Punching the Fast Forward Button

Alternative Title #1: Remember when I used to update this blog?
Alternative Title #2: The Week That Was: In Pictures I Didn't Take

This last week disappeared in a "wake-up, eat breakfast, work, throw together some semblance of supper, crash in front of the latest Netflix with knitting project, shower, sleep: rinse and repeat" blur. I hesitate to tell you how busy I am (I mean, we're all busy), but with me putting in close to an entire extra day of work on Monday (thank you board meetings and scheduling conflicts), I feel like this week flashed by in an especially fleeting manner.

Each morning, I try to get myself out of bed at a decent hour (really, I do not need nine hours of sleep), so I could work on some side projects, but other than getting one measly little article off to the editors, I haven't accomplished much beyond the daily 9-5 grind. Each morning, it seems like there's just enough time for breakfast, checking email and getting a couple quick little tasks done, then suddenly it's time for me to start pulling together lunch and packing up my work backpack for the walk to work. Convincing myself to take off my fuzzy slippers and change into work duds has been a struggle all week.  

Wait . . .am I whining?

I don't mean to. What I'm really trying to say, in a less than eloquent way, is that today is my Friday (!) and that I'm so ready for it. I'm ready for a couple days when the fuzzy slippers get to stay on indefinitely.

Because sometimes, I'd just like to be like this turtle I saw earlier this week: poking around at my own pace, taking time-outs to sun myself on a warm gravel road, pulling into my shell whenever I happen upon something I dislike. Of course, a turtle's life isn't always enviable - they run the risk of being crushed by fast moving vehicles, being carried off to who-knows-where in a dog's mouth, and they do move so slowly. But I feel like this past week I've been like the Hare in the "Tortoise and the Hare" fable and I'm ready to be the Tortoise, if only for a couple days.

In other news, we had two loon chicks hatch yesterday at my work place. You know what never gets old? Baby animals. They are just so stinkin' cute.

 

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Duck Eggs and other little wonders

Around suppertime last night, I became fascinated by a pair of common mergansers who were hanging out by the shore near the cabin. These two ducks have been spending a lot of time on these rocks this spring. Sometimes they go fishing in the clear, shallow waters. Other times, they simply sit on the rocks, preening or sunning themselves. I'm harboring a not so secret hope that they're spending so much time here because they're going to nest around these parts. 

This evening, Mrs. Merganser was taking a nap on the rock, while Mr. kept watch. 

Eventually they both fell asleep.

After about 20 minutes, I'd eaten supper and the two ducks were up and about again. 

Mrs. Merganser has taken to, how shall I say, relieving herself on the rocks, so when she crouched down, her derriere pointed right at me, I was expecting another lovely splattering of guano. So imagine my surprise when something round, beige and hard looking popped out. It took me a second to realize what I'd just seen. Could it really be an . . . egg?

Binoculars confirmed my suspicions. It totally was an egg!

I was a little surprised she'd just laid an egg for a couple reasons. For one, she was standing on a not so flat rock that the egg could easily roll off of. The rock, which is out in the wide open, and could also soon be submerged if we have some more rainfall. Wouldn't she want to lay her egg in a slightly more secure spot, you know, like on shore . . .  in a nest?

Still, I couldn't help but feel a little excited. Was I really going to get to watch the pair incubating their eggs (mergansers lay up to 13 eggs!) for the next month or so? Mrs. Merganser kind of perched over the egg for a while, but she didn't seem too into it. She nudged it about with her beak a little, but when she shifted on the rock, she bumped the egg with her foot and just as I'd feared, the egg slowly rolled down the slopped rock and plopped gently into the lake. Mrs. or Mr. appears completely and utterly nonplussed by the fact. They continued to go about their business as though nothing had happened.

I however was slightly horrified. That's no way to treat your baby!!

When the pair flew off down the lake, I had to go look at the egg, which was resting in about a foot of water.

I was surprised by both how large and how heavy it was. It was probably a third again as big as the "large eggs" we're used to baking and cooking with. I'm guessing it's unfertilized and that's why Mama Duck was so uninterested in it, but then again, are ducks really smart enough to know if the egg is fertilized or not?

Chickens certainly sit on their eggs regardless of whether or not the eggs will ever hatch and I remember when my grandmother had a small pet bird that she had to remove the egg the bird laid every single day or else the bird would get broody. Granted, that's the extent of my bird breeding knowledge, but based on that, I see no reason why Mrs. Merganser would be so uninterested in her egg. Who knows, eh?

Although I'm curious to know if I *could* eat the egg, I did return the egg to the bottom of the lake after I'd looked at it. Mother Nature knows best, I suppose and if nothing else, perhaps the egg will be tasty treat for some other (wild) mammal.

