Easter Day

April 24, 2011

Pouncer, My Forever Friend

My Beloved Pouncer

Last night while you lay dying,
We slept beside you on the floor
And when your breathing ceased,
We placed your little body in a tiny coffin
Lined with white ruffles and quilted satin.
We placed the coffin in a tiny grave,
In a special spot within my flower garden
With views of mountains, summer butterflies,
And our home that feels so incomplete.

I found Ms. Kitty, your special little friend,
Hiding beneath the table beside your favorite chair.
I picked her up and held her tight
Until I felt her muted purr.
She looked around then up and me and seemed to say,
"Why did my Pouncer go away?"

This afternoon while the sun warmed your grave,
In that special place I planted daffodils with apricot trumpets,
Hyacinth and chocolate colored fritillaries.
Little did I know when I made that autumn purchase,
The honor I would bestow upon these bulbs
By allowing them to reappear as flowers,
Next spring upon your grave.

When life was much too hard,
And my heart felt shattered into fragments,
Your little kitty ways were the special glue,
The best thing to mend it.
You slept beside me with your head upon my pillow,
With dancing toes you sat upon my lap.
You brought your special treasures, your little gifts to me,
Presents of our missing socks or tiny, fluffy, kitty balls.
While lurking in your feline den,
With gentle kitty smacks of love,
My ankles were the subjects of attacks,
Our special little game.
You were my lioness on the prowl.

When breast cancer struck
And I reeked of chemicals and dying cells,
You fretted constantly, and while I slept,
You peered into my face with tickly nudges
Accompanied by scratchy little kisses.
At night sometimes I'd pull the covers over my head
While I groaned, "Please go away, I need a little sleep."

When at last my breath is silent
And I awake in other realms,
You'll come to me in flowered fields
Where butterflies laze about.
I'll pick you up and hold you close
To mend my aching heart,
And just as you once did for me,
I'll lay my face beside your cheek
And shower you with kisses.

October 1991 - November 1, 2010

Snowflakes and Winter Friends

Winter, while long and hard in these mountains, still holds an enchantment and amazing beauty. Everything is draped in white and the fresh snow adds a mystical beauty to the earth.

Most fascinating of all, are the many visitors that frequent our feeders. These include a number of different species of birds along with gray, red and fox squirrels. Last year we had beautiful fox squirrels, but, sadly, we have not seen them since this year's hunting season. We've only seen one squirrel, a small gray one.  Sometimes, we are less than thrilled to see our feeders tossed about or the poles bent to the ground as the local bear stops by during the night.

We have a number of sassy Blue Jays that feed upon the suet cakes.  These highly intelligent birds often gain a negative reputation at feeders because of their dominance over other species.  They have been known to eat the eggs and nestlings of other birds; however, according to Cornell University, studies have shown the contents of jay's stomachs to contain as little as 1% of these.  Their preferred diet is nuts and insects. When they are feeding peacefully or tending to nestlings, their crests lower.  The oldest known wild, banded Blue Jay lived for over seventeen years.

Every year I make learning a new naturalist subject my priority.  In 2009, I learned to recognize many of the regional butterflies.  Last summer I decided to learn bird calls and to better identify the birds that I saw.  I came to the realization that this will probably take a long time.  For example, at first I thought the birds at the feeder in the picture above, were House Finches and therefore exotics.  A more careful examination of another picture of the female identified her as a Purple Finch.  As I zoomed in on the male, I thought that perhaps he has more pinkish color and fewer stripes than a House Finch and may be, after all, a Purple Finch. 

This Slate-colored Junco or Snowbird is enjoying a seed.

Another Junco sits in the bush at left while a White-breasted Nuthatch is on the feeder.  The Nuthatches get their common name from their habit of jamming large nuts and acorns into tree bark.  Then they use their sharp bill to "hatch" out the seed from the inside. I recently watched a Nuthatch carefully wedge a sunflower into the crotch of the rhododendron outside the window.  He began to "hatch" the kernel from the hull just as I read that he would.

The Chickadees are such delightful little birds but so hard to photograph.  They tend to dart in to get a seed and then quickly take flight to another area to eat it.

The male Cardinal is undoubtedly one of the most well known of the birds that come to feeders.  His stunning red color makes him stand out above all other birds.

Most female songbirds do not sing, but the female Cardinal does.  Her song is generally longer and more complex than her mate's.  Ornithologists believe that she sings while on the nest to communicate with the male.

 

These are American Goldfinches with their drab winter coat. The bird in the lower right corner of the photo is a male which can be distinguished from the female by the gold bar at the top of his wing above the black feathers.  One of the earliest signs of the approach of spring and summer is the slow appearance of bright yellow feathers on them as end of winter approaches.  My father always called them his "little dandelions". They also molt again, at the end of summer, to a much duller color for winter as displayed above.

