Change Is Hard

…but change is certain.

Tag Archives: birds


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Birding with a friend

Yesterday I got to go on a dog-less adventure with a friend. It rare that either one of us spends time at a park without our girls, but today it was all about the birds. With our pockets filled with bird seed and cameras slung around our necks we headed out to my favorite park on a perfect morning under clear blue skies to see what we could see.

Almost immediately we noticed a trio of sandhill cranes snacking, not far from the trail, in a grassy wetland meadow that had been burned by the rangers days before. I especially liked how they blended with the lines of the grass stubs.

If it weren’t for that red head patch I might have missed seeing this guy.

It didn’t take them long to notice us and head our way. They were expecting breakfast and I guess they can’t read the signs up in the parking lot — “Do not feed the cranes.” Since they were almost as tall as we were we decided not to begrudge them a bit of the seed in our pockets.

After breakfast preening.

Also they were blocking the path and we had to pay the toll in order to move along. I think it’s a racket they have going there, but I’m not going to report them, because it was a wonderful experience to be this close.

Stunningly elegant.

I wouldn’t want you to think we spent all day with the cranes. We moved one way on the path and they went the other way, looking for their next patsy and another handout.

Further into the woods we were approached by several chickadees and a titmouse or two. We stopped to share our provisions with them all.

Choosing the perfect seed.

Some of them were quite choosy, and took their time picking out the perfect seed. Others barely touched down before they were off with their prize.

I’m outta here!

Directly over my head was a curious woodpecker. We thought he might come down and join the banquet but he stayed up in the tree watching me. When he turned a certain way the sun caught the bright red cap on his head. He made me smile and I dropped the seed in my hand to get a quick image of him.

Whatcha got down there lady?

I’m sure that made him smile too because after we moved on he enjoyed the meal I left behind.

Some of the birds were harder to spot than others; this blue heron sat silently in the reeds watching us go by. He wasn’t in the mood for birdseed. If we’d had fresh fish in our pockets things might have been different.

See him off in all those cattails?

Our trail followed the shore of a lake which is teeming with birds and wildlife. In the center of the lake is an island with a rookery, the tops of the trees filled with huge nests, inhabited year after year by a large group of herons

The heron condos are full up this year.

I need a longer lens to really get a good look, but you can see how fascinating it is to watch the comings and goings of the adults as they prepare for the arrival of the young ones. Later in the season it gets even more fun to watch the teenage birds try out their wings.

Maybe it was the noise at the rookery that sent that other heron off to stand among the weeds for a little peace and quiet. Understandable.

Heading out to get lunch. Or just to find a peaceful place for a nap.

Back on the boardwalk and almost back to the car we came across these guys.

Dancing to their own beat.

There were several of them all lined up, mostly staring up at the sky. I’m not sure if they were watching for the space shuttle to go by overhead, or were doing some sort of mating dance. Either way I enjoyed watching them. Look at all their colors shining in the sun!

And just so you don’t think we ignored anything without wings…

Thanks for the treat lady!

…here’s a couple of non-bird things we ran into. Not literally. Cause this guy is not someone I want to get that close to.

Whatever kind of snake this is, it’s the biggest one I’ve ever seen.

So now you’ve seen the most interesting things we saw yesterday. We were only going to be out there for a coupe of hours, but it was so much fun that we ended up staying well into the afternoon. It was a perfect way to spend a spring day.

Even though we didn’t spend it with our dogs.

Thanks for the grub ladies, come back any time!


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Ocean spray is good for my furs

A beautiful spring day at the beach.

Katie here, continuing as your tour guide. Today I take you to see the Atlantic Ocean in northern Florida. Though to be honest most of what you’ll see is me. But that’s why you come to visit my, ahem, mama’s blog. Right?

I thought so.

Showing off my true form, and proving I’m not fat! It’s just fur people!

This will have to be short as I had a very long day yesterday driving in the car for miles and miles and hours and hours and then today I got to walk on the beach forever. So I’m behind in my sleep quotient and I need to get to bed.

I’m visiting my intended Mr. Reilly Cowspotdog in Florida for a couple of days. He didn’t feel up to frolicking on the beach so I sacrificed and went to inspect one of his beaches for him. I always do my duty, yes I do.

