Rana-gate

This morning, before dawn.

"Hurry, bring your camera!"



Bullfrog at the gate (Rana catesbeiana).



"I'm not stuck, I just like the view."

Bird Brain

When the broody hen wouldn't give up her sit-in, I gave her three eggs to try hatching. I should have given her a few more, because just one hatched.

I knew the chick's real mother was one of the Easter Eggers, since the egg was green. I was hoping that the father was the rooster of the same breed, but judging by leg color it was one of the Buff Orpingtons instead.

The little chick had a lot of fun exploring the great outdoors.



It doesn't wander far from the hen, and when she gives a certain call, the chick burrows down in the grass and lies flat as a pancake!

In other bird news, yesterday we saw a really gorgeous Great Crested Flycatcher, and a Solitary Sandpiper down by the swamp. And since we're a little liberal about what we call our "yard", that last one's new for the yard list too. Some of the flycatchers will stay here and breed, but the sandpiper was just stopping by on his way from Central or South America to Canada.

I dreamed of Blackburnian warblers - I guess I've just got a bird-brain lately.

Mini fallout

Late yesterday afternoon we had a mini-fallout of spring birds, so we got up early this morning to see if they were still here. They were! In addition to the usual suspects, we heard and/or saw these migrants:

Ruby-throated Hummingbird
White-eyed Vireo
Red-eyed Vireo
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
Hooded Warbler
Kentucky Warbler
Louisiana Waterthrush
Northern Parula
Worm-eating Warbler
Black-and-white Warbler
Prairie Warbler
Common Yellowthroat
[Ed - forgot one!]
Green Heron

And maybe - Swainson's Warbler. Maybe. We never saw it, and we're not very familiar with its song. It sounded a lot like a Louisiana Waterthrush's song, only not quite. But I'm remembering that time on a bird count when we chased what I thought was a singing Swainson's warbler for quite a while, scrambling over hill and dale, the ID becoming more concrete with each warblery rendition, and then when we finally saw the bird... Well I can't remember what it was, but it sure as heck wasn't a Swainson's. A lesson in birding-by-ear humility.

A few birds we saw hanging out with the warblers will be leaving us soon and heading north:

Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
White-throated Sparrow
Cedar Waxwings

Oh, and we saw a new yard bird!

Eastern Meadowlark


Many small spiderwebs were visible in the early morning dew.


A bigger web.


Another big one.

I wish I could show pictures of all the migrants we saw, but this is the best I could manage - I don't have the camera for far-away birds.


A Louisiana Waterthrush. They constantly wag their tails up and down when they walk. The Northern Waterthrush looks almost exactly like this, but his song is different.

And if you think that picture is small and fuzzy, you should see the Pine Warbler...


Oh well there's always...

the female Red-bellied Woodpecker at the suet feeder.


The amount of pollen that fell on my binoculars while we ate lunch in the back yard.

Cuteness follows

A surprise this morning. We have a baby chick!

Just a quickie pic for now... I didn't want to disturb them too much and the other eggs haven't hatched yet.

The problem in the garden

Not originally intended to be hydroponic lettuce.

I think it's actually getting smaller.

Twisted!

Twisted trillium (Trillium stamineum). The little propeller trillium! I love this one.


Trilliums are among my favorite wildflowers. At a Special Studies class on wildflowers, they told us that there are 18 types of trilliums in Alabama. They didn't name them, but I think that they are:

Trillium catesbaei (Catesby's or Bashful)
T. cuneatum (Little Sweet Betsy, toadshade, wakerobin, etc.)
T. decipiens (Chattahoochee River)
T. decumbens (Trailing)
T. erectum (Red)
T. flexipes (Bent or nodding)
T. lancifolium (Lanceleaf)
T. ludovicianum (Louisiana)
T. luteum (Yellow)
T. maculatum (Spotted)
T. pusillum (Dwarf)
T. recurvatum (Bloody butcher, Recurved sepal)
T. reliquum (Relict)
T. rugelii (Nodding or ill-scented)
T. sessile (Sessile)
T. stamineum (Twisted)
T. underwoodii (Underwood's or longbract)
T. vaseyi (Vasey's)

Many of these are found in very small numbers in Alabama, and are most easily viewed at botanical gardens.

Some older books show cernuum in AL, but this was split into cernuum and rugelii, with rugelii being the southern species.

Two of these are sometimes called "nodding", an example of confusing trillium common names. (I like dealing in latin names with trilliums.)

In most of Alabama, Trillium cuneatum is the common "if you just have one, this is it" trillium.

