Go find a KITE!

For the second year in a row, a small community in rural Eastern Ohio has hosted "Kite Day", a special opportunity to view confirmed nesting Mississippi Kites.  Now, if you aren't a birder...

1.  I feel so bad for you.  The wonders you are missing out on...
2.  Come hang out with me.  I'll turn you onto birds....
3.  You might be thinking, "Pfft.  Whatever.  What's so special about some birds making babies in rural Eastern Ohio?"


Here's why it's so special.  As the name implies, this is a bird that is found in the southern U.S. Its breeding range  is roughly from Oklahoma east to South Carolina, into the southern states.  They winter in interior South America.  The birds we saw today are in OHIO.
Okay, so it's a big deal.

When Kite Day was advertised, Kathi got our names on the list (the nest is inside a gated community and they were gracious enough to allow a small number of birders in today).  She was good enough to drive us out to the site and it just added a fun element to what was a stellar day.  When we drive anywhere together, we are blah blah blah for hours.  Helps the time go faster.

Should we just get to the photos?  Yes, let's.

We drove in, parked, and followed the other birders.  And there was the chick, teed up in a tree, pretty as you please.


LIFE BIRD # 244.  And LIFE RAPTOR# 18 (not including vultures)
WHOOT.

The recently fledged chick just sat in the tree, and as one of the adults came into its line of sight, it would start to call....which made my heart melt.
Here's a recording of their call:









Here's Kathi, with her "I'm a serious birder, so it's important that I turn my ballcap backwards.  'Cause that's how I roll" pose:



We also got to see Heather of the Hills!!





And Jim McCormac (he's behind the scope):



We watched over and over as the adults would bolt into view and hand over a fresh cicada to the calling chick....and then got to watch the chick nom nom nom on the thing:







The adults were busy, even with just one chick to feed.  Constantly hunting for cicadas and other little critters to bring in.....



And then I was finally looking at the right moment with my camera raised when an adult came in with food.
Check out the rufous shine in the adult's wing.  They aren't just black and gray birds....A lot of color hidden in there:


I'm a happy girl.  It's been a LONG time since I got a new raptor on my list.  And this was extra special, being able to sit and watch for so long, actually getting to "know" the birds.
Thank you, small gated community in rural Eastern Ohio, for hosting this day for us!!

A day overflowing

Today, awake at 5 am to chase a Western Kingbird at the Oxbow with Les.
No kingbird, but still.
A day overflowing:


A quiet, chill Sunday morning
Perfect for watching the world with a like-minded soul



Adding to my ever-growing list of things that fly

(Tennessee Warbler)


We watched a thousand swallows dance over
A million sparkles of light



The smallest things caught my eye and became beautiful


A small animal in need found us and came home with me

(He's not staying.)

Afternoon: Germantown Metropark with my family.

A different place but the same feeling of overflowing

Enjoying an elegant lady resting


Dancing with dogs,


Catching baby leeches by accident


And pursuing an Eastern Tailed-Blue by choice,

Showing that elusive blue, just a glance, like fancy petticoats under a printed muslin.

Birding the PITS with KatDoc

I got an invitation to go birding at the "Grand Valley Nature Preserve" from Debbie, a teacher who lives nearby and has a permit. And of course, I had to ask my FAVE Cincy birding buddy along (Kathi, aka KatDoc)
If you want to read about my previous visit with Kathi, click here.

Debbie might just become a new birder friend. She is a self-proclaimed "newbie", but fun to hang out with. She put up with tons of chattering and babbling from Kathi and me.
(When it comes to the Flock, we are all like BFF with anyone we meet)

Let's just focus on what we saw (it wasn't much):


The day started hot and humid.
It continued with more hot and humid.
This place is stellar in the winter, just lousy with ring-necked ducks , both scaup species, mergansers, coots and grebes, a bald eagle has visited in previous years...just great stuff.
Summer....is rather boring.

