powered grinding wheel in the barn with the water pan.
Nonetheless, I enjoy a gas-powered brushwacker. It's a good workout just to muscle that heavy machine around, and it shreds everything to bits, even 2" saplings. Leaves no swaths of cuttings to suffocate the grasses.
As you can see, our bridge was washed out during the winter storms. Not entirely washed out, but undermined on the far end. The I-beams no longer reach the far bank. There is a 3-foot gap which the Ford tractor can not jump.
I got a consult from a local contractor who said it was a straightforward repair. He thought we could just jack it back up, add two I-beams to reach the far bank, and put in some cement blocks at low water in August to support the necessary extension. Around a $7000 job that he could do in two days.
But...he felt uncomfortable repairing it without a wetlands permit and an engineering OK. I explained that this bridge had been there for 60 years, and another bridge there for over 100 years before that, and that we had fixed it in the past without permits. He said I needed to consult an engineering firm to do the permitting and to ok his plan.
That has to be wrong, but instead of finding somebody else to consider the job, I did consult with a reputable local engineering firm. They inspected, and came back with an estimate of $27,000 for permitting and design, not including the actual repair. They said the permitting could take as much as two years, starting with the Army Corps of Engineers and ending with the Massachusetts Wetland Authority and the State and local DEP. Many hearings to be attended, apparently, by certified engineers. No guarantee, he said, that we could get a bridge repair permit in the end because the State wants "wild rivers." Mind you, this stream is in no way "navigable" except on barefoot, and is only as "wild" as a stream can be which winds through cow pastures and corn fields.
We do not have that kind of spare money in the farm's budget.
Meanwhile, one mile down the road, the state is widening a 1936 one-lane WPA cement bridge, about 20' long, over the same small river - a trout stream, really. Bulldozers, cement mixers, portapotties, portable office, road grinders, asphalt rollers, trucks, etc. Stimulus money. Modern infrastructure for a town of 600 permanent residents and more dairy cows than people. They have been working on it for four months, and it seems nowhere near done.
One problem is that we are required by our agreement with the local land trust to maintain the upper meadow with an annual mowing. We want to do that anyway. We can't get there now. There is no other way to get across the stream with a tractor because at least one side of the riverbank is always fairly high.
No wonder people get pissed off at government. However, I never consulted any government on this.
It's just a simple, ordinary repair. Property maintenance. I am sorely tempted to ask some illegal Mexicans to just come in with two 6' I-beams, a jack, a welder, and some cinder blocks to fix it. Nobody would notice - or care. No, you can't see it from the road. I'll find someone who wants to help me fix it the old-fashioned Yankee way: patch it and make it last.
I had the pleasure of seeing a Least Weasel scurry past the front of the garage yesterday, going from one pachysandra patch to another. They are not uncommon in their multi-continental, northern-hemisphere range, but I rarely see them. It makes me happy when I do.
Most often, they are seen hurrying across a country road.
Least Weasels like to be in cover, not out in the open. They are both daytime and nocturnal hunters, and active all winter in the snow, when they have all-white fur.
They are said to be the world's smallest mammalian predators, around 8-9" long. Bloodthirsty little guys.
On further thought, that guy could have been an Ermine. Not sure I can tell the difference because they move so quickly.
Across some of our farm fields. After a cold, rainy day the clouds began to clear out, leaving fresh snow on top of the Berkshire hills and a frost on the grass. That's our Climate Change. We had spent the afternoon providing a much-needed, if late, pruning to the apple trees (not in photo). I like a fruit tree to have plenty of air and light in the middle, remove crossing branches, but the darn suckers take most of your time.
Also put up 6 new Bluebird houses. On Sunday morning, one had already been claimed. Birds are not stupid. They pay attention.
Tree on the left? Black Willow, on the riverbank. Looks like we're going to have a herd of yearling Black Angus in that field this summer. Very handy, because they can go down to the river to drink and will need no care other than fence maintenance (which is obviously needed). Plenty of grass. Barbed wire.
Our farm boasts the lack of several modern amenities: no shower, just old bathtubs; no TV; no cable; no internet; and you have to get on the tractor and drive up a hill to find a cell phone connection. Peaceful. The only radio we get is NPR from Albany. They are crazy, but have good music. The wallpaper is 70 years old but my Mom liked it. There is more to life than materialism and conveniences and comfort, and my Mom understood that, deeply. We did break down and install propane heat 2 years ago. Decadent, but welcome after a cold rainy day when you come in soaked.
We're 20 minutes from Tanglewood. That's a good thing. Civilized. Cold lobster and champagne on the lawn.
They are most abundant here in the later summer and fall, but their numbers nosedive during the winter mostly due to predation by owls, hawks, coyotes, and Red Fox. The cottontails' position on the food chain leads to an annual survival rate of around 20%.
When we see one hop out of its nesting "form" when mowing, we mow around it.
The forest-dwelling, nondescript and rather common Broad-Wing is rarely seen except during fall migration. They hang out quietly in deep woods and rarely soar except during migration. I saw one the other day, probably on his way north. They breed in woodlands across the Eastern US and Canada, migrate to South America in large flocks.
It's a topic of great concern and interest to me. We have already seen serious depletion of some fish species (eg Halibut, Atlantic Cod, others). It's a free-for-all, and the scarcer the fish get, the higher the prices they fetch.
In the US, before protection the Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs were market-hunted year-round along with many other migratory shorebirds.
I suspect they tasted very good.
They are on their way north to raise their chicks in the tundra and boreal forests right now, and will begin to trickle back down in August on their way to the Southern US and South America.
