We interrupt the West Virginia Love Fest to bring you some Ohio nature joy

Yesterday, Lorelei and I got to spend the day together.

I asked her what she wanted to do: "Starbucks!" (that's my girl)
What else? "I want to go birding with you, Mommy." (heart melts into a puddle of goo)

She specifically wanted to see a Great Blue Heron, so we decided to go to Kelley's Nature Preserve.

As we left the house, Lorelei spotted a sparrow eating dandelion seeds in the yard.
"Mommy! I see a new bird!"

White-crowned sparrow? In my yard in May? That's fairly late for around here.
Lorelei thought it was a life bird for her (though I think she has seen one before), so I dutifully filmed her version of the Life Bird Wiggle...




Let's get in the car....oh, wait. We need to look at some very tiny mushrooms first:


Never interrupt a child when they are investigating nature.

No Great Blue Herons at the Preserve (The Little Miami is too high and fast for them right now), but Lorelei scared up some Prothonotary Warblers...nesting Prothonotary Warblers:


They kept popping up from a tree cavity hanging over the river....
"Mommy! Those birds are yelling and they are hurting my head!"
"We are in their territory, Short Stack. If we move on, they will stop yelling."

With my shiny-new Nature Attitude, we reveled in simple things:


We imagined how it would be to climb out onto this impossibly vertical sycamore tree and gaze out on the river.



We tried to count the number of living things on a single fence post.




We were brave and watched a bumblebee sip dew from a stem of grass.




We laughed at a firefly, hanging on for dear life, on last year's growth in the meadow.


A pair of Eastern Towhees burst from the trail side. I whispered to Lorelei that they make their nests on the ground, so we shouldn't disturb them. Lorelei whispered back, "Mommy...don't step on the nest. Let's move on so they can get back to their babies."


And we enjoyed the blue sky and popcorn clouds over the trees.

Wednesday, April 29th, 2009. The best day I have spent outdoors. Ever.

Verklempt:
- choked with emotion
(German verklemmt = emotionally inhibited in a convulsive way)

Yep. That was me.

Wednesday, April 29th dawned with rain. And a little more rain. And then it rained

(I'm not one to greet the sun with any sort of joy or rapture. The last time I was happy about sunrise was when I was 20 years old and had stayed up all night to "beat the dark". Anyone ever do that? Try it once. )

Destination: Muddlety


How to describe my One Perfect Day?
It was the company I was keeping. It was the rain. It was the birds. It was the forest.
Even being stuck in the back of a van with Little Miss Freakin' Ray of Sunshine, I was happy.

This happiness, by the end of the day, had reached spiritual proportions.

Being a nature girl all of my life, I have experienced moments of rapture in the woods. There is wonder around every corner, a new life to love hidden in every tree. April 29th was unlike anything I had previously known.

Was it especially birdy? Obviously, West Virginia is one of the better-kept secrets in the bird world. My first glimpse at a Cerulean Warbler, better looks at other warblers than I have ever had....A bird in every tree. Under every bush.
Example...ovenbirds. Every-Freakin-Place we stopped.

Was the company good? People I loved, people I hardly knew. And those I hardly knew, I now count as my friends.

Was the scenery beautiful? I thought so. I fell in love, actually.
It was being "selectively logged", so every five minutes, a huge tree would splinter apart, crash and die. (while answering the "call of nature", I happily mooned the loggers for breaking the beautiful silence)

(It wasn't until I got back home and started reading other blogs, that I found out that the site of my One Perfect Day will be soon be gone. Forever. I can't talk about the rage I feel.
Not yet)


Did I find life in the leaf litter? Adult red-spotted newts,



caterpillars who thought they were fierce.

"...roarrrr...?..."


I got to know British Solider lichen.


*Update...I forgot to talk about the bear!*

Did I see a bear (that large, hairy thing that I have a phobia about)? Yes. I was standing at the back of the van by myself and saw one running across the valley, thankfully in the opposite direction. I'm told that there is a new bird out there...the Susan Bird. The vocalization and display behavior of this species is this: Both arms out and pointing, the call goes, "Bear. BEar. BEAr. BEAR!! BEAR!!!!"
(Sung softly at first, with rising panic and terror delivered at the end)
I didn't faint or die from fright. That is something to be proud of.


