A Semi-Tropical Weekend

The most clear and obvious sign of spring, or climate change, over the long weekend, was certainly the weather.  It hit 70 on Saturday, and was in the 60's Sunday and Monday.  The next 2 days, at least, promise to be as warm.
Here are some other signs of spring that I saw this weekend:
Showdrops -- these have probably been up for quite a while, I just haven't looked.

Photo 2/18/17

It was probably a great weekend for birders.  Even as a not-birder, I noticed that there was a lot of activity... things that are here all winter were just active and noisy.  I saw robins (which used to be a harbinger or spring) and killdeer abounded.  We are technically in the summer range of the killdeer, according to Cornell, but we're so close to the year-round range that seeing them now isn't necessarily hugely significant.  There were ducks, mallard and otherwise, swimming in the open waters.  Red-wing black birds were all over, their calls piercing the air.  (I know that photo isn't clearly recognizable as a RWBB, you'll have to trust me on that!)

Photo 2/18/17

Silver maples always have early-swelling buds, but these ones are definitely opening and letting their flower parts show:

Photo 2/18/17

I also saw my first woolly bear of the spring.  I also saw a millipede, and we had a little cranefly in our house.

Photo 2/20/17

State of the World

I've been failing in the end game for the last few days... I've been taking pictures and notes, but haven't managed to dedicate the computer time to getting blog entries actually published.  So here's the state of the world right now.  

The state of the world is lovely.  Warm and sunny and only lightly breezy.  This is the third day of perfect weather (and Friday was only a slight bit cooler) and I love it.  I can run and run and never think about the weather.  I can work in the garden -- and did I ever this weekend.  It's just... just... I can't even express.  Marvelous spring weather for the past few days. Here's just a bit of what I've been seeing...

• The first tick was found (not my me) on 4/14.  YEA!  Now we get to feel false (and real) creepy crawlies whenever we're out in the prairie or woods for the next 2 months!
• Pasqueflowers also reached their peak bloom on or around 4/14, when I took this photo. 

• Dandelions have been blooming for a little over a week now, but I didn't photograph one until Friday. 

• Crabapples leafed out -- this picture is from Friday, and by today they're even greener and leafier.  With them, the honeysuckles, the boxelder, and the lilacs (photo from today) leafing out, not to mention other shrubs like spirea, my blackcurrants... the understory has a definite green tinge to it. 

 

• The Norway maples are flowering -- their green-ish flowers fool people into thinking they've leafed out, but it's flowers first.  Red maples are also flowering (have been for a while, actually).  Sugar maples haven't started yet.  

• While we're on the subject of tree flowers, cherries have just started, and magnolias... they're in full and fragrant bloom, a full spectrum from whites and pinks to purples.  Really just a lovely treat. 

 

• Less pretty, but cottonwoods are catkining and actually the catkins are already falling like rain when you stand under the trees.  Soon they'll be sending off seeds like snow! 

• Celandine poppies started flowering this weekend...

• In the world of bulbs... daffodils are at or just past peak bloom.  Tulips are just starting, only a few varieties open.  Hyacinths are in full bloom, too. 

• In the insect world, I started seeing white butterflies all over this weekend.  Also ants, and those big fuzzy bumble bees.  And...
• I saw my first green darner!  It's dragonfly season!
• In the bird world, so much, and I'm not a good birder.  Wood ducks and yellow-rumped warblers.  Bob o'links.  Killdeer.  Buffleheads.  So much more...

OK, I think that'll be it for now... if that's not enough to process!

Happy Earth Week! (One day is not enough!)

Bird Day

Yesterday was a crazy bird day... First this red tail let me get about 10 feet from me before swooping down and flying to a nearby tree.  Diving ducks on the lake, but they all look like non-descript dots... I can ID buffleheads and mergansers, both of which I've seen in the past few weeks but neither of which there are... The most amazing bird happening was the tree swallows... Today and yesterday there were tons of them, swooping and diving all over the lake, skimming the water, grabbing... Something.  Very cool (but no photos at all of small fast-moving birds).

