Bogieblog

Peonies Busted Out

I was out of town visiting Cop Car, HH and the rest of the family for 5 days. I knew the peonies and rhodie would put on their show while i was gone and figured I would miss a lot of it. However,, much to my delight, Thursday morning I walked out to check on things and saw a glorious profusion of blooms. I should get more flower stakes

In the south garden, there were plenty of peonies also, but I'll just show the close up of a white one

The willow looks like it is blooming, but that is just new growth. When in shade, the new leaves start out dappled - and with more shade the more white they are.

The view out the living room window is not too shabby (although I need to pull whatever that is in the middle - LOL)

Later on Thursday afternoon I was headed for the composter and saw one of the resident robins fly off from between the back porch and the chain link fence. I didn't think anything of it until I saw a bit of movement and looked at my garden cart.

This fledgling didn't move while I went to get my phone to take pictures. Then I went and got the handy man to take a look (he has birds himself). After a few minutes he found his wings and flew off barely above ground and slowly to the other side of the chain link fence. He landed and then walked off towards the shade garden and I'm sure the parents found it there.

A Meal in the Making

This caught my eye Wednesday afternoon. Yes, taken during the "brightest" part of the day - we have just been socked in with heavy, gloomy overcast for what seems to be years, although it has only been months with just the occasional brighter day.

That line of black dots is feathers. Hawk must have gotten itself a meal. I didn't see any blood or tracks/wing marks, so must have caught it in the air. Interestingly that line starts at about the edge of my back porch so the victim may have been trying to get under cover (either under the porch or under the roof). Bird feeders are a good 50' away from that area. When I first saw it, I was hoping it was one of the 5-6 squirrels that hang around.

Guessing with the feathers all being really dark that it was a junco.

Surprise Visitor on 1/10/2024

Tuesday afternoon after clocking out from work I went out and did some shoveling of all the slush/mushy snow left from the 4-5" of snow then 1.5-2" of rain that morning. I cleared the driveway as well as all the roof dumpage areas such as the front porch steps and the path from the back stairs and fence gate. (as an aside, we are supposed to get a very similar storm tonight into tomorrow).

My quirk is that I use my back door almost exclusively (okay, there are reasons but they are boring and you don't care). As I got onto the upper level of the back porch and reaching for the storm door handle, I was looking to see what birds were at the feeders. At first I thought there were none, then I saw a bright flash of color out by the fence. Then it was gone, then I thought I saw it again.

I grabbed my binoculars and could see the tip of a bright orange tail sticking out to the side of a tall cake feeder. Then I could see a head on the other side that looked black (although it was shaded and cloudy in the late afternoon, so it was hard to tell). That feeder is big enough I thought for the longest time it was two separate birds. Then, it moved to the left side and much to my surprise it was a Baltimore Oriole. Sorry for the bad pics, but my phone was at 10x and that is the best I could do under the circumstances.

This next picture shows the orange all the way down the tail a bit better than the 1st pic

I was was surprised it was eating seeds. But then I remembered I had just replaced that cake the afternoon before. So I dug in the trash to find the wrapper, and this explains why he was hunting and pecking in different areas of that cake

And of course the biggest surprise was that he was here at all. Baltimore Orioles will summer in NH, but normally don't winter here. From All About Birds:

Migration

Medium- to long-distance migrant. Baltimore Orioles spend summer and winter in entirely different ranges. From early April to late May, flocks arrive in eastern and central North America to breed from Louisiana through central Canada. They start to leave as early as July for wintering grounds in Florida, the Caribbean, Central America, and the northern tip of South America.

I did report the sighting for a rare bird as well as posting of FB a couple of places. Apparently a couple of others were also sighted (from comments on the local TV ulocal FB page). Wonder if it (or they) got blown in by the strong winds of the storm and made the best of the situation.

I haven't seen him since then - but that tells us absolutely nothing since I don't watch the feeders all day and he could be either headed back south or visiting other areas to feed.

Tink, Tink, Tink

Over the last week or so, occasionally I've heard a weird tink-tink sound - not loud, just enough to get my attention if the house is quiet and I'm in the living room. Thought it was just the mini split making an odd sound. Then one time Spot ran to the living room bay window ans started looking out, so I followed her. Weird, there is a house finch that is sitting on top of the storm door and occasionally pecking. All I can figure is it grabbed a seed and flew up there to eat out of the weather and away from all predators. It's the only one that does this.

At least it isn't a flicker - those are very loud when they peck and can/will peck thru siding and even metal strips.

