February 28, 2021

Zooming - February 2021

February 28, 2021/ Gwen Morrison

As I selected the images to include in this monthly post, I found more variety than usual. The experimental high key images are quite different than my usual photography – a type of photography I will continue to use in otherwise poor lighting conditions. There was also a lot of snow….in landscapes and as background to the usual birds. I took more pictures of deer in February too. One subject carried over from last month – the skunk cabbage is still blooming at Howard County Conservancy’s Mt Pleasant and it’s the only picture taken away from home! Enjoy the slideshow.

February 17, 2021

Through my Office Window – February 2021 (and Niagara Birding)

February 17, 2021/ Gwen Morrison

We’ve had a snowy/icy February so far. There are pines and cedars at the edges of our yard that catch the snow. They are easy to photograph from the warmth of my office. Sometimes I intentionally overexpose the pictures to blur the background further…make the most of the dim light.

Our feeder is popular and often has multiple birds visiting. The pictures below show a Junco - Carolina Wren – female Northern Cardinal and Junco – female Northern Cardinal (tail only) and male House Finch.

The female Red-bellied Woodpecker still comes as well – choosing the peanuts from the mix of seeds.

I also managed some pictures of birds in trees – a Titmouse in the cedar

And the male Northern Cardinal in the red maple.

We’ve also noticed deer coming through our yard. There are seven in the picture below….two groups coming together.

I took several more pictures of the same group at various zoom settings. The portrait with just the head and shoulders shows how thick the winter coat is on the animals.

Over the past weekend, we watched the virtual Birds on the Niagara. All the videos are freely available online now: Feb. 12-13 videos and Feb. 14 videos.

I enjoyed all of them but by favorites were:

J. Drew Lanham (keynote)

Timothe Beatley on Biophilic Cities

Paloma Plant on preventing bird collisions with buildings

Anne McCooey on project to certify the City of Buffalo as NWF Habitat Communities

My husband and I talked about whether we would make the trek to the area in winter sometime post-pandemic….decided we’d go in spring or fall instead – try to see it during migration. Seeing it virtually in winter was good enough for us!

February 04, 2021

3 Days of Snow

February 04, 2021/ Gwen Morrison

Today our forecast is mostly cloudy…after three days of cloudy skies and snow. The streets are already clear, and the driveway has some clear patches without us ever shoveling. We enjoyed our snow days but are glad to see a bit more sun!

On the first day we had a lot of webinars from the Space Coast Birding and Wildlife which we were watching on the biggest screen in the house (the television) and had a fire going in the fireplace. We had a power failure a little before 8 AM for a few seconds and the cable/internet was out for about an hour afterward. It’s a good thing the first festival session of the day was recorded so we could watch it later!

I tried some snowflake photography twice during the day. I used my phone with a clip-on lens that included a light and a red glass plate to catch the snowflakes. The temperature was about 30 degrees which is on the warm side for good snowflake photography.

The flakes during the first session about 8AM were clumping although there was one that seems to look like a pyramid with a hexagonal base! Even though I had cooled down the plate and lens for over an hour, there was still some melting.

During the second session shortly after noon, it was easier to see individual snowflakes, but they were heavily encrusted with tiny ice spheres.

I tried to capture some scenes from our back and front yard over the course of the day. Our deck and bird feeder still drew the birds even while it was snowing.

I made snow ice cream in the afternoon – after enough snow had accumulated. We ate the whole big bowl!

Overnight there was freezing rain so there was an icy crust on everything the second day.

I cracked the ice of the top of the snow on the deck and made snow ice cream again. It was too icy, but we ate most of it anyway.

It snowed more overnight than we though it would so the third day had snow on top of ice. I worried that it might be too heavy for some of the trees because there was some wind as well….but we didn’t hear or see any breakage. I took pictures of scenes through several windows.

Two of my favorite pictures of the day were taken through the windows on the side of the front door. The vertical ice and snow covered thread in the azalea is an old spider web that’s been there since last fall! The seed pod with a hat of ice and snow is a black-eyed Susan from last summer.

