Steve`s Country
For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
Wednesday’s Wanderings #17.
Good morning everyone! It’s cloudy, wet and cool this morning once again. Such a change in weather, going from nice sunny days each day to being cloudy and wet each day. And the forecast for the next week is the same, cloudy with showers each day. It was supposed to be sunny today and tomorrow, such a change. Guess I better not wait for a sunny day for walking to the river. Like 2 years ago, just go walking if it’s not raining. Though sometimes that did mean getting caught in the rain while out walking. But as long as I keep my camera dry it’s okay. But it does also mean getting quite dirty lying on the ground getting those mushroom pictures. However, that’s a minor point.
It’s amazing how quiet it is outside now, so many birds have gone already, and they are leaving considerably earlier than normal. Nighthawks, cedar waxwings, most of our warblers, vireos, pelicans, even our summer robins are gone. The northern robins will still come around yet however, they leave later. I haven’t even heard the loons for several days now, that’s also very early for them to leave. There might still be some of these birds around here and there, but most are gone. Flickers are another one to add to that list, it also seems like our hawks have gone too.
Others are really flocking together now, like sparrows, our late leaving warblers and chickadees. There are at least 2 families of chickadees coming around now, that’s early too, and the number of sparrows is getting to be more as well. Our chipping sparrows seem to have gone now too. They are one of the first to leave, but this is still much earlier than normal. This could mean an early winter for us, 9 times out of 10 that’s what would happen. We’ll see what happens this year.
Monday evening I just had my screen door closed, main door was open. It was 7:30 and Muffin suddenly wakes up, scared, and runs off. That can only mean one thing, a bear. So I go look. Yep, it was a bear on the deck, bigger than the normal one, at least 300 pounds, but he left quickly since he didn’t find anything. I closed the door. So that makes at least 3 bears in our neighborhood, the one that’s a bit smaller, this one and one that is bigger yet. That’s too many. One showed up last night too, but I was already in bed, so I don’t know which one it was. The chipmunks are calling for more food and it’s time for another coffee. Have a wonderful day everyone and God bless!
Steve and Muffin.
©2021 Steve McLeod.
Steve And Muffin’s Bird Of The Week. #1
Hi everyone and welcome back to our bird series! It will be every Wednesday until I run out of bird pictures, which probably won’t take too long since I used most of them already in our first series. Anyway, today’s bird is the “Blackburnian Warbler”. The picture is of the female, gathering nesting material on the ground, the male is orange instead of yellow and is more black and white otherwise. They prefer mature forests of white and black spruce, balsam fir, and white pine in this area. In it’s southern most breeding range it will pick deciduous trees for nesting. They spend most of their time in the tops of these trees and are therefore hard to see except during migration times when they will spend time lower with other warblers and also with flocks of chickadees. They spend their winters in South America, so for a tiny bird they are strong fliers. These birds are smaller than chickadees. They eat large quantities of caterpillars, including spruce budworm. They also eat spiders, flies, mayflies, ants, scale insects, aphids and many others. Their nests are high in a coniferous tree near the end of a branch, up to 80 feet high. Females build the nest of twigs, grasses and spider silk. The nest is about 3 inches (7.5cm) wide and not quite 2 inches (4.5cm) deep. Three to five eggs are common. Both parents feed the nestlings and fledglings. The oldest recorded Blackburnian warbler was 8 years and 2 months old, found during a banding operation, and was released again. Have a great day everyone and God bless!
Steve and Muffin.
©2021 Steve McLeod.
Steve`s Country 