Deer in Winter

While I don't mind the few deer that stop by and eat fallen seeds from the feeders, or even the one or two that raid the feeder itself, there's a cabin near mine that has a real "Deer Diner" in their backyard. In the evening, when I drive by, I've seen upwards of what I guessed to be 100 or so deer all browsing about in their backyard. Obviously, with them being so close to their house, they have put out feed for them (or they're overfeeding the birds by a lot!)

Here's a view of just a small section of the herd last time I went by:

Eclipse

Well, the lunar eclipse has come and gone until the end of 2010. Viewing here was not perfect, but ok until clouds covered the sky around the moon. It started like this (around 7:30 PM):

Soon after 7:45 IT had begun

By 8:15 the shadows were really moving along

And finally around 9:30 it had nearly covered the Moon entirely

And by 10 the entire Moon was covered both by the shadow of the Earth as well as enough intermittant clouds to prevent any more photos.

Tonight the Moon does its thing

Tonight, the Moon will do it thing and shrink into the shadow of the Earth in a Lunar Eclipse. This one is visible from North America and I will have a good seat. I've tried to get photos of past eclipse with pretty limited success. Unfortunately, this will the last for a while as the next scheduled event visible here will not be until December 20, 2010 - so if it doesn't work out this time any better than usual, I have a long wait.

GBBC Lists

Grayling List - 3 hours
Ruffed Grouse 1
Wild Turkey 27
Bald Eagle 3
Mourning Dove 3
Downy Woodpecker 2
Hairy Woodpecker 2
Pileated Woodpecker 1
Blue Jay 5
American Crow 2
Common Raven 3
Black-capped Chickadee 30
Red-breasted Nuthatch 2
White-breasted Nuthatch 4
Dark-eyed Junco 5
American Goldfinch 3

Number of Species: 15 with 93 individuals

Bay City List - 3 hours
Canada Goose 7
Mallard 8
Bald Eagle 1
Sharp-shinned Hawk 1
Red-tailed Hawk 1
Ring-billed Gull 7
Herring Gull 6
Rock Pigeon 12
Mourning Dove 3
Red-bellied Woodpecker 1
Downy Woodpecker 2
Blue Jay 3
American Crow 3
Black-capped Chickadee 5
Tufted Titmouse 2
Red-breasted Nuthatch 1
White-breasted Nuthatch 2
European Starling 7
American Tree Sparrow 5
Dark-eyed Junco 7
Northern Cardinal 4
House Finch 8
American Goldfinch 6
House Sparrow 18

Number of Species: 24 with 120 individuals

Ann Arbor List - 3 hours
Canada Goose 50
Mallard 25
Common Goldeneye 1
Hooded Merganser 2
Turkey Vulture 5
Rock Pigeon 15
Mourning Dove 3
Red-bellied Woodpecker 1
Downy Woodpecker 1
American Crow 7
Black-capped Chickadee 3
Tufted Titmouse 2
White-breasted Nuthatch 2
Carolina Wren 1
European Starling 5
Dark-eyed Junco 15
Northern Cardinal 3
House Finch 7
American Goldfinch 5
House Sparrow 11

Number of Species: 20 with 164 individuals

Great Backyard Bird Count

Somethings I try to do every year and the GBBC, Feederwatch, and the Christmas Bird Counts. Both of these "citizen science" projects contribute to the collective knowledge of bird distribution. GBBC is held each year over President's Day weekend (Friday through Monday) - this year that's February 15-18th. If you haven't participated, you still have time. Bird lists and information are submitted electronically at www.birdcount.org .

I will have counts for the cabin (Crawford County), my family home (Bay County), and my apartment (Washtenaw County) here in Michigan. Once I get them completed, I'll stop back and post them here.

Two Places at Once

Trying to live in two places at once is quickly wearing thin. I've worked out a "move this first" list and have been working to figure out exactly how to accomplish the smoothest possible move. Yea, good luck. It seems like no matter where I'm at I don't have the one thing that I really, really, really need at that moment. Ah well. . .

The plan right now is to gentle move about 10% of my stuff each trip to the cabin over a 10 trip period. That needs to be coordinated with giving up my 22 year old lease on my apartment here in Ann Arbor! The target right now is to be completely moved as of the end of March.

I will have paid two months of rent at the month-to-month rate which is much higher than my old lease, but the alternative was to be moving in December and January! Speaking of wintry weather, that's another factor that comes into play when moving. You have to time both ends so that there is reasonable temperatures, light, and no precipitation.

Regardless of the hassles of moving, it will be worth it once its done. It's like all of the construction work - it was fun and exciting, sometimes frustrating - but in the end it was worth the savings of not hiring it all out.

I thought I saw. . .

a Blue Woodpecker for a second!

I was taking a coffee break from hanging new rods, drapes, and all the hardware that goes with them when I looked out over the cup rim at the suet feeders. For a split second my mind tricked me into seeing a Blue Woodpecker working away at the suet.


You now how sometimes your mind sees something a bit different from what is actually on the other side of your eyes? Well, it was one of "those" kinds of sightings. In the split seconds that are normally spend on identifying a common bird, the "ole brain" comes to the perfectly wrong solution!



I guess the issue wasn't the fact that I "mis-saw" a very common bird as much as it was the fact that it was doing an uncommon thing - at least at my feeders.

In the end, I laughed at my mind's error and realized that my Blue Woodpecker, was just a Blue Jay acting very "woodpeckerish" at the suet feeder.

Being omnivores, I guess they too need to fuel up on suet during the cold days of winter.

I must resist. . .

Every year the same seasons cycle through the year. Even with global warming, the shift in timing is not noticable (at least not yet!). The worst time of the year for me is the next two months. Spring can not get to me soon enough.

All the seed catalogs start arriving with the Christmas bills. That means my brain starts turning over soil, peat pots try to appear in unused crevices, and dreams of really doing "it" right this year occupy every waking moment. Of course, with it being snow covered, freezing January outside, I must resist.

Then along comes February and a winter thaw. That, along with the seed orders that must be placed, makes the day dreaming worse. Rows of what to plant where sudden begin turning up on scraps of papers and the odd note pad begins to fill with grand schemes. Alas, I must resist still.

Finally, March roars in. The earliest of migrants are filling up at feeders and scraping through the wet leaves and grass eeking out enough to eat for them to begin to think about nesting. Those peat pots in my mind begin to make real appearances and the dreams are firmly laid out on paper. With luck, March will roar in like lion and out like a lamb.

But, until then I must resist.