Our plum tree was so full of snow that it obscured the evergreens across the street. The view through the skylights was different too; one had patches of ice partially obscuring the branches of the sycamore in the background.

As always – the view from my office window was the best in the house.

December 30, 2020

Zooming – December 2020

December 30, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

I took fewer pictures in December…and shifted toward macro rather than zoomed. It was an indoor month because of the cold and the activities associated with holidays. Still – there were pictures of birds and snow – sunrise and sunset…the wintery scene. I’m going to bundle up to take more walks even in the January cold!

December 28, 2020

Through my Office Window – December 2020

December 28, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

I am appreciating the view from my office window more this year than ever before…it is a great view of the natural world. We’ve seen wild turkeys twice (no pictures!) and one evening 9 deer came through (usually we see 2-4 at a time). There are the usual critters that I almost always manage to photograph: the finches, crows, white-breasted nuthatch, a pair of cardinals,

The squirrels,

The mourning doves,

The red-bellied woodpecker, and

The Carolina wrens.

The birds that we only have around during the winter are the dark-eyed juncos,

The red-bellied nuthatch,

The white-throated sparrow,

And the red-winged blackbirds. We have the red-winged blackbirds near the neighborhood pond in the other seasons, but they don’t venture to our forest and feeder except in the winter or during migration. They are almost too heavy for the feeder, so they don’t get enamored with what it provides.

The view from the window – the forest, the bird feeder and bath, the winter yard…the best in the house.

November 30, 2020

Through my Office Window – November 2020

November 30, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

So much to see from my office window….

The resident Blue Jays come through several times a day. During the summer months I can only photograph them on the deck or at the bird bath. Now that the leaves are off the trees it is easier to spot them in other places in our back yard.

The Northern Cardinal pair are regular visitors as well. I see the female more often than the male.

The Carolina Wrens are around all during the year. They are easiest to photograph at the feeder since they are preoccupied with getting seed – stay for more than a few seconds.

The Chipping Sparrows and Tufted Titmouse are at the feeder almost every day. The titmouse often takes its seed to the gutter above the feeder to open the hull to get the good part.

The White-Breasted Nuthatch, House Finch, and Carolina Chickadee are all regular visitors.

American Goldfinch and Downy Woodpeckers are in our area all the time but they come to our deck and feeder infrequently.

There are birds we see primarily during migration times. Red-winged Blackbirds are at the neighborhood pond all through the year but only come to our feeder and forest in flocks during the fall and spring.

Sometimes we have Brown-headed Cowbirds around in the spring (laying eggs in other birds’ nests) but in the fall we just see them as they move through in small flocks when they stop to raid the birdfeeder.

Our resident Red-bellied Woodpecker comes to the feeder often. Right now - the female is all we see. Earlier this year there was a male and I hope there will be a pair next spring…another chance to see young birds.

The squirrels come to the deck for water and the seed under the feeder that the birds have scattered. Sometimes they try to dump the feeder but are generally not successful.

Now that the leaves are off the trees it is easier to see the Mourning Doves in the trees. Just before I wrote this post, I counted 7 doves preening in trees behind our house!

The sunsets are visible from my office window as well. The challenge is to look for it at the right time.

2020 11 l IMG_3090.jpg — My favorite picture ‘through the window’ this month is the last big leaves on the sycamore. It was taken on the 23rd. One of the leaves fell shortly after I took the picture but one is still hanging on.

November 01, 2020

Zooming – October 2020

November 01, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

Another month…a selection of zoomed pictures. The only picture of the group taken a little further afield than we’ve been since the beginning of the pandemic is the rather stern looking Great Blue Heron which was from our field trip to Conowingo Dam. There will be a few more such field trips in November as we build up our confidence to make the treks safely. Enjoy the show!

October 19, 2020

Photography through a Window - October 2020

October 19, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

It’s so easy to capture the backyard happenings through the windows of my office or breakfast area.

The sunset was colorful through my office window on the 1st day of the month….a fabulous beginning.

There were the usual birds around the deck – Mourning Doves

And Carolina Wrens.