Note: I didn't get a picture of it, but I saw a female Blue Grosbeak. I was the only one in the group who saw it, but I'm sure of the ID. Brown bird, huge conical bill, dark upperparts, paler underparts, darker wings and tail...sitting in a shrubby part of the preserve.
I have poured over pictures, habitat and range maps...LIFER! Number 220~

Grand Valley is rather proud of their Purple Martin colony...they ended last year with 35 nestlings, and this year, they counted 135 nestlings!
Jeez. I can't get one PAIR to nest in my yard.


We saw many, many, many PUMA...the power lines were thick with them. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them. Wish I had thought to get a photo of the powerlines. You could see the blackness of all the PUMA from across the preserve.



Kathi's eagle eyes spotted a green heron across the way:

I think this is the first time I have seen one in sunlight. They are usually so skulky.




We kept hearing what sounded like a Field Sparrow with an 'accent'. The typical song of a FISP has a trill that goes up at the end, but this one was trilling down. A listen to the good ol' Birdjam (Hi, Jay!!!) confirmed a FISP.

Kathi goes Off-Road Birding.
(Girlfriend needs a tan)



This single tree, stretching out of the water inspired us to try to make up a haiku for it.
(You know, a poem with the formula of 5 syllables, then 7, then 5?)
It was too hot and muggy, so we never even got past the first line.

But sitting in the cool basement, I might be able to come up with something...

This tree small and wet
Mocks our panting and gasping
We are so sweaty.

:)

My own personal Yoda

Birding can expose you to so many things, can't it? New places, new faces...
This morning found me getting out of bed at Zero-Dark-Thirty to go meet Les (from this post) all the way over on the other side of town for some birding.

With his schedule, it's tough for him to get bird time other than banding, and I have such a poor sense of "bird" hearing, we both jumped at the chance to get out to the woods.

Les has great ears. There's a vast knowledge base in that brain of his, and I used it as much as I could today. And just like our first meeting, there was more to see than just birds...


I took this photo just for Delia's friend Matty. He laughs like a 12-year old boy when anyone says anything remotely vulgar. (I can hear his voice now, saying "Hehehe...you said "knob")
Delia, please make sure Matty sees this.


Pawpaws are starting to develop fruit...and that reminds me that I need to move the pawpaw trees I planted last year. Stupidly planted them in full sun. Duh.



A rare moment of seeing jewelweed in the sun.



Initially thought this was some kind of mint, but we decided it was beardtongue. (Which might also send Matty into fits)



We had no idea what this was....maybe Jim McCormac or some other plant geek could tell us? We assumed it was an exotic invasive, since there was so much of it.
Looks like a pea plant with "fern" foliage.


This one brought up a funny story.
This is a buckeye nut, before it ripens into the typical shape we are used to. Reminded me of the "infamous buckeye" picture from Cape May last year.
I told Les the story. He approved.

He also agreed that I shouldn't put this in my cleavage. Too spiny.



And the inside of a buckeye before maturity:

Three little wet "lima bean" things...it smelled good. Smelled green.

And yes, Laura...I have blue nail polish on today. Laura seems to take offense at my choices of nail color.
She thinks it must be some "Midwestern Thing"...and she thinks it's weird.
Which is exactly why I do it.


A very tired Mourning Cloak butterfly:

I've never been able to get a picture of one of these, but I see them in the spring and summer flitting about. This one was very tired and sluggish in the shade on the road, so I picked him up and placed him in the sun. That woke him up a bit.

I got ONE bird picture today. And it's not even a good one:

There's a blue-gray gnatcatcher in there. I promise.


Les got me a lifer today. We both heard and saw a Kentucky Warbler.
Did I get a photo? No, of course not.
That makes 219 on my Life List.
We also got fleeting looks at a few broad-winged hawks.

Les made it his mission to teach me as many bird calls as he could today.

He taught me that the Kentucky Warbler sounds like a "musical horse" galloping,
the Yellow-breasted Chat making a zillion different sounds,
the wood thrushes "night song",
White-eyed vireos say "Pick up the beer, Check!"...though I like this mnemonic better: "Pick up a realllllllll CHICK!"

