NEW FEEDER BIRD

Hmm... She seems to have the feeder all to herself!  (Photo shot from indoors with point & shoot camera)

Red-tailed Hawk

BRRR....

It's a frosty, chilly morning - wonderfully seasonal. This morning when I was out with the dog (about 5:15), the sky was totally clear and the stars bright.  Venus was in the east and Jupiter so big in the west that it looked the size of several of the other stars.  The ground crunched frozen under my feet, and the Rhodies were curled and pendant.  The thermometer agreed that it was chilly - 25 degrees.  

More ice on the pond this morning; there has been some ice for the past few days, but today it covers most of the lower end of the pond (the big part where the dam is) and has reached up here to the middle section (the water flows faster up stream).  I've always wanted to play icebreaker and launch my canoe into the icing water, but alas, my shoulder says I should not; it will have to wait for another fall.  

Meanwhile the cove in front of our house and Carol & Joe's house is mostly clear of ice.  Saturday, the Great Blue Heron hung out there almost all day.  We watched it seeking lunch.  I've never managed to see a GBH catch and swallow so clearly before.  We watched it eat 4 fish. The bird would tilt its head with one eye facing the water (so that it could see more clearly out of its eye without the beak in the way?) and suddenly strike!  This one was good! We only saw it miss once in the time we watched.  After eating a bit, it sat on the shore at our landing.  Further from shore, there was a whole flotilla of black duck in the cove, upending to get plant material and a king fisher flew by chittering.  Five hooded mergansers, 2 males and 3 females were diving; they seemed to be having good fishing as well!  Good to know that the fish are thriving; I read that one of the issues when a pond it covered with the water chestnuts, is that the chestnuts choke the pond, both using too much of the oxygen and also creating mats of vegetation that are hard to swim through.  Hopefully we will be able to keep on top of the water chestnuts from now on!

So do the muskrats swim across the pond when there is ice forming on it?  Gotta watch!
Stay warm, all; and instead of complaining about the cold, bundle up and get out in it and watch nature.

Icing Begins on the Pond

LOVELY WEEKEND!

What a nice weekend, eh?  And great that this rain held off until today. Linda & I spent some time sitting on a bench (two logs & a board) up a ways from the shore and just watching.  The muskrats were busy going back and forth across the pond, a great blue heron came in and did some fishing at water's edge, we saw the hooded mergansers again and there was a flock of geese.

Busy Muskrat

Closer to the house, we have a black squirrel this year - I've seen it many times in the yard, and the birds are still eating like mad!  Our feeders are constantly occupied.  The coopers hawk likes that.  Saw a red-tail hawk fly between the house & pond yesterday; he's probably looking for a squirrel - we have a few!  The fox ran across the street yesterday - bushy, sleek and gorgeous with its bright white tail tip!  Then there are the spectacular winter trees.  I can never decide if I like the trees better in winter, spring, summer or fall!

Winter trees at dawn

RHODY QUESTION ANSWERED

Check it out!  Someone answered my question about when/why the leaves on a rhododendron plant curl!  The why apparently isn't known, but the when is at  -.5C they begin to curl.  Read the whole post - it is a comment on my last post, Nov. 6.  The comment was written by Anonymous (that person really gets around!), so I don't know if it was by one of you or if someone from the Rhododendron Society webpage answered my email on the blog rather than via email.  Anyway, I'm glad and it is interesting.  So this morning, when I went out with the dog, I knew it was below freezing, but not too far below freezing, because the Rhody leaves were beginning to curl, but hadn't yet become pendant.  :-)  Knowledge is fun.

Hooded mergansers on the pond this afternoon - two males & two females.  

First snow - Nor'easter on Nov. 8, 2012

RHODODENDRON LEAVES

I could tell it was cold this morning; the Rhododendron leaves had all curled up. Actually, I didn't have any trouble noticing the cold when I was out with the dog at 5:30...  (Thankfully, I've trained him the he does NOT go out as soon as we get up!  I get to do my exercises and such first!)  Back to the Rhodies.  I have noticed this curling every winter, and I wonder at what temperature they curl.  It is clearly when it is below freezing, but is it before that or at 30 degrees or what?  Today it was 23 when we were out.  I found a website on Rhododendron (when I was trying to get the spelling right!).  Maybe they have a question/answer.  (The mountain laurel do this, too - do all of the Azalea plants?)
(10/9/12 - Hey! We got an answer to this question.  Click the "comment" at the end of this post)

Rhododendron leaves curled from the cold

Lots of ripples on the pond when we were on the porch at dawn, before sunrise; didn't see any brown furry things, but there sure was activity.  No ice yet.  Ice in the birdbath, though!  I'll take them some water when it warms up a bit more.

From Suzanne: 

The other night I saw 4 muskrats at once in between our houses.  They would get food and bring it back and all climb on the log and eat.  There were four at once on the log. (Just before dark)

I want to see that!  Gotta hang out down there more in the late afternoon.

THE SUN ON THOSE CHILLY PRE-WINTER DAYS

Being an early morning person who prefers the colder weather, these last couple of days have been fantastic in my book.  (Apologies to those of you who are sleep-in-and-I-like-it-warm people.)  Yesterday was just amazing.  I love the color of the light in the trees and I love being in the sun when it is cold.  In the summer, I avoid the sun, but it is so pleasant to feel it through the cool breeze when paddling on a fall afternoon.  Last night Linda & I sat down by the pond and watched it get dark.  Just like morning, the light changes in the trees and it is quite magnificent.

The critters are definitely hunkering down for the cold weather.  Most of the migratory birds are gone and those who migrate to us from the north are here chowing down!  I'm filling the bird feeders at least once a day.  We have a flock of about 20 dark-eyed juncos and I swear every goldfinch in the county is in our yard!  Am I complaining, no... I love it.  The coopers hawk likes what shows up at that feeder, too!  (The don't eat the seeds, they eat the seed-eaters and pickings are easier when there are a lot of birds in one place.)  

The funny thing about the migrating birds, like the juncos, is that we are listed in the year-round area, but right here, we don't usually have them much in the summer, we just get those who have moved south. (Our juncos are the slate-colored variety of the dark-eyed, in case you are looking at a book to see what they look like)  Likewise, the purple finch are year round birds, but I have rarely seen them here in the summer.  Some, like the robins, are also winter migrants from the north - our birds that we had all summer have mostly gone south further, but for the north birds, we are south and they have arrived!  The blue jays are northern birds and they stay year-round as do the woodpeckers. (we regularly have downy, hairy, redbellied.  We have pileated, too, but they are shier and don't come to the feeder.  I'd love to again see the one I saw a couple weeks ago!

Linda & I have this morning ritual, where by 5:30 AM we are out on our porch, overlooking the pond, with a cup of coffee and wrapped in blankets (the dog is under my blanket, keeping my lap warm!).  It is dark, but there are lots of sounds.  This morning we had a screech owl from the other side of the pond and there was a lot of splashing in the pond.  It is an active time of day and we feel blessed to share 10-15 minutes of it with the critters.  The dog seemed to be hearing something near the pond this morning and I thought I was seeing something dark pass in front of a spot that was reflecting some of the sky light (cloudy, so it was pretty diffuse).  I did the look at it out of the corner of your eye trick, but could never tell if my eyes were playing tricks on me, or if I was seeing something moving down there.  Morning mysteries.

Anyone seen the otters recently?  I saw two swans taking off and flying low over the pond on Friday.