There is a female Red-bellied Woodpecker that comes to the feeder frequently…picks out the sunflower seeds and scatters the other kinds for the birds below.

The White-breasted Nuthatches often seem to follow the woodpecker. There are at least two of them and they have plenty of assertive poses…always fun to watch.

When multiple birds are at the feeder – it is easy to compare relative sizes: Finches, Carolina Chickadee, Chipping Sparrow.

After I mowed the leaves – I noticed that the lawn mower left a pattern in the yard. The grass was a bit wet so the mower left an impression. The picture was taken about 24 hours after I mowed.

When I empty the seed from then feeder before refilling it, the chipmunk often shows up before the squirrel! It’s fun to watch. The day was cloudy when it visited the deck recently and I got a lot of blurs because of the reduced light…but these images were clear enough to post.

Overall – a good month of photographing the scene through the windows in the back of our house.

September 28, 2020

Zooming – September 2020

September 28, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

Less that 1000 photos this month…but still enough zoomed images for this post: 16 images. 4 of the images were inside (the stained glass butterfly and the super zoomed flowers). There are 4 butterflies (Common Buckeye, Red Admiral, Palamedes Swallowtail, and Spread-winged Skipper) and a Monarch caterpillar. All 3 birds are somewhat unusual: the Northern Cardinal is a juvenile still begging to be fed by its parents but learning quickly to find seed on our deck, the Blue Jay is contorting itself to get seed from the feeder (the roosts are too close together for him), and the Caroline Wren is tailless. Other animals in our yard or deck are also included: a chipmunk with very fat cheeks and a deer. And lastly are our trees: the sycamore leaves beginning to change against a blue sky after the smoke from the west coast that past over Maryland at 30,000 feet cleared out and an oak leaf that might be an indication that our oak tree has the infection common in our state (and not something we can treat…may eventually kill the tree).

All the pictures were taken at our house or the CSA.

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

Green tomatoes. I got 2 green tomatoes in the CSA share last week; they have been near the kitchen window since then. One began to turn red almost immediately and the other has stayed green. I’ll make green salsa with the one that is still green (or something else that cooks the green tomato so that it is edible) and let the other one finish turned red to eat like a regular tomato.

September 20, 2020

Birds on our Deck

September 20, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

The bird feeder camera has not been as interesting recently, but I noticed two sequences where there were 2 or more species of birds there at one time. The first one is a Downy Woodpecker joined first by a female Northern Cardinal, and then a White-breasted Nuthatch.

The next sequence has a female finch (maybe) on the side of the feeder away from the camera and a Tufted Titmouse. The titmouse moves around a bit and is then joined by a Carolina Chickadee. The titmouse flies away and a White-breasted Nuthatch comes. The finch stays on the same perch for the duration.

The pictures I take with my camera through my office window are sharper. The Red-Bellied Woodpecker (female) is coming to the feeder periodically. There must be plenty of food in the forest since she does not come frequently.

The House Finches sometime come in groups. They are probably the most frequent species at the feeder.

The Carolina Chickadees are high energy visitors to the deck…and not just to the feeder.

The Chipping Sparrows sometimes come a lot and other times appear to be gone somewhere else temporarily.

A male Downy Woodpecker comes periodically.

Mourning Doves survey the yard from the deck railing. They also like the bird bath…and clean up any seed that falls from the feeder.

The strangest photograph this month was of a Carolina Wren….that appears to be missing a tail! I didn’t notice the oddity until I looked at my images on a bigger monitor. The bird behaved normally so maybe it will survive (and grow new tail feathers).

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

Mourning Ruth Bader Ginsburg….an increase in concern for the future of our country. So many things are adding together to make 2020 a traumatic (and tragic) year. Maybe times like this are the ultimate test of our character as individuals and as a society.