Almost pasqueflower... Almost prairie smoke, too...

Ice Off and Sensory Observations

Ice is officially off of the lake today.  To be fair, this may have happened yesterday.  There was ice remaining in the morning, but it was over 60 degrees yesterday AND it rained just after sundown, both of which could have contributed to quickly melting ice.  Either way, I didn't see the ice-free lake until this morning and I like the idea of a Leap Day Ice-Off.  How often will THAT happen?

So... here's that, in the grand scheme of things:

2016: 2/29

2015: 3/23

2014: 4/2

2013: 4/4

2012: 2/22

2011: 3/18

2010: 3/18

2009: 3/9

2008: 3/31

2007: 3/18

2006: 3/10

Not the earliest ice off ever... but darn close!  

I have been a naturalist of many senses this weekend.  Here are some of my observations for most.  I didn't taste anything, and I am not interested (right now) in a discussion about senses above and beyond the 5 we all learned in kindergarten. 

Sight: I saw a woolly bear crossing the trail on Saturday.  I didn't photograph it because 2 kids were looking at it and I didn't want to interrupt them.  Also I didn't want them to think I was nuts.  

Sound: I kept hearing killdeer this weekend.  Never saw one. 

Smell: It's skunky out.  I also know this due to sight, but the smell is more salient.  It's just sort of faintly permeating the air all around, despite what I'm about to mention for feel.

Feel: It's windy.  For the third day in a row.  Unseasonably warm, and extremely extremely windy.  

(Note: this blog entry vaguely reminds me of a nature observation organizer we use for our young students...)

February may be going out like a (wind-blown) lamb, but March is supposed to be coming in like the proverbial lion.  They're predicting dropping temperatures this evening and snowfall starting around 9 pm, with 4-6 inches accumulation.  If this happens, it will (I think) be our biggest snowfall since that 18-incher that happened before Thanksgiving.  In other words, winter of 2016 may be missing winter, and instead manifesting itself in fall and (almost) spring!  Weather is weird. But things are happening -- so happy observing!

TGIF

Oh, what a difference a day makes!  I described yesterday as cold, damp and windy -- those were the objective terms... I left out unpleasant, etc.  Today, however, was perfectly lovely.  Though I woke up to ice on the porch (tried to take a photo, too dark), it has warmed nicely and turned into a brisk fall day... it's sunny, lightly breezy, and altogether pleasant!  Here is a picture of the prairie with the woods in the background.  Though past prime in the color department, they were still looking remarkably pretty.  

Today's wildlife sightings were increased over yesterday, too... I did see a woolly bear yesterday, but that was it for the creepy crawlies.  Today, in addition to woolly bears, I saw dragonflies, grasshoppers, bees, and butterflies (a sulfur and a monarch, though there's not much left for them to eat.  The monarch landed on a dandelion in a lawn.)

I also noticed, walking along, a great many deer tracks on the trail.  I was just thinking in my head how there were really a lot today when this young buck charged across the ag field, saw me, stopped abruptly and stared at me for a minute, then took off leaping again, tail lifted in warning.  

Among the birds I saw, the red-tailed hawks were most notable.  They were soaring and circling, and calling out to each other like eagles in an old western (which, of course, used recordings of red-tails dubbed over footage of eagles).

Updates

After days of wind and chill, cloud and drizzle, today is a beautiful, sunny (and, I should add, windless) fall day.

Today is one of those days when, as you walk , swarms of grasshoppers jump out of the way, a constant wave of motion preceding you by a foot or two... 

Also still around: dragonflies (though green darners aren't so common anymore, mostly the red ones), butterflies (not monarchs, but sulphurs and whites), bees and wasps.