We get a lot of woodpeckers on our suet feeders.  Yesterday, my husband saw our phantom Pileated Woodpecker.  We frequently hear but rarely see him.  He's a handsome and noisy fellow about the size of a crow and with a big red crest.  This little bird is probably a female Downy Woodpecker.  The bird's body is so twisted, that with my amateur status, I can't tell for certain, but it seems too small for a Hairy Woodpecker.

This is a female Red-bellied Woodpecker.  She has only a red nape whereas the male has red on his head and nape.  It's a strange name for a bird whose red belly spot is difficult to see.

A Cardinal, Slate-colored Junco, and a female Purple Finch.

We frequently get Song Sparrows at our feeders. This past summer, we had three nests built in the garden areas near our home.  I was excited to see this sparrow, a White-throated one at my feeder as well.  Both species of birds do a comical little back strut as they dig in the snow for seeds. I learned something interesting from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology website called "All about Birds". The Dark-eyed Junco and the White-throated Sparrow will occasionally mate and produce hybrids.  Their offspring look like grayish, dully marked White-throated Sparrows with white outer tail feathers.

There are a number of sites on the Internet that provide bird identification and information as well as audio of their songs.  My favorite is the one by the Cornel Lab of Ornithology  http://www.allaboutbirds.org/.  It's a great way to learn about these wonderful little creature who so enrich our lives.

The Moon Tossed Droplets of Gold

Last night the moon tossed droplets of gold
Across the woods and meadow beside my home.
The golden beauty danced into my bedroom
Like subtle fireflies chasing the dark.

Then the Creator reached down
And with gentle stroke of brush
Spread the glow across the way,
While each summer daisy and fluttering moth
Stood proud in golden hue.

Life glowed and owls exclaimed with hoots,
The glory they beheld.

Birds to Wake Me in the Morning

If I had to choose, I would rather have birds than airplanes.


Charles Lindbergh

As I write this, it’s early in the morning on what is going to be an abnormally hot day. I love to wake up shortly after dawn and hear the birds singing songs so full of beauty with each proclaiming, “This is my home”. While I dread the heat and the stench of campfires from the evening tourists’ fires that will keep me from having my windows open tonight and the rest of the weekend, birds have no knowledge of this. They simply live in the moment. I sometimes envy them with their ability to fly and their lives uncluttered by the complexities that we experience in our lives.

We have so many more birds than we did when I first returned ten years ago. Adding shrubs for nesting sites has encouraged them to stay nearby. When I lived in suburbs, I usually awakened to the sound of house sparrows scratching in the roof gutters for bits of grit. Simple sightings of as common a bird as a chickadee, could be sometimes as much as two years apart. Now, I enjoy so many beautiful birds. There’s a special joy of living in a rural area that cannot be replaced by material possessions.

I hear a cardinal loudly proclaiming “What cheer, what cheer, wheet, wheet, wheet.”

Yesterday, I wanted to sit on the swing and enjoy my morning cup of coffee. This was not to be. The blackberry patch is close, and a wise catbird has placed her nest in the area. Both parents sat on tree limbs on either side of the pergola aggressively and frantically trying to distract me from the area. There are obviously young ones in the nest.

Now, how can I convince them to eat just the insects and not the berries!

The song sparrows have built a nest on the bank nearby, and they too were flitting about worried that I would bother their precious little ones.                                                                                                  Once, while we were gone for several days, a song sparrow built a nest near the outside door that we use the most. Sadly, our constant coming and going made her desert her nest. I’ll return to my favorite spot when their little ones have grown. For now, I’ll drink my coffee elsewhere.

Several days ago, I saw their nest carefully

tucked away on the ground.

It takes about two weeks for the eggs to hatch, and the baby birds will leave in another two.

Song sparrows frequently learn their songs from other birds that have neighboring territories and will choose a territory close to or even one replacing the birds they have learned from. They are able to distinguish their neighbors from strangers by these songs. It has even been shown that females are able to distinguish and prefer the songs of their mates. With an average repertoire of 6-12 songs, they are truly amazing birds.

The robins have much lesss fear of us. They make a nest above the garage door nearly every year. While the eggs are in the nest, the bird will hunker down so that we will not see her. 

Apparently hatching eggs is not as easy a job as it seems. The birds must regulate the heat to incubate the eggs to about 96.8 to 104.9. The females of many songbirds will incubate the eggs alone. While the male goldfinch will bring food to his mate, most females in most species have to leave the nest to find food further complicating the regulation of the heat. For the hummingbird, that means leaving the nest as many as 140 times a day.