August 27, 2020

Through my Office Window – August 2020

August 27, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

The usual birds kept coming to our deck for the water or seed (or both) this month: Mourning Doves

2020 08 IMG_1236 (2).jpg — White-breasted Nuthatch

2020 08 IMG_1236 (14).jpg — Carolina Chickadees

2020 08 IMG_1236 (15).jpg — Tufted Titmouse

Carolina Wren

2020 08 IMG_1236 (12).jpg — With **occasional** visits from American Goldfinches

2020 08 IMG_1236 (19).jpg — Common Grackle

2020 08 IMG_1236 (20).jpg — Downy Woodpecker

The House Finches seemed to be the most frequent visitors to the feeder. Near the beginning of the month we were seeing parents bringing fledglings to the feeder.

And then in recent days there were birds that seemed to be getting adult plumage.

Also - near the end of the month a Chipping Sparrow brought its fledgling to the seed under the feeder. The young bird was still in the mode of waiting to be fed rather than finding its own seed.

And it was voracious – here is the “I’m still hungry” stance!

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

20200826_072355(0).jpg — **More sweet potato sprouts**. I found more sprouts on the sweet potatoes in the pantry a couple of days ago and put them in water. And this morning they had roots and tiny leaves! I planted them outside in two places near the other sprout and watered all three. The day lily leaves are beginning to grow rapidly again, and I hope the small sweet potato vines will grow fast enough to not be down in the shade.

June 29, 2020

Zooming – June 2020

June 29, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

Only two pictures in the slide show below were taken away from my house. The other location was a short walk from my house to the neighborhood storm water retention pond.

There are quite a few birds as usual:

Starling
Cardinal
Carolina Wren
Blue Jay
Red-winged blackbird (fledgling)
House finch
Mourning dove
Chipping sparrow
Turkey vulture

It seems like there are more other animals that usual: cat, deer (with faun), turtle, and black squirrel.

Overall it’s a good mix – but I am missing the usual garden and butterfly pictures as I look at these and think about June the past few years (see June 2019 and June 2018). In previous years June was a hyper month at the beginning with two volunteer gigs (Brookside Gardens’ Wings of Fancy and Howard County Conservancy’s hiking with school field trips) overlapping and helping my daughter move (last year). June 2020 has been a quieter month…but still enjoyable.

May 31, 2020

Through the Window, JMW Turner, and Being Outdoors

May 31, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….

Pictures through the Window

I always try to gather up the best pictures taken through my office window toward the end of the month. We had more birds at the feeder at the beginning of the month; it was cool and there weren’t as many insects for the omnivorous birds. There are 11 birds in all….and a tree… in the collection for May 2020.

2020 05 IMG_9442 (3).jpg — The **Red-bellied Woodpeckers** are frequent visitors. The male even did some foraging on the ground under our neighbor’s pines.

The female has started getting a seed from the feeder then wedging it in a nearby crack in the deck railing to peck and crack open. There are times I think she knows I am watching.

The Cowbirds are still around. The males come in groups, but the female is the one I see at the feeder most often.

The Downy Woodpecker comes frequently as well although it comes in silent – unlike the red-bellies.

The finches (House and Gold) are around – but less frequently than they were in April. I’m not sure why other than they are busy with their nests and finding other food sources.

And then there were the Indigo Buntings. They were somewhere else by mid-month.

The Cardinal pair is around all through the year.

2020 05 IMG_9442 (26).jpg — The only picture of a **Titmouse** I took this month was a very round bird. Maybe it was just the angle.

The Carolina Wrens are the big singers around our deck.

The Mourning Doves sometimes use the deck railing for a mating platform. I didn’t know what the bird I photographed was doing with its tail, but I suspected it was mating related. It was the only dove around…it eventually stood up and flew off.

2020 05 IMG_9442 (33).jpg — Recently we’ve had an uptick in **House Sparrows** coming to the feeder. They seem to come in small groups of 2-4 birds. Maybe they are gearing up for a second brood of the season.

Finally, is the tulip poplar. The later-than-usual frosts we had this year didn’t seem to reduce the number of flowers. We’ll have plenty of gutter-clogging seeds flying next winter, and spring!