In the bird world, there are grebes on the lake (above, tiny) and goldfinches are officially brown, not gold.  This happened a few days ago but today I was watching a few eat seeds.  (No photo, though, they don't sit still!)

The prairie is looking autumnal, with lovely colors in the grasses.  The only flowers left in full bloom out there are the asters... New England a vibrant purple, and also the little weedy white ones. 

Bluestem shows its true colors... red.  (This is little bluestem.  Big bluestem is purpler, but neither is blue!

 In the tree world, sugar maples are turning... I'd estimate about 30% of them have gone orange.  The rest are still thinking about it.  Red maples look like this:

Red wing black bird

Their calls pierce the chill morning air. First heard them yesterday; today they're downright plentiful.

Perfect Little Angel

We saw this perfect bird print in the snow this morning... So cute!

Growing Pains

Birds mature so quickly, relative to humans, that it's as if our entire youth is encapsulated in one short season.      I watched a juvenile robin the other day, and it seemed to have the clumsiness of toddlerhood simultaneously with the awkward appearance of the middle-school "'tweens" and the cocky idiocy of the teenage years.  A dangerous combination, to be sure.  He (or she) hopped around, his flight feathers looking spiky and messy, unsure of his destination... but sure he was going somewhere!

When I was in 7th grade, my teacher had a poster hanging in the classroom that said (this is paraphrased), "Teenagers -- tired of being harassed by your stupid parents?  Act now, move out, get a job, pay your own bills, while you still know everything!"  That poster was being derisive towards human teenagers, but in the animal world, this over-confidence must have great evolutionary value.  The time to figure it all out -- and I mean all... flying, nesting, mating, all the challenges of being an adult -- is so terribly fleeting.  Hesitation is tantamount to death.

So enjoy fledgling season, folks, and be thankful you don't have to go through any of those life stages again... let alone at the same time!

Morning Observations

This morning dawned beautifully...

A thin layer of ice covers the lake this morning, fractal spirals and triangular crystals covering the delicate surface.  The early morning light, almost horizontal, highlights the patterns.  It casts long shadows and pale pastel reflections of the aspen trees across the flat expanse.  Upside down, blurry and elongated, it's an impressionist version of reality painted upon a canvas of ice.  The colors almost glow -- a mirror image of the salmon of the rising sun and the blue of the clear sky, the white of the tree-trunks and the beige of the prairie.

With their swimming-grounds hardened, the lake's surface is free of ducks and geese, but there are smaller birds all around.  A flock of sparrows congregate in the button bush, taking refuge among its protective net of branches and twigs.  They chatter to each other, creating an almost-constant background of warbles and cheeps as I approach.  A few chickadees fly past, and some larger passerine birds, unidentifiable in the distance, perch in the highest branches of the aspens across the water.  There is plenty of life even in the still of the season of dormancy, death and sleep.

Frost crystals color the grass and the dried prairie plants white... although half-way through December, we've yet to see any actual snow.  The early morning air is crisp in my lungs... It almost burns with cold as I inhale deeply, but already I can feel the warmth of the sun's rays on my face and the promise of another unseasonably warm day.  We've already made a snow-drought record this year... I wonder when (if?) we'll get a snowcover...

Things I Love

Things I Love, by Naomi

• I love waking up to a cacophony of chirps from robins and chickadees, sparrows and cardinals, through the open bedroom window.
• I love walking around my yard to check what's blooming before I leave for work without having to put a jacket on.  (Today: dwarf irises, crocuses, lilac leaves pushing out of their bud scales...)  (I'd love it even more if I didn't have to go to work, but the point is, no jacket to bother with, even early in the morning.)
• I love wearing my sunglasses as a headband when I step inside and not having to worry about the fact that a hat is already in their place on my head.  
• I love not wearing socks.  
• I love when my closet -- situated over the garage and not part of the heating or cooling system of the house -- isn't freezing or boiling when I go to get my clothes. 
• I love when things change every day; it's like waking up to discover a new world each morning.  Even after a mild winter, it's so so refreshing to hit almost-spring.   