I discovered another little wonder on Wednesday, when I was walking to the mailbox and snapping pictures of early season wildflowers. I was looking for a violet to photograph when a little bit of blue caught my eye on the far side of the road. I know my wildflowers pretty well, but I had never seen it before and couldn't find it any of the many wildflower guidebooks in the cabin.

It took two parents (Andy's mom and my dad) to figure out what it is. It's a scilla and could have come in with the road gravel. Oh heck, it's probably invasive, but it sure is a pretty little thing. It's only about 4 inches tall!

Have you seen any little wonders lately?
 

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Who's Afraid of the Big, Bad Wolf?

Wolf tracks Andy and I discovered on a walk last week

One afternoon, back when the ice was forming in December, I watched two large dogs carefully pick their way across the slick new ice at the mouth of the bay. Orange and rosy hues from the sunset reflected in the ice, casting the two dogs in a golden glow. The larger of the two dogs had disappeared onto the shore by the time I'd grabbed the binoculars. As I peer out at the smaller dog, who was obviously struggling to keep her footing on the ice, I realized she was a dog, yes, but not one I'd  be playing fetch with any time soon. I'd just watched two wolves cross the ice I'd been skating on not long before.

Wolves aren't an unusual sighting in these parts. In fact, in the last year, I've seen more wolves in the wild than I've seen moose. Minnesota has the wolf herd of approximately 3000, the largest wolf herd in the contiguous United States. Last month, the wolves were delisted from the endangered species list in the western Great Lake states and that means there's the possibility of there being a wolf hunt in Minnesota this year. 

Although they're fairly ubiquitous, I can't help feeling a little apprehensive about it all. I know it's silly, probably just childhood conditioning from stories such as Little Red Riding Hood and The Three Little Pigs kicking in. My senses prick up when I hear the faint howl of wolves in the evening. As fascinating as it was to stumble upon a pair of wolf tracks when Andy and I were hiking down the lake last week, it also reminded me that I'm sharing these woods with some large predators.

This summer, a wolf grabbed the neighbors' dog by the ruff before the wolf was scared off. (Granted, this same dog was also bitten in the bottom by some critter, probably a bear, this summer. Curiosity got the black lab?) More recently, just this month, another acquaintance's dog was killed by a wolf. The local radio station is issuing warnings like this.

The other day I was bemoaning my lack of activity this winter. When Andy suggested a solo hike down the lake, I quickly poo-pooed the idea. I said I don't like trudging through the snow, but frankly, the wolves kind of put me on edge.

"You're right," Andy said (ironically?). "It is wolf mating season."

Who's afraid of the big, bad wolf? Not me . . . ?

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Nature is Not Always Nice

When you live in the woods, it grows easy to assume the wild animals are part of our extended family. Just take Al the pine marten for example. He (or she, for all I know) was nothing more than a nuisance who spent the winter days getting into the bird seed, garbage, and compost. Despite his mostly destructive nature, we gave him a name, imposed a personality on him, and acted like he was a friend. Although we never (intentionally) feed him, our relationship with him smacked of faux familiarity, pretending he was the wildest of pets.

When you live in a place where your path commonly crosses with that of bears, moose, foxes, and other critters it's easy to forget that we're the ones tangled in their webs of existence, not the other way around. We're the ones imposing on their world and we're meant to be casual observers.  

The first week of May, a nesting platform for loons was set up in the bay outside of work. A week ago Thursday, a loon climbed up on nest and stayed. Within the first two days, it became clear a loon couple had laid two eggs in the nest.  "Hot damn," we thought. "We're going to have a loon chick sometime during the last week of Jue." 

But on Sunday, as I sat at my desk, I heard a terrible scream. At first I thought the loon was bothered by the moose I'd just seen swimming in the bay, but there was something about the heart-wrenching nature of the scream that made me think the loon was in true trouble. When I made it out on to the porch to get a view of the nest, I saw an eagle sitting in a gnarly jack pine about twenty feet from the nest. In the distance, another eagle soared in the sky. The loon, probably driven off the nest by the pesky black flies, was swimming near the nest, calling out in distress.

The eagle in the tree swooped down towards the nest and the loon raised up on its back quarters to protest until the eagle returned to his perch. But the second time the eagle swooped down, he seemed to catch something in his talon which fell in a spray into the lake.

I hoped I hadn't seen what I suspected I had, but yesterday morning when I arrived at work and saw no loon on the nest I knew it was true; the eagle had destroyed both of the loons' eggs.

Although the loons no longer had eggs to incubate, they visited the nest a couple times yesterday. They swam around the nest, climbing on top of the floating platform and softly cooing in some sort of heartbreaking loon conversation. It's early in the season and loons will likely use the nest to lay another egg. But it's still no fun to watch and it's easy to feel angry at the eagle who didn't even get a tasty snack out of his raid.