Unique activities for yesterday:

Gorging on JMW Turner (1775-1851) art. 344 paintings are packed in a slideshow available from Internet Archive here. Wow…what a range of works he produced. I selected 4 different works as examples. The slide show is well worth a look.

Being Outdoors. I’ve established a new goal – be outdoors for at least an hour every day. This time of year, that should not be hard since the weather is relatively pleasant. This is more about increasing consistency and logging what I do than dramatically increasing my outdoor time…although I tend let weather deter my getting out. I know I feel better physically and emotionally on days I am outdoors for at least an hour. As it gets hotter, I’ll shift to the morning – before the heat of the day becomes oppressive. It doesn’t have to be working in the yard, taking a walk, or hiking in the forest behind out house. It can be reading a book, doing something on my laptop or just enjoying some quality time with our cat on the enclosed/screened deck! In my first foray after establishing the goal, I selected pictures for this blog post, made two Zentangle tiles for the Zentangle prompt, cleaned the table on the deck, occasionally made eye contact with the cat, and cleaned out/filled the birdbaths…and it added up to more than an hour - easy.

A Zentangle Prompt

Try the SeZ pattern. The pattern starts by using seeds (maybe real ones like sesame or rice or bulgur wheat) or making random dots.

Here is a page I made based on yesterday’s prompt: Experiment with the MAELSTROM pattern. I used the May 2020 page from the Audubon calendar. It provided lots of spaces to experiment with the pattern. I tend to like the random usage of the pattern…and the curved part of the pattern although I did start thinking about radio waves coming down to a radio telescope for the other part of the pattern. Using the calendar page was a good experience and I’m thinking of using the page for June to show the prompt for each day…maybe showing the page as I fill in each week as we move through the month.

Links to my previous “filling a day of social distance” posts here.

The Zentangle® Method is an easy-to-learn, relaxing, and fun way to create beautiful images by drawing structured patterns. It was created by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas. "Zentangle" is a registered trademark of Zentangle, Inc. Learn more at zentangle.com.

May 14, 2020

Filling a Day of Social Distancing - 5/13/2020

May 14, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

**Two iris flowers.** Iris flowers don’t last that long. Once they start wilting, I snap them off. This morning when I got to my office, there were two more flowers that had opened overnight and another bud that is not far behind. Two others are showing purple. The last two I’m not sure will make it. They might not have been mature enough when I cut the stem.

Morning Drama. As I started to write this post, there was a group of birds that flew past the window making a ruckus. I got up to see the drama. A crow circled around with something in its beak; it was chased by a robin with other robins also flying around. Some grackles watched from the sycamore. The crow flew on with its prize and the robins gave up. I surmised that it was a hatchling from a robin nest…and had a second thought: I hope it was a cowbird rather than a robin hatchling!

**Morning glory and tangles.** The central flower is another page from the 1882 Flower Designs book. I kept the page intact rather than cutting it into tiles – discovered that the larger format makes it harder to turn the page to be comfortable making the tangles in the space I normally use for projects.

Spring of 1964. I browsed the Life Magazines from Spring of 1964 on Internet Archive. They became the prompt to think about what I was doing then. I have a vivid memory of my 4th grade classroom that spring…of my pregnant teacher finishing a series of lectures about tornadoes which had been very interesting to all the students…she turned to the windows on the left side of the classroom and said ‘And there is one’….it was still white but was definitely a funnel….the sirens went off and we all trooped out into the hallway to kneel with our hand covered heads tucked toward the wall….it seemed liked it was a very long time before we were able to get up. A Google search found a reference for the event; it happened on April 3, 1964 and was an F5 tornado….one of the 3 major tornadoes to impact Wichita Falls, Texas. I was old enough to have been browsing through the Life Magazines at my grandparents, but I don’t specifically remember any of the stories. I do remember knowing about Douglas McArthur’s death, but I think it was more likely from the newspaper. By 4th grade I was already browsing the morning newspaper before I had breakfast and went off to school. Looking at the magazines now…the photographs that appeal to me the most were from a story about winter in Venice.