(Just wait until we get some sort of April blizzard.  Oh, the complaining I'll engage in!)

Oh, my!

Bluebirds and killdeers and herons, oh my!

Maple flowers and aspen catkins and pussy willows, oh my!

Celandine poppies and tulips emerging, oh my!

Have we SPRUNG?

New Plant and New Bird

I learned a new plant today, the Wild Senna. I almost weeded it, but then thought better, and I'm glad I didn't. Apparently it's rare-ish. And useful as a laxative, in case anyone's looking.

This little waxwing apparently fledged too early. He's so cute; I hope he makes it!

Vertebrates of Devil's Lake

The nine group camp sites at Devil's Lake form a semi-circle. In the center of the circle, next to the shower'bath house facilities, is a stand of pine trees that, for as long as I remember, is home to a great blue heron rookery. I've no idea how many birds nest there, but they are constantly coming and going. Their warbles and cackles are the white noise of the sites, and their occasional screams pierce the air in a most disconcerting way. It keeps things from being dull, that's for sure.

This little fellow decided to fledge a bit early. It wasn't injured, as far as we could tell, but it managed to wander itself right into the bathroom complex. And it was ferocious. Though not even close to its full adult size, its feet and beak, overlarge for its stature, may have been their size. And even if not, they were imposing. It made a racket when someone approached, both by calling and by clicking its beak. Chris did manage to rescue it and return it to the grove of pines where the nests are, and when we went to check on it, it was gone. I hope that it survived...

In addition to herons, we saw these Sandhills several times. They seemed to inhabit a farm field near the park, and enjoy wading in this pond which was across the road. At one point, we actually ran across -- though happily not over -- the pair in the road. Here, we saw them dancing in the water right close to us... but by the time I was picture-ready, they had moved across the pond.
Fox snake getting ready to strike (right in the middle).
This turtle is burying eggs (or,digging in preparation to lay them). We saw another crossing the road, probably to find a nest site, and we saw a HUGE snapper moving away from the water, presumably for the same reason.
Little red squirrel. They are so much cuter and feistier and chirpier than the grey ones we see here. I just love them.

A Yellow Day (Plus)

Celandine poppies first opened yesterday, and are all open today!

The marsh marigolds opened fully sometime this week...

Yellow maple flowers and yellow willow flowers give many trees a spring-green appearance.

Wild ginger's hidden burgundy flowers bloom among the leaf litter.

If this is any indication, my evil plot to have jewelweeds take over my side yard is working!

The most phenologically significant bird sighting I've had is baby goslings. I saw the brown and yellow fluff balls from the driver's seat of the car, however, so I didn't get a photo. But the egret was so close yesterday, I took its picture; and the tree swallow so shimmery in the sun...

In Memoriam

This morning, not far from where the mourning doves were sitting on the nest that I photographed on the March 24 entry, I found a dead baby mourning dove. It had probably frozen to death, whether before or after leaving the nest, I don't know. We gave it a proper burial; its nutrients will return to the earth and make a strong prairie this summer.

It serves as a reminder that while we complain about the unseasonable cold, whine about the constant chilled rain and about having to change all our plans, moan about what a bummer of an Earth Week this is... we can come in from the cold, and change all our plans. For most out there, this is a matter of life or death. It's more than an annoyance. It is certainly not unheard of or even rare for us to have a cold day in April, or a snowshower. But I believe this extended cold and wetness this late in the year is unusual, and it is hard for the critters out there.

(I heard this morning that we have had 3 times our normal April rainfall already this year, and we still have more than a week of April left. With a lot of rain predicted in that time. All I can say is, we better have some really pretty May flowers.)

Baby Pictures and Other Updates

Spring marches on, and here are some of the floats at the parade today...