Everything’s OK under these rocks, Reilly!

It was a little bit warm, at 63 degrees, but very windy which kept my furs fluffy and cool. There was hardly anyone else on the beach.

Nose into the wind and on a mission.

That meant that mama could let me run free most of the time, though she had to hook me back up to my leash when joggers went by because I like to tell them off and mama says that’s rude. Whatever. It’s Reilly’s beach and I’m just making sure everyone knows that we shelties rule!

I got the zoomies for a little bit, I was so happy!

Mama took a few pictures of things that were not me, but not very many. Mostly I kept her entertained by all the fun I was having. She likes watching me enjoy new things. I guess that’s why she takes me with her on so many of her adventures.

Artsy pelicans.

My only complaint about this adventure was the first wave. The tide was coming in and I forgot how wet the ocean was and I was standing there and a wave came up and went right over my feet! I jumped and mama laughed and I twirled around trying to get it off me and then it left. I was mortified and never let it happen again! Mama didn’t get a good picture, but this is sort of how I looked.

Wet feet! Wet feet! Wet feet! Get it off of me mama!

Oh, and another embarrassing thing was that mama kept trying to get a picture of my behind with the wind blowing all the fur forward. She says it was cute. I made sure she didn’t get a decent shot. Then just as we were leaving she said she got me AND the danger flag.

Drats. Never let your guard down with a mama and her camera.

Anyway, I’m outta here, I have things to do and people to sniff.

Talk to you guys later. Don’t look at my behind.

Signing off for now, Katie, beachcomber extraordinaire.

Mama! Don’t you embarrass me!


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Hunting the bluebird

There’s so much beautiful down here in Alabama. Spring is here, things are blooming, mostly the sky is blue and the sun shines and even when it rains it’s just moving spring deeper into my soul.

And I realize that I haven’t shown you much of that.

Watching from afar

So I started looking at the hundreds of images I’ve grabbed during the almost four weeks Katie and I have been here. There are so many to share with you.

Swallow or bluebird, who’s going to get the gourd?

Today I’ll focus on the bluebirds that are flitting around all over around here. There’s nothing happier than a bluebird, and when you catch that glint of intense blue you just have to smile.

Mrs. Bluebird joins the show

I’ve found out they’re not that easy to capture. They like to sit between you and the sun so all you have is a silhouette. I swear they plan it that way.

Sometimes the sun doesn’t shine.

In this post I’m sharing some of the successful shots, and some that didn’t turn out quite the way I’d wish. But once in awhile, oh once in awhile, you’ve got the sun on your side and that blue just glows.

Gotcha!

And that motivates you to try again.

Mrs. contemplates a new home.


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Red bird

Aunt Vi’s funeral was Tuesday. She looked beautiful, and though I know she was no longer there, I have to think she’d have been pleased by how pretty she was.

Pink was her favorite color.

She was so ready to move on to her next chapter that I could only feel relief for her. Still, it was hard walking past her for the last time at the end of the service. “I’ll see you soon,” I thought, words I’d often used as I left after visiting.

It was hard, too, to leave her at the cemetery, amid the piles of snow scraped from the ground to make room for her pink casket.

It was so cold that day.

She hated to be cold, and at the last nursing home she took advantage of having her own thermostat to keep her room toasty warm. Tropical, I used to tell her. “Are you too warm dear?” she’d ask me. “No, I’m just fine,” I’d tell her as sweat ran down my back.

It felt wrong to leave her in the cold now.

I knew she wasn’t really there, that she was already celebrating with family and friends, someplace filled with light and music and love and completeness. I knew this, but still.

A beautiful resting place for a beautiful lady.

And then, during the luncheon, all of us sitting in the rec room of the apartment building she had lived in for over twenty-five years, someone across the table from me exclaimed “Look! A cardinal!”

Sitting in a tree just outside the large windows sat a lone cardinal, staring intently at the goings on inside.

“You know Vi really loved cardinals,” I remarked. “She called them red birds.” The red bird outside moved to a different tree, still watching the people inside.

Maybe…just maybe.