Putting out the glass bird bath. I decided that we are unlikely to have another frost so it’s safe to put the glass bird bath out in the front flowerbed. The stand for it is always there. I’m not sure how many birds use the bath because I can only see it from the narrow windows on the sides of the front door; I should check every time I go by now. While I was out I pulled a few trees that had sprouted in the front flowerbed. The one I photographed is a red maple.

Links to my previous “filling a day of social distance” posts here.

And now for the after-bath preening of a Carolina Wren

I saw the Carolina Wren hop into the gutter of our covered deck not far from my office window. There was still some water in it from a recent rain. I got up fast enough to see it dunking itself in the water but by the time I had my camera it had already flown to the sycamore and looked very scruffy. Over the next minute it did a lot of preening. It still looked a bit scruffy at the end but at least it was holding its tail up in typical wren fashion.

We’d had a wren in the screened part of our deck earlier in the day and this might have been the same bird…cleaning up after the ordeal. We opened the door to the outside for it to escape but it took more than an hour for the bird to find the opening. It must have been a traumatic experience.

May 13, 2020

Filling a Day of Social Distancing - 5/12/2020

May 13, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

Morning light. When I first walked into my office shortly after 6, I stood at the window and noticed the light in the treetops – a part of the view I don’t see from my computer table. Through the veil of the sycamore that is just beginning to leaf out, the trees on the horizon are a wall of green most of the time but the morning light made them look very yellow, highlighting the layers of the forest

Indigo buntings. Just before 10 AM, I looked down from my office window and saw a downy woodpecker on the feeder. I stood up to take a picture of it and noticed a male indigo bunting on the railing! It jumped down to the floor of the deck and I quickly went downstairs to get a better angle to photograph the bird. And then there were two of them (both males). They seemed to be enjoying the seed on the deck but didn’t go up to the feeder. It’s a first time for us seeing this bird in our backyard.

Links to my previous “filling a day of social distance” posts here.

And now for the early morning birds of May 7th…

I downloaded the videos from our bird feeder cam for last week and discovered that there was quite a sequence last Thursday morning.

At 6:02 there were 2 male rose-breasted grosbeaks at the feeder.

At 6:21 there was a female downy woodpecker. A few minutes later at 6:22 the woodpecker was still there, and a fox ran through the yard below.

At 6:24 a male red-winged blackbird was singing from the deck railing.

A female red-bellied woodpecker showed up at 6:47.

At 6:52 there were three birds: a male house finch, a male cardinal, and a female cardinal.

At 7:14 a Carolina wren was on the feeder and a squirrel was on the railing.

A male red-bellied woodpecker got a peanut at 7:21.

The birds were fabulous, but the big surprise was the fox. We’d seen a post on our neighborhood Facebook page of a fox with young about a block away in our neighborhood…but this was the first fox I’d seen in our backyard this year.

April 06, 2020

Filling a Day of Social Distance – 4/5/2020 – Our Yard

April 06, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

**Wearing Sherman TX earrings.** I hadn’t worn them recently. I bought them in a boutique on the square after lunch at Fulbelli’s. Savoring the memory!

Seeing a Carolina Wren with nest material. The bird (probably a male) appeared to be looking around to see if a female was noticing his find. I didn’t see exactly where he went but it was in the general direction of our gas grill. We had a Carolina wren nest built in the grill a few years ago. I hope it isn’t happening again!

Loosening sense of the day of the week. It’s harder to remember which day of the week it is because the days are so much the same. I try to include some variety every day, but the activities are not pinned to a day of the week (except for laundry which, for some unknown reason, we still do on Saturdays). If the pandemic was not raging, I’d be volunteering 3-5 days a week with Howard County Conservancy’s outdoor field trips for school groups, guiding Robinson Nature Center visitors at the salt water Touch Tank, and (by mid-Month) morning shifts at the Brookside Gardens Wings of Fancy (butterfly) exhibit. None of those organizations are open now. The calendar for April is a big blank.

Mowing the grass…doing some yard work. It’s the first mowing of the year…not really grass, mostly weeds. My husband did the mowing after I picked up twigs and small branches under trees to make the mowing easier. I also started a new compost pile with kitchen scraps and paper shreds.