I watched swallowtail butterflies, freshly minted, searching for a mate and a place to leave precious eggs.

My eyes were wet most of the day. I was verklempt.

I've been trying to explain that day to everyone who will listen, but my attempts have failed. That day changed me, and I can't change back.

I can't fully express the soaring joy in my heart that day. Humbled by the mountains and the moss and the memories, I can only turn my thoughts to when I can go back.


Connection with Nature...
(Red Eft, terrestrial juvenile stage of the Red-Spotted Newt...tiny hand on my finger, huge grip on my heart)

Give me something I can groove to.....

The Lady in Red

I've gone back and forth about posting this or not. It's about a certain someone I met last week and I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings.
But.
She doesn't read blogs, and I won't be adding any personal information anyway.
There was this woman. She isn't the happiest person in the world. In fact, she just might be the most negative person in the world.
We called her "The Lady in Red".



A good portion of us took two trips with her. We had been warned by others who knew her....but we didn't know just how big of a treat we were in for.

Day One: Jane was bending down trying to get a close up of a plant at the boardwalk at Cranberry Glade, and Lady in Red wanting to get by. She pointed ahead and belched at Mary, "I want to go THERE!" and then lifted her leg and acted like she was going to kick Jane into the bog.
O-kaaay.
Later, she showed off her huge can of Bear Repellent, that also moonlighted as Human Repellent. She then worked into the conversation that she had a "Carry Permit"...as in Carry a Gun.
O-kaaay.....Holy Sh*t.

The next trip we had with her was to Muddlety. This turned out to be my best day, which I will expound on later.
I wanted to take the back seat, to give others a chance to be closer to the doors. (There's a lot of in and out with those vans, so I was really taking one for the team.)
Lady in Red heard me and bellowed, "I HAVE MY STUFF BACK THERE ALREADY!"
I peeked at the back seat. Room for two more people, at least.
O-kaaay. Now she had pissed me off.

So I climbed on back and settled in right next to her.

Hand to God...every single breath out of her was full of negative, nasty, snippy crap.
Now, any other time, I probably would have either a. Shut up tight and hated her silently...
or b. Tell her to go somewhere else and remove the stick from her a**.
This was when something magical happened. I decided that it would be my mission to make this evil, ugly, sorry woman say SOMETHING positive. I would smile. I would joke.
I would turn on the ol' Susan Charm.

I informed everyone else of my plan, whispering that I was gonna make this b*tch smile.

Here's how it went:
Every time she would say something negative, I would catch it, spin it around and send it back to her, charged with positivity.

Lady in Red: This road is too bumpy. I hate this road.
Me: Isn't this fun? We don't have roads like this in Ohio!

Lady in Red: Why are they using those bird calls?! We don't need to hear any more bird songs around here!!
Me: Isn't it neat how Keith used that iPod and brought that Hooded Warbler so close to us????

Lady in Red: (as the sun came out briefly) Well, this sun won't last! It will just heat up the clouds and it will rain again!
Me: All this rain sure makes the mountains beautiful and lush, doesn't it?

And then it happened...
She paused, then said, "You're right. All this rain makes everything so green."
And then. She. SMILED. At. Me.

I smiled back, and glanced at some of the others in the van...winking and mentally high-fiving them.
Gotcha.

P.S.....Mary does a KILLER impression of the Lady in Red. I have video of it.
: )

I LOVE TO DANCE ! ! ! !

I really wanted to have two cameras at the New River Bird and Nature Festival: One for video and one for stills. My camera does both, but sometimes so much was going on, I didn't know where to turn or what to film.

I had my camera set for "video" on the van Tuesday, and caught this little exchange...
(The guy driving is Geoff Heeter. We never knew what was going to come out of his mouth)

Kathi is telling us about a trip leader from another festival who never let anyone stop for
a potty break. If you can't catch all of the dialogue, you may have to watch it more than once.



On Wednesday with the Dream Team, we all did the prerequisite "Life Bird Wiggle", immortalized by BT3. I think we had finally seen the Cerulean Warbler who had been taunting and following us all morning.

Note Keith, (aka "Sad, sad Dope from THIS post) way in the back, who thinks that I am taking still shots, so he just stands there with his arms above his head. See? A dope.

I found my people at New River...and I want them back.

Bird faster....I hear banjo music!