Bird Watching

I thought I had posted about this, but apparently I forgot to (from a post to the FWC forum):

On December 8 a bunch of birds made an appearance ("bunch" is not nearly what you are envisioning in your head). Some titmice were on the suet feeder when a larger bird landed underneath. "WTH is that?" Not big enough to be a Robin, but too big to be a chickadee. Then it moved out of the shade and I could just make out some blue on its wings, with a reddish breast. All I could think was, "OMG, it's a bluebird!" I haven't seen one for a long time. Then a female landed next to it and I got to watch them for a little bit. Made my day!

Just before seeing the bluebirds, I'd been watching a young cardinal couple - I guessing one was the offspring of an older couple that hung around all summer. Several titmice have been regulars a few chickadees, some house finches and a pair of downy woodpeckers, but they don't make it a regular past-time to be at the feeders just a quick stop by for lunch apparently. A lot of the time the birds ignore the seeds and suet and are all over the tree hydrangea's dried flowers. Guessing there are seeds there and on warmer days perhaps moths and other bugs are hanging out.

And now to yesterday's sightings:

I've seen the bluebirds most every day this week, even though we've had a couple of mornings in the lower teens, so they may have decided to stick around for the winter. Note that bluebirds do overwinter in the eastern part of the state, where temps are usually a bit milder than where I live. The main shock was seeing bluebirds at all as they usually don't make an appearance at my place even in summer (December 2020 was the last time I noted such a sighting here or on FB).

I hadn't seen the cardinals for 10-14 days, but yesterday I heard one then a little while later I saw both. Then as the pair of downy woodpeckers were on the suet feeder hanging off the crabapple, a hairy woodpecker made an appearance and they both vacated. A few minutes later I saw his mate. This is my first sighting of the Hair woodpeckers this season. Don't feel bad for the downies, they alit upon a mealworm/seed cake feeder I have over by the picket fence.

Neighborhood Cats, Birds and a Bear

I see a fair amount of neighborhood cats in my yard. I have birds and squirrels around, which most likely attracts the kitties.

This orange cat has visited at least once before. These are taken from the back porch, so the zoom in takes away from the clarity a bit. It appears to be well fed and has a blue color. The squirrels were really scolding it as that is the area I throw birdseed and peanuts in.

I have seen this longer-haired gray kitty several time this spring/summer. He is not as skittish as most are as I walked within 15 feet of him before realizing he was there. I must have walked by him twice, as I didn't see him until I was coming back from the mailbox. Unfortunately I didn't have my phone with me, so settled for a pic thru the southern living room window) With the screen there, I was limited on the zoom I could use (too much and it would focus on the screen).

I have been hanging a mealworm cake bird feeder from the back porch this spring. The other day I looked and could see that a woodpecker left this impressive perfectly round hole thru the center

Even though I bring in the mealworm cake feeder every night, Friday night the local bear decided maybe there was some good eats inside the pen. Good thing I have the spare fence panels so was able to replace that gate panel (the other panel held its shape. I did have to buy a couple of the heavy duty 8' fence posts, which I found at the local Agway.

Shows the fence panel is straight, so still usable

Apparently the bear decided to climb onto the porch and knocked off one of the planters. The round white thing is the plate I use as a water catcher below the pot. The sound of it falling may have scared the bear enough that it left at that point as nothing else was disturbed - except the broom that stands in the corner, which was moved about a foot (but still leaning against the railing).

So now I will forgo the mealworm cakes. If I try to put them out on a tree, the squirrels will decimate them very quickly. But, the residue from the birds pecking at it apparently was enough to interest the bear, and I don't want to encourage it.

Redwing Blackbirds Spring 2023

I thought these pictures were taken last week, but looking at the time stamp it was actually a week ago Friday (3/17/23). Although the large gatherings of redwing blackbirds has been here for about 2 weeks, I was unable to see most of them and this was the first time I was able to take pictures. I counted just over 61 birds in the area at that time. The first two pics are trees in the back yard, the third is from the large tree on the north side.

You Should be Migrating

Last weekend I was going to pull the hummingbird feeder. I hadn't had any hits for several days so figured my summer residents had left

I use a test tube feeder so it is quite easy to see when it has been "hit". Sunday night I pulled the tubes in and cleaned them, and set them to dry in the dish drainer. Monday morning I decided to fill one test tube and put it back out. That evening, about 6pm, I saw that the tube had been hit, so I put out the other two. I then decided to take a picture of the partial tube so I would have record, and this happened. The phone was 12-18" away. (click on the pictures to see them right side up - I had enough problems getting Typepad to accept the uploads for this post and I'm not willing to mess up everything by rotating them). Pictures are in order taken.

