"I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief.
For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free." ~Wendell Berry


Sunday, April 29, 2018

View From the Porch - The Fish Thief

For the last few days, my colony has been under siege by a female Cooper's hawk and a smaller hawk - not sure if it's a Sharpie or a small male Cooper's hawk. Nevertheless it was a beautiful day complete with boathorns, setting up / relocating decoys, filling bird feeders and nest checks. No eggs yet, thankfully!
Feeling very accomplished, Bob and I relaxed on the back porch to watch the martins and listen for the dreaded "alarm system" indicating the hawk was back. Bob saw it first circling over the pond and said, "is that the @$!? hawk coming back again"? Some martins and tree swallows did seem alarmed by the presence of this guy.
Me: "No, that's too big for a Cooper's hawk".  And within 3 seconds, the large raptor folded its wings back and dove toward the pond.  Pulling up at the last second with feet outstretched, it still splashed into the water and flopped around for 3-4 seconds, before finally becoming airborne again.  We watched in amazement - me squealing in delight, as it displayed its catch to us, departing southward. But the fun wasn't over yet. Suddenly we noticed and identified a large eagle rapidly approaching from the east - straight-lined flying, hellbent and focused on catching the first raptor - later identified as an Osprey.  The eagle looked like an F-18 as he zeroed in on the Osprey.  That guy had just stolen food from the eagle's territory and it was not going to be allowed to get away with it!
Oh and me without a video or picture camera.
As the eagle closed the distance rapidly, the Osprey tried to circle to evade, but finally gave up its precious catch, dropping it in our neighbor's hayfield. The eagle broke off its attack and quickly dove to the ground to claim the large bass.
I managed to sprint indoors to grab my binoculars. When I managed to finally get the Osprey into focus, I found there were actually two of them slowly beginning to ascend again and moving away.
I searched the skies and identified a juvenile eagle coming in from the east as well...apparently still following its parents and learning the skills required for hunting.
This morning, I wasn't even entertaining the thought of the Osprey pair returning, when suddenly I spotted it beginning a slow circle of our pond again. Silly me, STILL with no movie camera. Hey, THIS time I am going to capture it on video.  Unfortunately, my excitement caused me to fat-finger, thumb and push all the wrong buttons at the wrong time and this is all I captured.  At least I have proof this time.

I'm going to have a hard time accomplishing everything I had planned for the day today, while I'm running in & out of the house trying to see if they are back.
Oh, and how many fish do Osprey eat everyday?
Check out the video below - not the best, but I'll keep practicing.

Saturday, April 21, 2018

Eggs Already?

No, we don't have purple martin eggs yet, but we do have other eggs being laid here already!  The weather is so weird, it's easy to forget that it's only April 20th. On the other hand, it's ONLY April 20th!  Bob had been spotting a pair of Canadian Geese on our pond for over a week now. I'm not particularly fond of Canadian Geese - there's nothing special about them - they're everywhere and they are so messy!  In my most self-assured voice, I told him surely, they'll be moving on.  Tonight, as we drove around the property and then the pond on our 4-wheelers, a female goose took off honking wildly.
As I scanned the bank, I saw why she was acting so alarmed and suddenly, in a blink, my indifference to geese turned into endearment.
She has 5 eggs softly nestled in a downy feather cup she has created on the bank of the pond and I'm pretty sure she didn't count on having such a nosy neighbor. I studied the site and oriented myself so I could figure out from where I could observe her in the future while standing at a safe distance on our porch. I noticed one egg in the water and I felt a bit bad.  I don't know if she accidentally kicked the egg out when I drove up, or if it had been discarded before I even got there.