...he is my own personal Yoda. Except he is way taller than me. And he's not green.


Thankfully he didn't quiz me at the end of our walk...but he did text me on the way home as I was listening to songs on my iPod:
"Are you studying those bird calls?"
I said, "Yes, YODA."
He responded, "Bird calls learn, you must."

What a kook. Must be why I enjoy his company so much. :)
And his company is a jewel. No one is 'born' a birder, and it's interesting to hear how others came to be these twitchy, nutty types who go to great lengths to see and hear birds. His story was way more interesting than my "cherry tree and birdbath" story.
(Geoff got me a bird bath and weeping cherry tree for my first Mother's Day and it's exploded from there.)

Talking with Les, I discovered how similar we are in humor, opinions....nice to find your "People", isn't it?


Here's a quick video of a White-eyed vireo singing, and me begging it to sing some more:

Birding with KatDoc is really the Pits (or, If you are birding with OLDER people, remember to bring an ear trumpet)

*I have had a day for the books, y'all. First, I tried to capture the "cute" little orange kitten, and was rewarded by 14 puncture wounds in my right arm. After wrapping it in gauze, Lorelei went out to Stonelick Lake to wade in the water, feel the sand between our toes, and maybe see some birds. We were there 2 minutes, and my CAMERA broke. (The lens won't retract) So, instead of going through the horror of maybe seeing some great birds and NOT being able to take any pictures, we left and went to Best Buy, where I said goodbye to my camera for 2 to 3 WEEKS. (Tip: If you spend more than $200 on anything, GET the WARRANTY)
I am forced to use my very old, very slow camera that has a whole 2.8 X zoom, and 3 whopping megapixels.*


Word to the wise:
If you ever get to go birding with KatDoc, be prepared to see NO BIRDS WHATSOEVER. I have birded with her before, and really have yet to see anything interesting.
Of course, it might not be that there aren't any birds to be found, but instead that we spend so much time laughing hysterically, we are missing them all.
I bet Kathi will beat me to the post, since this camera was made by cavemen. And since I no longer have the software for this camera, I had to up load the pics through Picasa, and then I couldn't find where they had gone to.


We went to That Place. The one that is illegal unless you have a permit. Or, in Kathi's case, you know someone "on the inside".

The trip list, as far as I can remember:
Pied-billed grebes
4 Cardinals
4+ Carolina chickadees
2 Wood ducks
7 billion mallards
2 Least sandpipers
7 billion killdeer (or maybe it was just one, and it was following us)
Some American coots
1 million mourning doves (or MO-DO's, as Kathi calls them)
Black ducks, we think
A flock of Canada geese
Some kind of hawk, a tiny speck on the horizon
Gray catbirds
A whitetail deer (I saw this one, but Kathi missed it because she was too busy looking through her binoculars at a stick)
Rabbits
Frogs
A snake
Turtle heads (presumably attached to turtle bodies, but we weren't sure)


I was actually one up on Kathi here, because I had driven in to the place before, albeit illegally.
Isn't it pretty?

We found a really dead goose.
Since we haven't had any rain, the body was in very good shape (the naturalist said it had been there for a long time). So we pulled a "Julie" and poked and prodded it, puzzling out what might have happened to it. And took 127 pictures of it.
Chimpin'!! Eee! Eee! Eee!

This was our best moment of the evening...a fall warbler. After a lot of field guide digging, we are calling it a Prairie warbler. And Kathi saw a Nashville, but I missed it. I must have been straining to ID a clump of mud on the far shore.

The water is more than four feet below what it was this time last year. Makes for fun rock formations. (The white dot is the reflection of the moon)

God help me, but as I was trying to take a picture of the moon and its reflection, pulling another "Julie" by getting into a really strange pose, Kathi took a picture of me. Can't wait to see that one!
*Just checked Kathi's blog, and she must have gone to bed or something, so check out her version of our excursion tomorrow!
Edit: The Zick has chimed in, and the warbler is a Cape May, not a Prairie. Damn. Woulda been a lifer.