Photographing the best of our yard. The trees are pretty this time of year. The red maple samaras are ripening. Soon the squirrels and birds will enjoy them, and they’ll helicopter off the tree. From afar the tree looks golden brown…looking more closely the colors are more appealing.

The tulip poplar is full of new spring-green leaves. Soon the buds will open. Right now, the buds are surrounded by small leaves. The trees themselves are far from the ‘wall of green’ they will become.

There are a lot of violets blooming in the thin grass under the trees.

The cherry tree is still full of blooms, but the petals are beginning to fly.

The plum has lost its flower petals, but the rest of the flower is still visible among the new leaves that are a red-purple color.

I heard a cardinal high the oak tree. The buds are larger than they were a week ago…but there are no blooms or leaves yet.

Trimming hair. My hair was short enough going into the ‘stay at home as much as possible’ mode but my husband needed to have the hair on the back of his neck trimmed. Fortunately, we have clippers and it was easy for me to do; it bothers him when he wears a shirt with a collar so wanted it gone. Otherwise, he’s letting his hair grow too.

Looking at the COVID-19 cases per 10K population map from the Center for Spatial Data Science at the University of Chicago. It goes down to the county level. There is also a social distancing activity map down to county. Interesting….and scary at the same time. I try not to spend too much time looking at them.

Links to my previous “filling a day of social distance” posts here.

March 31, 2020

Zooming – March 2020

March 31, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

17 pictures taken in March…full of spring blossoms and bird activity. All but four are from around my house and neighborhood…after the ‘stay at home as much as possible’ guidance was issued. The four are from Brookside Gardens…very early in the month before we cut back on doing anything other than groceries away from the house. Included in the slideshow:

Moon
Maple samaras
Reeds in water
Blue jay
Bird-of-paradise (flowers)
Azaleas
Miniature iris
Squirrel
Red-bellied woodpeckers
Cowbird
House sparrow
Plum blossoms
House finch
Goldfinch
Carolina wren
Deer

Enjoy the slideshow!

March 29, 2020

Filling a Day of Social Distance – 3/28/2020

March 29, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

Watching Winchester Mystery House Virtual Tour. I saw the blurb about the tour in one of my news feeds…and followed the link to view it (a little over 40 minutes). I remembered having an afternoon free during a business trip to San Jose – probably over 10 years ago - and touring the house. It was memorable and this virtual tour showed it very well…a good reinforcement to the memory.

Turning electronics off during thunderstorms. There was a line of thunderstorms that came through while I was watching the Winchester House Tour….I switched to watching on my laptop screen (on battery) rather than my big monitor. The lightning and rumblings passed quickly; the rest of the day was just rainy.

**Stir-frying with ground turkey**. Using a seasoning packet I found in the pantry – a few months past the ‘use by date.’ This was my first experience using ground turkey; I’d put it on the list since it would be easy for the shopper to get what I wanted. We liked it – but I think I’ll go back to chicken breasts for next time. Maybe I’ll used ground turkey for chili though.

Taking end of day photos. It was a raining most of the day – not a good day for pictures…so I opted to experiment with the ‘night scene’ setting on my camera for the ‘through the window’ picture in the early evening.

Reviewing the birdfeeder camera videos. Saturday evening might become my regular time to review the videos from the birdfeeder cam for the week. It worked well for this past week. Here are the highlights:

On Sunday – a Carolina Wren was in the first video of the day at 7:38 AM…a female Cardinal was in the last. A frustrated squirrel was first at the feeder on Monday about 8 AM.

On Tuesday, a female Red-Bellied Woodpecker was first at 7:47 AM. On Wednesday, a pair of House Finches were at the feeder at 8:27 AM and there was a grand finale with a pair of House Finches and a female Cardinal at 5:40 PM.

On Thursday, the Carolina Wren came while it was very foggy at 7:06 AM. There were a lot of birds at 5:49 PM: female Red-Bellied Woodpecker with a Titmouse and a Carolina Wren. Then a chickadee just after the woodpecker flew away with a peanut.