The next day Katie-girl and I headed to Alabama in an effort to get away from the snow and cold. Midway on the trip we stopped in a tiny little town in Kentucky at a riverside park to stretch our legs. I took a short video of us walking along the river and posted it on Facebook. A nephew noted that he heard a cardinal in all the bird chatter I captured. Hmmmm…

I stopped by the cemetery on my way out of town the day after the funeral. The flowers hadn’t frozen.

And today on our final day of driving, at the last rest stop of the trip, Katie and I were walking along the top of a ravine. The sun was shining and we were enjoying it’s warmth when a cardinal swooped down low to a branch very near us and began to sing.

“OK!” I said, under my breath. “OK! I believe you!” And then the bird flew off into the trees. Mission accomplished.

She said she’d try to send me a sign that she was alright. I’d say she got her message across.

Loud and clear.

Buddy and all her birds are with her now.

.


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Randomness

Snow attack on the back yard.


It’s snowing here in lower Michigan. Nothing surprising about that, it is after all early February. They say we’ll get five or more inches and that it will snow all day.

Maybe all weekend.

With the weather forecast in mind I stopped at the grocery store on my way home last night. I and about a hundred of my best friends shopped mindlessly, wandering up and down the aisles not sure what I wanted, not sure what I had at home, just sure that I needed something.

Goldfinch scans his food options.

Pushing my shopping cart across the parking lot into the wind driven snow I noticed a woman in a car driving out of the lot. Something about the way she held her head, or her haircut, something about her made me think, for a moment, that it was Janet Yellen. Her last day as Chair of the Federal Reserve was just last week.

Sometimes things are just upside down.

Obviously, now that she had time, she needed to stock up before the snow arrived just like me. It didn’t occur to me that it was highly unlikely she’d be in my town in rural Michigan on a snowy Thursday night.

This much snow makes me want to drink too.

No, the reason I discounted the whole idea was that certainly Janet Yellen doesn’t shop for her own groceries.

Snow can be very isolating.

Or does she?

It’s warmer in a crowd.


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Surprise visitors

It’s been a weather roller coaster here in lower Michigan. We’ve had record breaking cold, with temperatures well below zero (-17.77 C) and lots of blowing snow. Then this week we had one glorious warm day with temps topping 50 (10 C) followed the next day by plummeting temperatures and more snow.

Crazy, but not unusual.

During one of the cold days, in between snow showers, Katie and I ventured out for a walk up the road. I was attempting to get her to hurry up while she looked for pee-mail from all her doggy friends when I heard a chirping from a tall spruce tree nearby. It didn’t sound familiar, so I searched the tree, trying to see what was making the noise.

Much to my amazement a pair of birds shot out of the tree, chased each other over my head, and then disappeared across the street. I wasn’t even sure what I had seen, but they sure looked like bluebirds. I’d heard that sometimes bluebirds overwintered around here, but I’d never seen proof before.

Hmmmm….interesting. But maybe just a fluke. Or maybe I didn’t really see bluebirds at all.

Yesterday afternoon husband glanced out the kitchen window and exclaimed “bluebirds!!” Out on our heated birdbath were two of them, all puffed up against the cold, taking their time while sipping their beverage of choice.

By the time I got the camera there was just one, and I had a dirty window and a screen between me and a clear shot. Still. How could I resist? I only had one shutter click before he flew away, and it was very very underexposed against the brightness of the snow. The original image is just about black.

Artsy

I call this my impressionistic bluebird.

Today we have sunshine, though it’s still very cold. Katie and I were looking out the back window, debating whether to go out and play in the snow when I saw a chunky bird fly toward the house. It swooped in toward the deck, but I couldn’t see where he landed because the blinds were down on that side of the room. Darn! It looked like a very fat bluebird!

I crept around the corner of the room to a door with open blinds. There were three bluebirds sitting on the heated birdbath! Again I had to shoot through the dirty glass and a screen door. And the light was a problem too.

Drink up little guys!

Still, what joy to see bluebirds on this cold winter day!

I sat and watched them drink and chatter to each other for a long time. And then they flew off — looking for lunch I suppose.

Come back anytime!

I guess I’m going to have to figure out what they eat and make sure I have some of that here for them, since obviously they plan on sticking around for awhile at our hot springs bird spa extraordinaire.

May a bluebird of happiness fly into your world this winter weekend, and may you be lucky enough to notice!

Everybody’s welcome here.