We are back!
When I got back, the kids nearly knocked me over, Geoff looked really tired, the dogs turned themselves inside out and the cats barely looked up.



The next few...oh, years or so...The Flock's blogs will be chock-a-bock full of fun times from our trip to New River Bird and Nature Festival.

I told everyone as they walked out the door (I was last to leave...all alone in the house, pouting like a 5-year old) to have a safe trip home and to BLOG as SOON as they WALKED in their DOORS.
I hope all of our readers can keep up. It's gonna be dirty.

I don't even know where to begin.
The New River Bird and Nature Festival is 6 days of heavy birding. Breakfast is at 6 am, in the vans by 7. You go to your designated area (a different place every day) and bird your butt off.
Trips are over by 2-4 pm, (with lunch in the middle). You then have a few hours to shower, sleep, bird some more....then it's dinner at 6 pm with a presentation afterward.
Just to give you an idea as to the physical damage I am suffering....the last trip on Saturday gave me bruises on the bottom of my feet.
How that happened, I don't know. But it hurts.
But it's also a physical reminder of the absolute freakin' BLAST I had.

I've been to a few birding festivals in my day and I have to say that I haven't seen a better one than this. You are fed way too well, the bird action is hot hot hot, and the guides, drivers and staff are the best.
Maybe we will start in the middle? Maybe with a few of the wonderful people who made this festival so special?

Connie Toops:
Connie is Super Woman. I'm convinced of it.
Retired from a 28-year run with the National Park Service, Connie is a veritable cornucopia of nature lore and has the ears of a bat. (Not literally of course, but I think you know what I mean)
It wasn't all about birds with Connie. Though she bagged plenty of life birds for our group, she was also more than happy to traipse down a slippery, muddy hillside to show us a beautiful trillium or Christmas Fern or weird little fruiting body of a really interesting fungus.


(I wish I had taken more pictures of Connie.)


Add Keith Richardson to the mix, and you have the Dream Team.
(I can't link to Keith's blog, because he doesn't have one. What a sad, sad dope.)


Keith and Connie
My favorite guides at the festival. (I got to go out with them twice!)

Here's how awesome they were....when our spirits were lagging and our raincoats full, they would get out of the van themselves and listen for target birds.

Aren't they CUTE???
(Note: if you cup your ears with your hands and open your mouth, you can hear way better. It's true!)

Keith was instrumental in getting all of us on a lot of birds.
Here, Lynne is all squishy because Keith just got her a lifer. Lynne will have to tell us which one...I could hardly keep track of my own.

Keith was always ready with a grin, played along with the Flock's massive amount of hilarity and came up with a few zingers on his own.
(More on how we infected the Festival with a heavy bolus of new-way-to-perceive-birders on another post)

And was Johnny-On-The-Spot when I wanted to go do something dangerous and fun:
While at Babcock State Park, I was looking out on the roaring waterfall below the grist mill. I wanted desperately to climb out onto the wet boulders to stand over the rush of the river. Keith became aware of my pining and coaxed me into going out there.
He offered to take pictures and told me the official "Red-neck Last Words"...
"Y'all hold my beer while I go try this!"

After a day of rain, the boulders were wet. I was wearing stOOOOpid sneakers, but I threw caution to the wind and ventured out. Some of the wet boulders were ventured on my BUTT.

Sacrificing my only pair of clean jeans to the River Gods.



Finally, out on the edge. And it was worth risking a fall into a rushing waterfall and wet pants. The water was a wall of sound, and the fall of it was a physical manifestation of power.
My heart was a galloping horse.

Please ignore my obvious dishevelment (Hey! It rained all DAY!) and focus on my happiness:


I had lots of moments like this one during the week, which are for another post if I can summon the words.

And speaking of happiness....
Bobolinks have a friend in a local business owner. He waits to mow his hay field so that bobolinks (ground-nesting birds) can raise their family without the worry of being chopped up by a tractor. We were treated to a field of precious bobolinks singing their R2-D2 vocalizations (they DO sound like R2-D2! Really!)

As we left the field, we paused and posed for a group photo.
Look at the happiness.

(photo by Keith Richardson)
One of my favorite photos of the week. See those smiles? Our shoes were soaked and the wind was cold. And we are happy. I'm still soaking in all that joy.