Maggie's Farm

We enjoy seeing our local Ruby-Throated Hummingbirds buzzing around, and we plant things that they like.

Wayside lists 56 varieties for them. Butterflies tend to like similar plants.

Gardens without hummingbirds and butterflies feel sterile.

Photo: An Agastache (Hyssop).

Scott at Powerline has a good grip on the penis stories. Honestly, I would not eat a Reindeer's Johnson if you paid me, but maybe I am homophobic or something.

Or maybe I just feel bad for all those poor Reindeer who are now running around the tundra without their equipment.

Speaking of the Noble Male Member, I was entertained by some hot Purple Grackle (aka Common Grackle) romance on my lawn this morning. The male does quite a display for the lady: he hunches up his shoulders, splays his wings, and raises a dramatic iridescent ruff of feathers on his neck as he struts before her: he tries to make like a Bird of Paradise. Then he hops on top of her for about 4 seconds. He did that twice in five minutes.

Afterwards, she did a shake to compose her feathers and her excited feminine heart, no doubt - and he walked off cheerfully, with a bit of a swagger, looking for bugs in the grass.

I think it was consensual, but she did seem a little put out by it all. Women are sometimes like that.

With Spring warbler season upon us, it seemed timely to note that Nikon has finally come up with a binocular that can compete with the Germans.

Here's the 7X42. There is also an 8X32.

Image: A few Spring Warblers, by Peterson

The reintroduction of Moose to Scotland. Very cool. But why do they have to be fenced?

Battles over wolves in the American West.

It's Skunk Cabbage time in New England. They are the earliest of marsh plants, producing their fleshy flower (in photo) before they produce their abundant cabbagy and funky-smelling leaves.

Remarkable fact about these plants: They are thermogenic. That's how they can punch through snow and ice so early in Springtime.

Just grow them, dry them out, punch a 1" hole in them, and hang 'em in a tree. Instant House Wren house.

A house is not a home unless you have these members of the chattering class around. (Ours haven't arrived yet this Spring. Global cooling is to blame.)

Thanks for the photo, Chris

As readers know, The Friends of Blackwater NWR in Cambridge, MD have two live BirdCams, one on a Bald Eagle nest: Click here: Friends of Blackwater NWR - Bald Eagle Cam (I only see one little eaglet in the nest) and the other on an Osprey nest: Click here: Friends of Blackwater NWR - Osprey Cam.

Photo is an eagle with a fish, perched on a not-yet used Osprey nest platform.

I heard one whinny at around 5 AM on Good Friday. It's a treat to hear, and I hope that it means we will have a nesting pair of these pigeon-sized little owls in the area.

Maybe I should put up a Screech Owl nest box, but there are so many trees with holes around here that it's probably not necessary. I have never had to chase them out of any of my Wood Duck boxes, but they are known to occupy them. I had neighbors who had a pair for years using their Wood Duck house on a tiny island in a pond (which seemed reckless of the owls, to me). You could see the owl's face, sometimes, sunning itself in the hole.

It's unusual to see them. Practically speaking, the only way you would know that they are around is by hearing them at night. These owls do not mind suburbia at all, and are probably breeding in all five boroughs of New York City.

These nocturnal birds are not rare everywhere east of the Rockies, and come in Red, Brown, and Grey races. They do not screech; they have a trill and a ghostly whinny. One more of those eery night-time sounds.

Here are their calls.

Read the detailed CLO entry on the Eastern Screech Owl here.

The piece in the National Post begins:

They drift along in the worlds' oceans at a depth of 2,000 metres -- more than a mile deep -- constantly monitoring the temperature, salinity, pressure and velocity of the upper oceans.

Then, about once every 10 days, a bladder on the outside of these buoys inflates and raises them slowly to the surface gathering data about each strata of seawater they pass through. After an upward journey of nearly six hours, the Argo monitors bob on the waves while an onboard transmitter sends their information to a satellite that in turn retransmits it to several land-based research computers where it may be accessed by anyone who wishes to see it.

These 3,000 yellow sentinels --about the size and shape of a large fence post -- free-float the world's oceans, season in and season out, surfacing between 30 and 40 times a year, disgorging their findings, then submerging again for another fact-finding voyage.

Read the whole thing and find out what they are telling us.

Turdus in the snow: What an ugly name for almost everyone's favorite American Bird bird (except for the Ruffed Grouse), our good buddy Turdus migratorius. The Robin. We have small flocks of them all winter here, living on berries and old fruit, but they are on the move north now, and we see more - mainly flocks of males.

Yesterday I heard their spring song for the first time. Today we have snow and that spring song has been put on hold.

Did you know that they used to be hunted for food? And that they are really woodland thrushes who have found a way to adapt to suburbia?

Learn more about a familiar friend: American Robin

Photo: Sugar maple full of Robins, March 2007.