I made a decision not to try to rescue the egg as I had no idea how geese will react when you fuss around their nests and I figured the cold water had already ruined it.
Ma and Pa stayed in the next field over, watching me from a distance.
After what seemed like hours, (it was really only about 20-25 minutes), they both returned to the pond and she made her way up the bank, re-positioned herself on the nest and settled in for the night, while dad quietly paddled around to make sure the area was once again safe for his little family. 
On my way back to the house, I stopped to check on our Killdeer nest - 3 eggs have now become 4. There are 2 things that always amaze me about Killdeer - one is HOW do they get away with not being caught at night by snakes and owls?  The second is, HOW does she manage to keep those eggs so warm at night with such cold weather here right now?  It has been getting as low as mid-20's lately.
I did some quick research and found that goose eggs can take as long as 28-35 days to incubate. Of course I don't know how long those eggs have been there, so I'll have to keep a daily watch on them, if I want to see the kids hatch. Regardless of my lack of interest in geese, I am now excited about having baby goslings swimming around my pond. Ma and Pa had better get used to me hanging around - it's the price every living thing must pay while living here at Gobbler's Knob.

Friday, April 13, 2018

Of Missouri Sunsets, Spring and Purple Martins

After a few days of cold, wet miserable weather - including SNOW, I decided to go outside the last few evenings to check on my purple martin population and observe them as they rain down from the sky at dusk.  On Monday night, my camera battery died pretty quickly.  Just swell. But Tuesday night, I was re-charged and prepared.  Only I really wasn't prepared for what Mother Nature has been up to the last few days.
After last year's drama of having to deal with a lot-more-than-usual hawk attacks (8-10 per day - we think a male & female Cooper's hawk) we removed a few more trees this past winter.  So far, this has been a huge improvement...(knocking on wood).
The guidelines for attracting martins state that you need 40' of open space around your colony, but there are many other factors involved in that, not only for attracting, but also keeping them safe.  Even though they were 150' away, the hawks were using the cedar trees as cover and coming up the East side low & fast behind them, then launching surprise attacks on my new fledges. So, in the end, the trees had to go.
Still, I'm engaging every tool in my arsenal to fight back against any hawk attacks, including my little 'winged orcas' and bird-feeding stations surrounding my colony on all sides, setup halfway between the woods and the gourd racks.
My "Winged Orcas"

In my particular case, the noise from my colony attracts hawks, more than any birds at a bird feeder.
The birds at the East feeding station were on duty, doing their part. They work-for-food...notice I didn't say, "for free", but since chicken scratch is only $7.50 a bag at our local MFA, let's just call them, "cheap labor" and "free decoys".
The birds at the West feeding station were also on duty - same labor prices.  When I'm out & about with my martins, I keep one eye on these feeding stations so I can gauge whether a predator is nearby.
While waiting for the martins to return, I made a video of my little winged orcas (tree swallows) and all the other bird activity around my site. I was surprised at how many birds I could hear on the video when I played it back on my computer. I had only been 'listening' for alarm calls while outside and didn't really realize how many birds have already arrived this spring!
Take a listen - how many birds can you identify by their calls in the below video? I'll give you a hint - there are NO English house sparrows or starlings!

At 7:08 PM a small group of eight martins started circling the gourd racks. By 7:24 PM - still only seeing 8 martins, I thought I may have been off by a factor of 12 when I had informed a fellow purple martin landlord that I thought I had approximately 100 martins here now.
But at 7:31 PM, it started raining martins from the sky and I had to force myself to turn off the video camera periodically as I tried to keep watch for any approaching hawks and enjoy the show at the same time.  And wow, WHAT a show - a brilliant sunset AND over 100 purple martins!  I had such a delightful evening.
The sound in the video below is just as I heard it - no enhancements have been made. I did have to blend multiple videos together, as I had to frequently turn it off and on, so I could walk around and continue to monitor for hawks. To enjoy the video below, click on the YouTube icon and open in full-screen mode.

I love these evenings - partly cloudy paired with the setting sun causing these rapidly changing colors, along with loud, raucous purple martin chatter and no hawks. Good night, my lovelies! Tomorrow is another day!