I think it is a youngster from the pair that summers here and he just enjoyed being out of the rain to feed - there are still lots of flowers on the autumn clematis, turtleheads and New England asters. We had a lot of rainy days this week (only got 2", but that took almost 4 days). Then Friday was huge wind so I situated the feeder so it was closer to the house and less affected by the wind. I have seen a bird every day since and filled the tubes on a regular basis as only about 1/4 of the tube is actually accessible. I'm really unsure if it is the same bird or not since sometimes it looks like a young male and sometimes it looks like a young female.

And don't even go there on the red color. It is really barely pink (picks taken in near darkness) and is made by hibiscus, not red dye.

Had a Little Snow

Got some snow Friday. Not sure how much as the temps never got down to freezing. Very wet and heavy so it was smooshing down too. but, most likely between 6 and 8 inches.

The poor daffodils that had opened up on Thursday were driven into the ground

I was fortunate in that I had to take the car in for its state inspection. The appointment was at 7:30 and the roads were still just wet both on the way to the dealership and on the way home (I just waited for it and was home shortly after 8). It snowed so fast between 10 and noon that the road started icing up.

The last roof dump shortly after noon

This picture shows how much moisture we had gotten by 3:30.

By the time the snow at the top of the gage melted, along with the rain that followed, we had about 2" of much need moisture.

Here is the snow I still had yesterday at 11:30

It is mostly gone now except for the berms from the roof dumpage and snow shoveling of said dumpage.

Yesterday afternoon I found this poor thing on the way to the mailbox.

It was a very, very pale blue. I don't think it is a robin egg, but I'm no expert. I don't know if it came out of a nest in the rhodies (about 5-7' away), or a bird landed for an emergency egg laying. It wasn't cracked at all. After examining it, I left it there for the local wildlife to clean up.

Blue Birds and Things That Could Have Gone Better

Wednesday, before the upcoming Nor'Easter, the birdfeeders were the site of a feeding frenzy. Just before 3pm, I looked and was excited to see I had bluebirds on the suet feeder. I don't remember ever having bluebirds at either house in NH, so of course I grabbed my phone and snapped some pictures.

Wednesday night thru Thursday afternoon my area got hit by 20-22" of snow. It was a light, fluffy snow which was much better than the sloppy and heavy stuff we got two weekends ago. BTW, as late as Wednesday evening, they were calling for my area to get 6-12+" (after starting the day before at 2-4" - if the storm didn't stay south of us). By 3AM Thursday they upped it to 10-18"

At 4 AM Thursday, the road plow went by after the first 8" of snow had fallen so at 5AM I went to clean up the driveway for the first time. The berm was over the top of the snowblower intake, which means it was over 2' high.

The plow went by a second time about 11, so I took an hour lunch to do another cleanup of the driveway. After I logged off from work, I went out and started clearing paths around the house, to the compost barrel and started on the "driveway" to the tent garage, but didn't get the whole thing done. Neither did I clear off the front porch steps. I figured I would do them Friday morning since I was taking a PTO day anyway and the temp would stay low. Snow totals a bit to the NW of me had some areas getting over 40" of snow within the 15 hours that the storm lasted

And then there was the record set in Concord for total over a 12 hour period

Friday morning I went out o clean up what the roof had dumped on the driveway and the path to the fron door, as well as shovel the front porch/steps. Then I finished up the second "driveway" and brushed the snow off the back window of the truck. Everything seemed to be fine at that time.

I took a break and went to go rake the snow off the shed and tent garage about 9:15 am, when I saw this

At the bottom of that last picture you can see little glass shards on the dash. Well, nothing to do but call both insurance companies. Of course I don't know the full extent of damage to the truck since the structure will have to be removed first. As you can see, the roof of the structure had already dumped part of the snow load (the snow along the side of the structure is all from the roof), so I'm unsure why it didn't hold up, but apparently it got tired of standing upright.

The house insurance adjuster called me back later that day and had me send pictures. He also provided a couple of names of companies that might be able to help with the clean up. Since they were 20-30 miles away, and he used them for water/fire/smoke damage clean up, he wasn't sure if they could help or would be willing to come out to my area. I got ahold of the first name on the list and he will be out this morning to take a look.

Once again it is a good thing I have a second vehicle for going to the dump and getting groceries since the truck will be out of commission for goodness knows how long. And I am fortunate to be working from home, so I don't have to worry about commuting in slick conditions. So far the ton of pellets in there are untouched and hopefully the structure can be removed without damaging them (they are covered in plastic, so I'm not worried about snow getting on them).

The worst part will be that thru the rest of the winter, I'll have to scrape and remove frost/ice/snow from the truck, which I have really enjoyed not having to do. But, in the scheme of things, this is a minor blip.