Our first migratory wave of flocks of Common Grackles and Robins arrived here this week from their winter in the southern US. We have spoken of Turdus Migratorius (Robin) here in the past, but not about the Common Grackle, who has been extending his range from the Mississippi Valley across the US east of the Rockies, and north into Canada.

A flock of these large wetlands-loving (but highly adaptable) blackbirds will empty your bird feeder in a few hours, accompanied by their loud screeching and squawking.

Our friend Sippican sends this photo of a migratory flock in his yard on the Massachusetts coast last September:

You can read about the Common Grackle here.

This is a reposting from 2006, prompted by a post by Surber about the dramatic resurgence of the wolf populations in the northern Rockies. Also related to the Crichton video posted today.

The ways that ecological interactions take place is always fascinating to me, and unpredictable. The return of wolves to Yellowstone Park is a case study.

Wolves kill more elk, balancing the elk population and driving the elk to safe zones, thus permitting the return of normal willow growth along river edges, thus cooling and stabilizing rivers resulting in bigger trout, and happy songbirds, and generally more biodiversity. And the wolves kill coyotes, thus there are more fox and mice and little critters, and more and happier hawks. Sadly, a parvovirus from domestic dogs threatens the 170 Yellowstone wolves. I guess no-one brought them in for their shots.

"Apex predators" are a key piece of any ecological puzzle. I'd like to see our native Timber Wolf returned to New England, along with the Elk who used to live in the Northeast. It would solve the deer infestation and the coyote infestation, and might reduce the number of cats and dopey little ankle-biter dogs in suburbia, too. Politically, it might be tough - can you imagine running for state office with a campaign promise to return wolves to Pittsfield, MA? But maybe they will come under their own steam, the way the coyotes did - which were never native to the Northeast and which cannot take on a whitetail deer.

Story in the Science Times. A Wolf website here.

Yesterday:

Beautiful snowy day. I have only seen the usual suspects: Blue Jay, Mourning Dove, Song Sparrow, White Throated Sparrow, SC Junco, Cardinal, BC Chickadee, WB Nuthatch, Tufted Titmouse, Downy Woodpecker, Red-bellied Woodpecker. Somebody around must be offering Niger seed (which is not really thistle seed) because I haven't seen any Goldfinches. Hoping for something exciting to come by, like maybe a California Condor or a Dodo. 

Large birds of prey lay their eggs early. A nest at Blackwater Refuge in Maryland already has two eggs. The Live Eagle Cam is here.

A friend of a friend took this photo of eaglets in the Adirondacks two springs ago:

Yesterday's snowy evening in Yankeeland. We love our snowfalls.

I once visited the Everglades in April, and it was really too late in the season: the wintering birds had begun to move north, and the dark swarms of attacking skeeters, especially early and late in the day, were a sight to behold.

Marshes are more full of life than any other sort of geography, which is probably why they appeal so much to me.

Despite the skeeters, for birders there is nothing better. Sad that I never saw a Snail Kite, though.

For your nature trips, the NY Sun agrees that winter is best for the 'glades.

Photo: Big Cyress National Preserve in the Everglades.

Photo by a friend, reposted from winter 2005:

A happy Harbor Seal in Long
Island Sound, off the CT shore, in January. Thanks for the nice photo.

These seals will start heading back down to Maine and other northern parts soon.

Sometimes it is good to consider some of the most familiar things in life that we take for granted, like the Chickadee.

This cute little non-migratory northern bird is known to everyone, especially from his wintertime visits to bird feeders, where he prefers sunflower seeds. He can be easily habituated to take seeds off of your palm if you stand still and have some patience.

Most of the time, though, he eats bugs and bug larvae by foraging through leaves and bark in woods and woodland edges. How often do you see them in the summertime? They are still here. They will nest in any little secret hiding place or tree-hole, and will use small nest-boxes. They are loyal to their mates, probably 'til death.

They are known to hide food for later, and supposedly are able to find it. Their typical "chickadee-dee-dee" call is replaced, in springtime, with a sweet "fee-beeee" which we will begin to hear as the days grow longer.

You can learn more about these delightful birds here and here.

Cold yesterday morning, and this hungry female Sharpie (maybe a Cooper's) missed a sparrow at my feeder but decided to puff up her feathers and stand on the grass for a while looking around. Wonderful the way they can turn their head to cover 360 degrees. This is the best I could do through Thermopane glass and a screen:

Another view of the Rocky Mountain Front in Montana (more here). That's Ear Mountain. Been there. A.B. Guthrie's The Big Sky took place around there. (thanks, ap)

This is a reposting from one year ago:

I do not have the provenance of this remarkable photo which came in over the transom, but it is clearly somewhere West. A gold star for the photographer who must have spend many patient hours watching this carcass in the snow.

The picture tells the story: a Red Fox and a Magpie were happily dining on a deer carcass when Mr. Golden Eagle passed by. Does he believe that he can take a fox? I doubt that he can, but he can sure rattle his equanimity, and interrupt his luncheon.