Some buds are starting to do more than just swell, they're turning green and scales are splitting. Above, serviceberry (left) and lilac.

Some plants are popping up green shoots, like the rattlesnake master babies shown on the left. And early flower-ers are getting ready. Shown here, prairie smoke buds (photo taken on 4/3) show their pink color. Pasqueflower buds are brown and fuzzy and I'm keeping an eye upon them.

It is a good time for hazels of all sorts. Here is an American hazel twig with its catkins (male flowers) swollen and enlarged, almost blooming. Two tiny female flowers are also visible in the background. Meanwhile, witch hazel is in full bloom, and the bushes are surrounded by a cloud of perfume... a sticky sweet scent that almost makes me dizzy. Sigh... the internet is good, but there are some things you still have to experience in person...

I found this egg shell today which we believe to be a mourning dove egg based on size, color, and timing. It wasn't especially near a nest of any sort (that I could find).
And finally... our first daffodils! These are extremely precocious, as it were... most are about 6 inches tall with no hint of flowers opening yet. Some are significantly shorter depending on sun/soil conditions. These blooming ones are right next to a building, which perhaps provides them with heat? (My uncle, 30 miles south, within an urban heat bubble, and steps from the shore of Lake Michigan, reported seeing daffodils over the weekend. My dad, in England... so thousands of miles to the east, quite a bit north, and under the influence of some ocean currents that obviously don't bless us here... sent pictures of daffodils over a month ago!)

Georgia on my Mind

Earlier this week, we flew south, like confused birds, to get an early taste of spring on the Georgia coast. I had actually hoped for more of an early taste of summer... last week, I followed the weather and it was in the upper 70's and lower 80's in Savannah. What a treat that would be after a late March in Illinois that just wouldn't seem to get out of the 30's, at least not for long. Well, we arrived in Savannah at about the same time as a cold front, headed up by torrential downpours. Driving unfamiliar roads in an unfamiliar car isn't fun, but it gets even worse when your visibility is about 5 feet and roads are closed due to flooding, but detours aren't marked. But even so... it was green and it smelled fresh and new.

When we got to the b and b where we were staying, guests on their way out told us of the perfect weather they'd had, assured us that we'd have the same. We didn't. That night, it stormed spectacularly, causing a power outage on the entire island... but it stopped by morning and we had rain-free days. But not warm ones. It stayed in the 50's -- the low 50's a lot of the time -- and we didn't see even a glimpse of the sun the entire time we were there.

Still... the weather couldn't stop us from enjoying the southland in the springtime.

The live oaks spread their branches over streets and walkways, creating tunnels. Epiphytic Spanish moss hangs down, creating a fairy tale atmosphere.

Everywhere trees are flowering, leaves emerged but still lime green and new, thin and almost translucent.
The last to leaf out, even this oak has tiny leaves...

While we weren't able to lounge on the beach, we did explore the beach and, at low tide, made several discoveries:
Lettered olives, alive and shiny... we also found a few empty shells.

Sea stars...

Jellyfish, most dead and washed up, but this comb jelly still alive and trapped, momentarily, in a pool. (The jellyfish is the blurry blob to the left and just below the broken sand dollar.)

A crab exoskeleton, perfect and unbroken, next to some of the plentiful clam shells.

A huge piece of horseshoe crab...

And plenty of other shells and treasures.

We also saw a lot of shore birds, laughing gulls and several small varieties of waders and pelicans.

I carried my nature journal but it really wasn't warm enough for sitting outside and drawing to be pleasant. Until... you guessed it... the morning we had to leave! So I did get in a quick drawing, of the tree whose leaves were hanging right over our balcony, since I didn't have the time to go anywhere or look for something exciting and Georgia-y, or we'd miss our plane (which ended up leaving 2 hours late, so I guess that wasn't a real issue, but whatever).

I thought is was a hackberry, but apparently I was too far south and it was probably a sugarberry, which is a lot like a hackberry.