It all goes to show that we can't assume wild animals live some Disney-fied cartoon existence. Every animal is fighting hard for its survival. It's not all wildflowers and butterflies and happy little fawns with Bambi eyes. The critters of the forest play by a whole different rulebook than us humans, one that can horrify us and that can be difficult to justify. But, whether we like it or not, it's a dog-eat-dog (or eagle-eat-loon egg) world out there and nature is not always nice and we're in no position to interfere with the laws of Mother Nature.

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Wordless Wednesday: Chickadees

The chickadees have started eating out of my palm. Of course when I decided to get a pictue to prove this point, the chickadees decided they didn't know me. Nice. Real nice. . .  .

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Lessons Learned as A Bird Brain

We fed the birds last winter at the Shack, but I feel like life in general took place on a smaller scale at the Shack. The living space was certainly more cramped. We weren’t quite as deep in the woods. It was kind of a mini-life, where we got to try on adulthood. A trial run if you will. You should never make assumptions based on a trial run.

So why, when the few chickadees, woodpeckers, and grosbeaks who stopped by the Shack’s two feeders last year consumed about 100 pounds of bird seed, I assumed that was how much bird seed we’d go through in every winter from there on out, I have no idea.

At the cabin this year, the feeders went out in early November. Since then, we’ve consistently gone through about 50 pounds of sunflower seeds . . . a month.

Don’t be fooled. Those little buggers can really pack it away. Lesson learned.

Just the other day, when Andy mentioned needing to run into town for something or other, I asked him to pick up some more bird seed.

He turned a little green when he glanced at the deflated bag of bird seed in the corner behind the front door.

“You mean they ate all of that seed already?”

Just a few short weeks ago, I’d made the belabored bag boy at the grocery store haul a 50 lb bag of bird seed from the back of the store out to the truck.

“Sure did,” I replied.

The temporary thaw last week exposed a veritable birdie wasteland of discarded sunflower seeds. It’s gonna look real classy around here come spring. . . .

Now I know why those birds are so chirpy and cheerful all the time: they’ve basically found the land of milk and honey in our backyard.

I think I’m going to put a little jar by the feeders, kindly requesting the little birdies drop off a nickel every time they belly up to the feeders. Squirrels and Mr. Al “the man who came to dinner” Pine Marten, I expect a dime (or two) when you come calling to the “Sunflower Seed Buffet on The Lake.” I need a little more of a return on this feeding the birds thing than just your colorful (dare I say, heartwarming) company and the guano calling cards that you’re so keen on splattering all over everything.

After all, times are tough. The economy still stinks. You guys, ladies and gentlemen of the birdy world, are wild animals. Go, head off into the woods and fend for yourselves. (You know, the way you’re supposed.) The fact that you are eating me out of house and home is just too ironic.


Do you feed the birds? How many lbs of bird seed do you go through in the winter?

 

This post is part of Mama Kat's "Pretty Much World Famous" Thursday writer's workshop. Thanks for stopping by!

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Wordless Wednesday: Birds of a Feather

flock together. . . .

 

 If you have a Wordless Wednesday post, please consider becoming a follower of "Of Woods and Words" and link up below!

This neck of the woods has always been a haven for an assortment of characters who just wouldn't quite fit into the mainstream life. One such character was a man named Al who became so good at popping by your house just as you were sitting down to supper that he earned himself the nickname, Al "the man who came to dinner."

I think our little pine marten friend has started to turn into "the (furry) man who came to dinner." From now on, I shall call him Al. 

Ah, the freeloading life is the good life.

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Wordless Wednesday: Things Get Owly

It must have started with the pumpkin we carved for Halloween last October, but lately things have been a little owly around the cabin.

Remember, when I headed over to the nearby environmental learning center before Christmas? My friend Kati is a grad student at the center and is certified to handle the two owls who live at the center.

We got to meet Hunter, the Great-Horned,

and Arcadia, the pint-sized Saw Whet. She's missing a eye, because she was hit by a car in the Twin Cities area and had to have the eye amputated. Luckily she survived and now she's able to help educate people about owls. (Hunter also has injuries that wouldn't allow him to survive in the wild.)

Then on Monday, we found this little fluff ball (another Saw-Whet) taking a morning snooze in the cedar trees near our bird feeder area. 

When it's the middle of January, we're all bound to have a few "owly" moments.

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Wordless Wednesday: Mr. Pine Marten

If you're a fan of Of Woods and Words' Facebook page ,you know we've had a pine marten hanging out at our bird feeders for the past month or so. He was a big fan of the McRib, which is now a thing of history. Although these members of the weasel family are well known for their vicious personalities, it's hard not to be charmed by their little kitten-like faces. Every time I hear a clattering on the porch, I grab my camera and proceed to take a ton of (largely grainy) shots of this guy.

This is worse than having a pet . . . .