Experts can tell a Greater from a Lesser by call or bill length, but I find it difficult unless they are in a mixed flock. Sometimes they are in flocks, sometimes solo.
Nice birds found in the nicest places: marsh edges, mud flats, water edges, etc.
My list from last week's Georgia trip, as I can best recall.The experts identified quite a few more than I could and went home with longer lists.
The mix of habitats is the key. The 7 mile-long island's habitats include ocean beach and dunes, salt marsh, a 30-acre fresh water marsh impoundment, Wax Myrtle scrub, and maritime forest.
A few comments for you bird people: There is no big warbler migration down there. I don't know why. It must be fly-over country for them. Also, there are no ducks now - they headed north a couple of months ago. There are no Bob White Quail and essentially no Wild Turkey. Seems perfect for them, but they are not there. Snakes are tough on ground-nesting birds.
That's not my photo. That's a Painted Bunting, quite common down there.
Birding is, I read, the fastest-growing hobby in the US. It gets people outdoors and moving and it can be as challenging as you desire. Expertise in anything knows no limit.
My list below the fold for those interested. An asterisk means a first for me.
Heard a Screech Owl calling early in the morning last week. I hope he finds the nest box I put up. They didn't find it last year.
The tiny Screech Owl lives across America, as long as there are plenty of trees around. If you want to attract a family of them to live at your place, put up a nest box for them. They do not mind living in suburban areas. I recently learned that they are breeding in New York's Central Park.
Now would be the time to do it. The box pictured is from Best Nest.
It's important to place the box correctly. The natural cavities that screech owls choose are typically 12 to 20 feet above the ground and in deep shade. As the female incubates the eggs, the male is apt to spend the day roosting in dense foliage within about 20 feet of the nest. After you've placed an inch or so of dried leaves in the bottom of the nest, hang it at least 10 feet up on the trunk of a large tree. Try to place it away from sidewalks or doors, since the owls vigorously defend their nests against perceived threats. In fact, when the young are near fledging, some unusually spunky adults may swoop down at people or pets who wander too close, even raking them with their claws. So while placing the box in as secluded a spot as possible is good for the owls, it might be better for us, too.
I greatly enjoy hearing them at night. A Great Horned Owl hooting had done the same to me a few weeks earlier. Good stuff. The mysterious world of the night.
No you don't, and you cannot without falling victim to the Pathetic Fallacy. We cannot know the world they live in. They are aliens.
We can enjoy dogs, but cannot truly love them because we cannot know them:Man and Beast.
One quote:
For 2,500 years it has been known to the students of nature that the more one learns about animals, the more wonderful they become. The observation stands confirmed by the instruments of both science and art, but the animals are most instructively perceived when they are seen, as they were by Beston from the beach on Cape Cod, as other nations complete in themselves, “gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear.”
The Chippies arrived here today, up from their wintering grounds in the deep south. You don't need binoculars to identify a small sparrow sitting high in a pine tree, even if he is not delivering his territorial chipping call.
In March, our White Throated Sparrows and Juncos begin heading north to their breeding grounds, and our Song Sparrows begin arriving from their winter haunts somewhat further south in the US.
The tragedy of the commons requires that fisheries be managed, somehow. The ways to do it can be debated, but there is no doubt that the conservation measures for Striped Bass have resulted in a remarkable resurgence of their populations (along with cleaner breeding waters in their rivers and bays).
In recent years, factory ships have, in just a few years, stripped the Northeast of our vast schools of Bunker (Menhaden) with the use of helicopter spotters. Those schools are foundational to our big fish.
The fishing industry of the Northeast US cleaned out the George's Bank populations years ago, pretty much emptied out the inshore Cod and Haddock populations, and is headed in the same direction with the Grand Banks. Furthermore, their trawls vacuum the sea bottom of every living thing, leaving a desert behind. Like strip-mining.
While I admire professional fishermen very much for their skills and daring, just as with hunting wild animals there have to be sustainable limits or the Cod would go the way of the buffalo and the Passenger Pigeon.
As we head into Spring with snow still on the ground and snow predicted for tomorrow, here's what I'm seeing here in Yankeeland:
Carolina Wren Cardinal Tufted Titmouse Chicadees Mourning Dove Red Wing Blackbird Cowbirds Purple Grackle Song Sparrow Downy Woodpecker White Throated Sparrow still some Juncos Robins in flocks, mostly males lots of Golden Crowned Kinglets Blue Jay Sharp Shinned Hawks Mockingbird House Finches Goldfinch White-Breasted Nuthatch Canada Geese on the move, overhead
As my brother and I were beginning to clean out the parents' garage, at my Dad's request, yesterday, we found 8 wren and Bluebird houses. I'll put a few up here at the HQ, and the rest at the farm on my next trip up. We have a large Bluebird contingent up there but they have to compete with the Tree Swallows for the nest boxes. Birds compete for housing, just like people.
Feral pig, Wild Boar, Wild Hog, Russian Boar, farm pig. They are all pigs, all very slight variants of the one species 
12-20 hummers at the feeders - Rufus and Calliope. The Rufus migrate from winter breeding grounds in southern Mexico to summer HQ in southern Alaska. That's a female Rufus with the little red throat patch.
Rancher blames 
They make them to fit your height, weight, and arm length. Pretty snazzy to own a bespoke scythe. They even make them for southpaws.
I had the pleasure of seeing a 
North America hosts a number of species and subspecies of 
In the US, before protection the 
The 
In March, our White Throated Sparrows and Juncos begin heading north to their breeding grounds, and our Song Sparrows begin arriving from their winter haunts somewhat further south in the US. 
Carolina Wren