Supposedly robins eat worms for breakfast but prefer berries later in the day. We humans, also, have our own separate breakfast routines

      

Even though they have 2-3 broods a year, sadly, only 25% will live to reach November. They live an average of 6 years but can live as long as 14.

The robin is one of the early morning birds that I hear. Like many other species, the male sings to advertise his territory and to attract a mate. The male supposedly sings louder when he has little ones in the nest. Is it because of pride or to proclaim his territory? Scientists would say the latter, but I prefer to think it’s pride.

 Birds make life special like flowers and raindrops and sunny days. I can’t imagine a world without them.

"The frog does not drink up the pond in which he lives.”

If we can discover the meaning in the trilling of a frog, perhaps we may understand why it is for us not merely noise but a song of poetry and emotion.” Adrian Forsyth

                                   Rana clamitans   (green frog)

This little green frog is such a happy little creature. He watches proudly over the pond and the other green frogs that gather there.  I suspect he samples an occasional tadpole as well as dining on insects.  He is so bold that when I weed the flower bed at the edge of his little pond, he will sit in it, often only two feet from me.  His eyes are constantly watching every move I make, but he does not hide. When my husband and I sit on our swing under the nearby pergola, he can hear us and often joins in the conversation.  His banjo-like sound "c'tung" gets louder if we talk louder. I often wonder what he is trying to tell us.

A green frog peeks out from the leaves of a water lily.  A perfect example of nature's camouflage.

Another good example of amphibian camouflage is this American Toad whose pictures were taken by my daughter while we were hiking on a trail in the Canaan Valley Refuge.

I can tell he is an American Toad and not a Fowler's Toad because he only has 1-2 warts per spot.  Fowler's Toads have 3-4 warts on each spot.  An interesting thing about toads is that when they lay their eggs in the water, the egg masses are long, spiraling strings of several thousand black eggs.

Another great example of camouflage.

This particular toad sat happily on the edge of our pond, sunning himself for many days.  At night we were treated to the loud trill of his song.

On another of our hikes, we came across a spring peeper. This is the frog that most people associate with the beginning of spring. It is hard to believe that this creature with a very loud call is actually only 3/4" to 1 3/8" in size. The males call from shrubs or trees that stand in or overhang water. In winter, they hibernate under logs or in loose bark.

Finally, my favorite frog of all is the wood frog.  It is truly the first frog of spring. They will make their way to an ephemeral pond, one that dries up in the summer, the first day after the snow has melted away.  They make their presence known as they make loud quacking sounds like a duck.  These are the frogs with bandit faces because they have a dark stripe below the eye.  This is one that I pictured in an earlier post and it's egg mass.

This is my favorite frog picture, that of a very tiny baby wood frog, called a froglet, sitting on a lily pad.

The Amen! of Nature is always a flower.

The Amen! of Nature is always a flower.

 Oliver Wendell Holmes

 

I was talking with a friend several months ago when I commented that I loved my spring garden because it is so pretty.  Another lady butted into the conversation with the corrective words, "Everyone's garden is pretty in the spring."  My friend, with a slight smile, while making eye contact with me replied, I think my garden is prettiest in the fall.  What presumption for me to say that my garden is pretty! For some people gardens must be created with very strict rules in mind.  All  plants must be planted in odd numbers and in a certain order with the proper back lighting. A weed is a sign of  moral failure.

                                         

My garden is a happy place of special memories.  Some of my plants belonged to my grandmother. They snuggle in beside others that I've purchased and many that came from our woods.  The red Bloodgood Japanese maple in the picture above is a Father's Day gift for my dad that I purchased while living in Louisville, KY in 1979. That expensive twig is  now a beautiful burst of sunshine throughout the summer.

Nothing could be prettier than the plants I have taken from my woods. There are the white racemes of the native Tiarella cordifolia L. so descriptively named "Foam Flower" because it's long stamens give it a frothy look.  Peeking up are the decorative leaves of a Mayapple (Podophyllum peltatum) yet to bloom along with the pointy faces of barely visible Canada Violets (Viola canadensis L.) and an occasional  SmoothYellow Violet (Viola eriocarpa Schwein). A bright red Wake Robin Trillium (Trillium erectum) and Wild Blue Phlox (Phlox divaricata L.) have slipped into this crowd of spring beauties.  Cultivars of astilbe, Helleborus Lenten rose, and Sagae hosta stand as sentries around them.

This close-up shows the long stamens of the foam flower, the yellow  and Canada violets, frilly leaves that earlier nourished the flower for the spring ephemeral Dutchman's breeches, the Mayapple, and even a tiny Jack-in-the-pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum )

This cultivar of the foam flower, whose plant label I lost, is contrasted by the 2 racemes of the native behind it.  Wild blue phlox and a tiny columbine plant can also be seen.