On Friday, a Titmouse was the first visitor at 6:55 AM. And the Cowbirds arrived – males first…then females…then male again. The last bird of the day was at 6:45 PM…a male Cowbird.

On Saturday, the Carolina Wren was the early bird at 7:31 AM. There was a grand finale at 6:48 PM with House Finches and Chipping Sparrow. Most of the time the house finches come as a male/female pair.

Previous “filling a day of social distance” posts: 3/15, 3/16, 3/17, 3/18, 3/19, 3/20, 3/21, 3/22, 3/23, 3/24, 3/25, 3/26, 3/27

March 27, 2020

Through my Office Window – March 2020 – Part II

March 27, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

Continuing the “Through the Window” photos for this month….

The red maple has bloomed and is now full of maturing seeds; from afar it’s gone from red to rust. The birds and squirrels will enjoy the bounty soon…and we’ll have small maple trees to mow this summer.

2020 03 IMG_8502 (5).jpg — The tulip poplar is leafing out. Both trees are visible from my office window and will be a big part of the green wall during the summer.

I started emptying the last of the seed from the bird feeder before I refill it….not wanting the seed to get very old before it is eaten. A squirrel is usually the first to find the small pile on the deck bench.

House finches are frequent birds at the feeder, in the trees, and on every part of the house visible from my window.

The Northern Cardinal is almost too heavy for the feeder. The female may be a little lighter because I see her there more than the male. The male likes to clean up the seeds under the feeder.

2020 03 IMG_8502 (7).jpg — The Mourning Doves are also frequent visitors under the feeder. They enjoy the bird bath as well.

A Brown-Headed Cowbird and House Sparrow were at the feeder at the same time. I’m glad we don’t have cowbirds around frequently since they would eat up the contents of the feeder very quickly.

I hear the Carolina Wren more frequently than I see it. But I enjoy the way they contort their bodies at the feeder…keep their tail up!

Sightings of American Robins increase in the spring. They are never at the feeder…only occasionally at the bath. They like the trees and the yard.

I finally saw and photographed an Eastern Phoebe this month. They probably are around but stay further into the forest. This one was sitting in our sycamore…almost out of the range of my camera from my office window.

February 28, 2020

Through my Office Window – February 2020

February 28, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

I wasn’t at home for the first part of the month, so the opportunities to see birds through the window were more time limited than usual.

The Downy Woodpecker seemed to be coming to the feeder more frequently. It was always a female. Usually I see them in the trees more than at the feeder, so I wondered if the insects were not as available (maybe because of the cold).

The House Finches seemed more numerous at the feeder than last month. The males were ‘courting’ – providing a seed to their favorite female. They would occasionally accept another bird at the feeder – like a Carolina Chickadee. They were the birds most impacted by the visit of the bluebirds that we saw on the birdfeeder camera; it was only a short time but I’m sure they were relieved when the bluebirds did not stick around.

Both the male and female Red-bellied Woodpeckers are active at the feeder periodically – not every day. They had to contort themselves to get the seed they wanted or if the seed was low. The Carolina Wren learned to get a snack from the opposite side of the feeder when the woodpecker was there.

These little birds were frequent visitors to the feeder – often the first ones there in the morning.

There was a Northern Mockingbird that sat on the deck bench on a wet morning. I don’t see them frequently around our yard and wondered if it was injured.

The White-Breasted Nuthatch was around – coming like a bullet to the feeder, getting a snack and leaving again…never sticking around for long.

The Northern Cardinals were around periodically but not as frequently as in January. I wonder if they are not building their nest in the usual place near our house…they’re coming from further afield.

I always am aware when the Blue Jays come (for water) since they are so noisy. I still enjoy seeing them.

The Dark-eye Juncos are still around. They are here in about the same numbers as previous years…our little flock.

And the Mourning Doves were around to clean up any spilled seed from the other birds that were digging through the seed in the feeder to find just the one they want…throwing the seeds they didn’t want onto the deck.