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What To Do When A Bird Hits the Window

The cabin is surrounded by windows overlooking the lake. Almost every morning, I look out the window and see something breathtaking. Since the majority of the windows face south, on sunny winter days tons of passive solar energy comes in and helps keep the cabin warm. The windows are great.

There's just one little problem.

We invite birds to feeders in the yard during the winter. And, well, you see where I'm going, birds flitting around everywhere, a ton of windows, there's bound to be a collision sooner or later.

Since we put up the feeders in early November, the majority of days have been cloudy and birds have been navigating to the feeders without incident. It's sunny days when the windows reflected the sky, clouds, trees and other environmental elements that birds are most prone to go pell-mell into the glass. And there must have been something in this morning's sunshine that had the backyard wildlife confused. 

Late this morning, while I was working away at the computer, I thought I saw something hurl itself past one of the windows. When I went out to investigate I found Mr. Squirrel apparently trying to jump in through the window. He'd perched on the woodbox outside the front door and would jump at the window with his paws outstretched, hitting the glass above the windowsill, only to slide down the pane with a skitter, landing back on top of the wood box. "Come on," I thought. "I just filled up the feeders. Now you want a warm place to take a nap too?!"

Bemused, I headed back to work, but not ten minutes I heard: BAM!

Creeping back into the living room, I looked out the window and saw a smattering of feathers stuck to the outside glass of one pane. Knowing what I would see, but not really wanting to see it, I peered below the window. Sure enough, a stunned male hairy woodpecker lay on his back on the porch.

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology  has a great article on why birds hit windows and how to make your windows safer for birds. They suggest placing stunned birds into a shoebox and letting them sit in the darkness for fifteen minute intervals.

I prefer not to handle wildlife any more than absolutely necessary, so I went a slightly different route with the woodpecker. A lady who volunteered at the museum this summer, who also has a cabin filled with windows, said she always covers stunned birds with a tea towel. It's the same principle as the shoebox: the darkness not only calms the birds, but also helps them orient themselves. (How would you feel if you were flying along and all of a sudden, BAM, you're on your back, apparently walking on the sky?) The tea towel is light enough that the birds still get plenty of air and won't be smother the bird. Where today's woodpecker landed, I could drape the towel over him without me or the towel touching him at all.

Fifteen minutes later, I went out and removed the tea towel. Sure enough the woodpecker had righted himself, but he lay hunched up, breathing heavily and blinking a lot. I left him for a while and when he showed no signs of flying off 20 minutes later, I decided to check on him. Once I got close to him, he took off like a bolt and flew off into a nearby grove of trees. Hopefully now he's just suffering a massive headache, but he may not be so lucky. Lots of birds die of internal bleeding even after they fly off.

The tea towel trick won't work for every bird who collides with a window, but it's a good way to lend a helping hand without interfering inappropriately.

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Project Feeder Watch and Wildlife Encounters

Pine Grosbeak

Last week, our Project Feeder Watch packet showed up in the mail. This morning, a fine snow is falling. Winter is truly coming. 

I grew up with  Project Feeder Watch, a project from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in Ithaca, NY and the new Project Feeder Watch calendar taped on our fridge door is one of the surest indicators of winter's arrival. The project calls upon amateur birdwatchers across North America to set aside two days every couple weeks from mid-November - April, to record the birds who visit your feeders.  The idea is to record the largest number of one particular bird species you see at your feeders at one time. The data gathered over these two day periods is then submitted to the Lab where they can use it to help track trends, disease, and unusual occurrences among the bird populations. The first reporting season starts on November 13th. We still need to buy a big bag of sunflower seeds and get the feeders set up.

We may have yet to make ourselves consummate hosts to the birds this winter, the wildlife certainly haven't been hiding themselves. Every time we drive down the road, we scare up flocks of the migrating snow buntings. Bald Eagles are making their way down to Lake  Superior. I see them wheeling around in the skies.

So many visitors to the museum this summer were less than thrilled with the eight-mile stretch of burned forest they had to drive through to get to the museum. Maybe the new forest (burnt in spring 2007) isn't exactly postcard perfect pretty, but I have seen so much more wildlife in the woods this year that I'm rather inclined to think that our burnt shell of a forest is a quite healthy forest. We even spied a porcupine in the late summer: something I haven't seen since I was teeny.

Yesterday, I spent the day over at the museum, getting the gift shop shut down for the season. In an idle moment, I gazed out the window. A large animal sidled past my car and headed down the pathway to the biffy.  "Oh a stray dog," I thought.  

I looked again. What a big tail that dog had. His eyes were rather large, his paws were a good size and he had big ears.  And such BIG TEETH . . . .

Yeah, that's no stray dog. That's a wolf. 

I decided to keep myself busy inside a little longer. I just didn't feel like being mistaken for a white-tail deer yesterday, or any day for that matter.

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