For lots more info, visit Susan Farmer's excellent collection of Trillium links and photos.

The Trillium book by the Cases is considered the "Trillium Bible" and is full of beautiful photos.



-----

Edited 17 June 2007:

I got a sneak peek at a draft copy of an Alabama vascular flora checklist, and it's slightly different than my list (that I derived mainly from my two Trillium books). T. erectum is not on it, but T. grandiflorum and T. sulcatum are. One of my new local wildflower friends knows a place where the grandiflorum grow (a few counties over) so I know that one is correct.

Must be spring

One blissed-out dirty dog.

After an early morning of harassing wildlife in the swamp, Jasmine took a nap in the backyard shade.

My husband, getting into the Blogger spirit of things, took this picture while I was in the shower. Jasmine lies like this when she wants her belly rubbed, but we'd never seen her sleep like that.

More wildflower walking

False Garlic (Nothoscordum bivalve)
Another "just a weed" plant that I like a lot. Some of the flowers seem to have an odor, and others do not.
Sources differ on whether Nothoscordum bivalve has a fragrance. Possibly some of these are Nothoscordum gracile?


Trailing trillium (Trillium decumbens)
The flat-on-the-ground trillium. In the center, lots of little tongues sticking out at you. (The focus is not as sharp as I would have liked, sorry.)


Large-flowered chickweed (Stellaria pubera)
Better than your average chickweed! At first glance it looks like they have ten petals, but they actually have five that are deeply notched.


Violet wood sorrell (Oxalis violacea)
The leaves look like shamrock - they're in the same family.


Long-spurred violet (Viola rostrata)
I really wonder how these are pollinated, if the nectar is way back in the spur.


Jacob's ladder (Polemonium reptans)

Will this wind

Other bloggers seem to be reminded of epic poetry this time of year. Spring, new growth, rebirth and whatnot.

Not being as well versed in the classics, I just keep thinking of Peter Cook, Rowan Atkinson, and the Will this Wind sketch.

We picked Saturday to clean out the chicken coop and add fresh wood chips. At the same time we refurbished the old watering trough and moved the chicks up there too.

It was calm in the morning, but later it turned out to be the windiest day of the year. Gusts of 50 mph and chips flying everywhere. Hard to say whether it was the pollen or the dust we generated that had us sneezing so much. We put the old litter in a few low spots at the end of the garden. (There's been a little flooding problem. The garden looks more like a rice paddy at times.)

The chicks settled into their new home. They had been too crowded, and were getting pretty stinky in the smaller pen. They grow so fast.

They have much more room now, although at first they were scared and all huddled together in one corner. Overnight the temperature dipped into the 30s, for the coolest night we've had in a while. I ended up wishing we'd waited one more day to move them, since there's no electricity in the coop for a heat lamp. But they came through just fine.

Migrants are on the move! The Martins and Rough-winged Swallows have actually been here a while already. But they're so much earlier than the other spring birds that I tend to consider them more of an advance guard than a first wave.

In the past week we've seen (or heard) for the first time this spring: Barn Swallow, Common Yellowthroat, White-eyed Vireo, Yellow-throated Vireo, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, Northern Parula, and Louisiana Waterthrush. We saw some Blue-winged Teal that were passing through, and a beautiful Little Blue Heron at the pond. (This time a really blue one, as opposed to the young white one we saw last year.)

Soon our winter birds will be leaving us: the Juncos, Cedar Waxwings, White-throated Sparrows, Kinglets. And the Yellow-rumped Warblers, that we affectionately call Butter-Butts.

We saw our first snake of the year. It was a bit far away to make a positive ID, swimming away from us at a distance, but I think it was a Northern Water Snake.

For the first time the grass looked like it needed mowing. So far we've managed to ignore it.

After a weekend hike, we noticed our first ticks of the year, both on us and in our clothes. Bugs are going to be bad this year since our winter was so mild. Gnats are already horrible.

A sad first too... the first missing chicken of the spring, a Dominique. It may have been a hawk that took her, but I'm thinking coyote since no tell-tale feathers were involved.

Early last spring, coyotes ended up with a few ducks and about a dozen of our chickens. But since we got Jasmine, and especially since she got bigger, we hadn't had any predation. The chickens insist on staying in the woods though, and she can't watch them there and the ducks in the yard at the same time I guess.

In the back of my mind I keep thinking there's a possibility the hen just found a good nesting spot outside the coop, and will show up again with a clutch of chicks... but in my heart I know it's unlikely.

I was also reminded more than once last week of a line from an REM song, "The storm it came up strong, shook the trees, and blew away our fears."

Since first hearing it, I've often thought about that song during storms. But sometimes it's hard to think poetically, especially when you're wondering if your tornado "safe place" is really all that safe.

The reason my head hurts

I tried several times to get a picture of the pollen that had collected on the water's surface after the rain. I must not have been holding my tongue just right.

I had just gotten through saying how everything looked better in pictures than in real life, so the pollen had to mock me by looking exceedingly bland.

Last week I was momentarily excited when I noticed (after only using it for a year or two) that one of my photo programs has a button labeled "quick fix".

It didn't take long to realize though, that its idea of a fix is good for a laugh but not much else.

But the "fix" of this pollen picture turned out to be interesting, bringing to the foreground the tree reflection that had been hidden.

Postdiluvian (baby)

Just a smidge under 4 inches of rain. (I probably should have cleaned it a little.)


Happy little creek.


Engorged monstrosity that sweeps all the neighbors' trash onto our property. Or (eventually) into the Locust Fork.


Happy little spring-fed duck & frog playground.


Now including lots of runoff from further up the valley. The ducks were afraid and wouldn't go near it.


A beaver-chewed stick. The sound of rushing water turns on a switch in a beaver's brain that says, "build a dam". I think I heard hundreds of little switches being toggled yesterday.

As far as I'm concerned, they can build to their little hearts' content, as long as they're not flooding the driveway.

We collect the stray beaver sticks and give them to my sister's neighbor. She's an artist, and uses them in her framing. This pleases me more than I can say.


Redbud blossoms, after the rain. (Cercis canadensis.)

Deja vu today... more of the same.

Wild Critters

Today it's raining buckets, so here are some pictures from earlier in the week.


Male Falcate Orange Tip butterflies jousting for the attention of a female.


A green anole that kept a close watch on me. Like a chameleon, he can change color in the blink of an eye (from drab brown to bright green). This one was not willing to demonstrate.


Some tiny snails in the creek. I don't have a book that descibes snails but if anyone knows their name please leave a comment or email me.


These muskrats were too far away to get a good picture. I really should learn to tie up the dog if I'm going to try sneaking up on wild critters.

If you look closely you can see the very long tail of the one on the left - it's shining in the sun.

Chick progression, week 3

Americauna (Easter Egger)


Rhode Island Red

Here are the little darlings at week 3. I made my husband call them that (little darlings) yesterday as he was picking them up. It calms them down, of course. He was saying it in a tone that was rather too sarcastic for my taste though.

They are going through an awkward stage. Growing into their feathers.

Yesterday it was time for their introduction to the great outdoors. We put chicken wire around some trees and let them run around in the sun.

They weren't interested, at first - I had to literally shake them out of the box. Even then, a few of them clung to the side, desparately trying to scramble back in.

Birds just don't like change.

But once they were outside for a little while, they realized that they might be having fun.

There's still a lot of leaping going on, only now with wing-assist. So it's actually a flying leap.

They enjoy taking flying leaps at each other and play-fighting. I believe they're establishing the pecking order.

Jasmine had to be locked up for a little while because she wasn't behaving.

And even though my husband had told me to watch my head, I didn't. I was concentrating on picking up chicks instead, and wondering why they always seem to think that we're out to kill them.

So now I know what it feels like to be whacked in the back of the head with rebar. (It hurts!)

Broody hen

She didn't seem very dedicated at first. She kept changing her mind about which eggs she wanted to sit on.

So we put her to sitting on some golf balls for a while.

She wouldn't give up though, and finally settled down into a spot she liked.

We relented and gave her three eggs to try hatching.

Not listening to the advice of the folks on my Homestead email list, I didn't mark the eggs. Next thing I knew, she was sitting on about 10 eggs.

When she was getting up briefly to go eat or drink, other hens were sneaking in and laying eggs in her nest.

The whole Star Trek "go where no one has ever gone before" concept is alien to chickens. They want to lay where lots and lots of hens have lain before. I've even seen then waiting in line.

I had to candle the eggs to see which ones she'd been sitting on longest. She would have left the others anyway, once the first chicks hatched out.

Instead of using a candle, I closed myself up in a dark closet with a flashlight, but it worked - I was able to see dark blobs in the eggs that had growing chicks inside them.

I'm trying not to get too excited about the whole thing. I've heard so many things from more experienced people that make me think this little experiment won't work. (Most people said that we needed to put her in a separate space if we wanted her to hatch out chicks, but there just wasn't anything available.)

I'll let you know how it turns out.