Bluebirds

Several weeks after we moved into this house I was sitting in our front room gazing out at a dismally snow covered front lawn when I was surprised to see that our front tree was full of vividly blue little birds. Calvin was napping and I sat there and watched them for the time that they spent there, feasting my eyes on the little world splash of color they had brought to my corner of the world. Though my mother had a feeder and has spent her evenings whistling conversations with cardinals and robins for as long as I can remember, birds had not previously held much too large a part of my imagination. That afternoon, however, Calvin and I drove to Lowe's to find whatever it was that those little lapis birds would eat and a means with which to feed it to them, and thus began a fascination that has only grown stronger over time for all three of us.

Our yard, both in front and back, now houses three different kinds of feeders and many times more birds; we enjoy cow birds, red-winged black birds, horned larks, all the finches and sparrows you can imagine, jays, robins, cardinals, and even a couple very regular humming birds, but to this day I think the bluebirds are my favorite. That day two years ago I couldn't have identified the little buggers in my front tree—I believed bluebirds were very rare and it never crossed my mind that our front tree could teeming with them on their return to the area for nesting season—but they return to our neighborhood every year, and as I have added gardens and a multitude of low level perches (like tomatoes cages and shepherd's hooks) they have become regulars in our yard. This year, in fact, we have our very own pair—they are on our deck or in our yard every morning and evening and off and on throughout the day every single day. I think it's likely that they are at least considering nesting under our deck, if they haven't done so already, and I am kicking myself for not having installed a few nesting boxes in time, though I will be sure to get them in this summer for next year's brood.

Chickadee

We went for a walk a couple of days ago and passed this little chickadee playing in a puddle. He let us get pretty close, and he made us pretty happy, so we stopped to watch for a while.

Bandemer Park

The sunshine called us outside today.

We woke up to a warm sun streaming through the bedroom window and falling on the blankets under which we lazily stretched before responding to the cheerful clamor coming over the receiver on the night table. It's the clamor that woke us, not the sun—a three year old's cheerful clamor that was too energetic for that hour of the morning, as it always is.

The sun surprised us. I think we'd resigned ourselves to the gray fall weather that has been inching in a bit more towards grey winter weather every day, so we hadn't been watching the forecasts and the appearance of the sun was a delightful surprise. Almost as insistent at the early morning clamor, all through our waking moments, and then through a delightful pancake breakfast, that sunshine entreated us to come out and enjoy its waning warmth one last time for the season. The little clamorer didn't object.

Jon passes by Bandemer Park every weekday morning on his way to work, and long before the clamorer was even a twinkle we'd hiked through the area together, but we've never officially visited the park before today. Fall is a great time for a hike. The heat and humidity that make mid-summer hiking less than desirable are gone, and the crunch of leaves under foot as we explore sun dappled open spaces in the depth of forest delights us every one. The bare tree branches suddenly reveal to us the cornucopia of feathered voices that is invisible to all but the ears during the green months of the year. The four footed park denizens are busier than ever as they prepare for the cold days ahead.

We spent about three hours hiking from one river crossing to the other and back again on the other side. On the west side we found Frisbee golf, Frisbee golfers, lots of joggers, glimpses of train tracks, and even one passenger train with a very friendly engineer who extended his arm out the engine window to wave to a delighted Calvin. The woods on that side was broken up by paved paths, the Frisbee golf course, and those delightfully magical sun dappled open spaces.

The east side was steeper, with old tree growth that wasn't interrupted at all. What appears to be the oldest, or at least the largest, tree in Ann Arbor graces those banks. Calvin tired of walking about half way down that side and ended up lounging in the crook of that tree. I think he was pretending that he was the engineer driving the tree as a train engine. The squirrels and birds were equally busy on both sides. I could swear, though, that the East side squirrels were fatter and more friendly; there are houses on that side where they've probably become accustomed to begging for gluttonous meals, or scoping out bird feeders from which to steal them. We're lucky we made it back to the car without being mugged for our granola.

Magic after dusk

One of the things we've enjoyed doing on a semi-regular basis this summer is night hiking. We have a wooded area at the end of our subdivision, a parcel that is slated for deforestation and planting of houses should the economy and real estate market ever turn around. But for right now it is a patchwork of fields bordered by marshland and woods of beautiful old growth trees, and it is home to all kinds of wildlife. When we hike back there during the day we are likely to see swans, cranes, squirrels, and a myriad of song bird species that delight the eyes and ears. At dusk we are likely to see deer, hawks, and possibly other small crepuscular animals.  But a night hike is a very different thing. On a summer night the fields would come alive with the sounds of crickets, grasshoppers, and katydids, or the various frogs that inhabit the marshlands there, and we could sit on the ground and gaze up to catch sight of the bats cavorting overhead. Night in the forest is a very different world. So when we got the county parks brochure for the fall term and in it we saw a night hike advertised we marked our calendars with a vibrant eagerness.

So many things can go wrong with an outdoor fall event, and as the rain persisted throughout the week I was more than a little skeptical of the sunshine promised for Saturday, the scheduled day of the hike. But for once luck sided with the hapless weatherman and the clouds that seemed rather threatening through the afternoon brought nothing but a chill, but dry, wind to the air, nothing that an extra layer of clothing and a pair of mittens couldn't handle. We met the hiking group at the designated spot in the park and were pleasantly surprised to find that, instead of the fifty people we expected, we were three of only twelve or so. Calvin was also the youngest of only two children, the other being about ten, and we did meet with a few doubtful glances.  What, after all, were we thinking bringing such a young child out after dark in the cold on an activity that required concentration and quiet? I have learned not to take such looks personally, and instead never tire of enjoying people's marked surprise at being proven wrong by the end of (fill in event here). Calvin was quiet and attentive, and we learned a lot about the stars, trees, and insects in the fall, but the main subject of the evening was owls, and that is where the magic comes in. In all of my years I don't believe I've ever heard a real owl call, and certainly I've never heard an Eastern Screech Owl call. Our guide brought a recording of this little owl, who sounds suspiciously like someone pretending to be a horse, and she played it several times hoping to incite a real owl to respond.

No wildlife event can ever promise results, and though our guide was optimistic (the area was usually good for owling, she said), hikers the previous year had apparently been disappointed. She played the call and we waited, standing in darkness in an unknown wood, even the insects quiet, now that the cold had come. She played the call again, and then again. Maybe five minutes we waited, the anticipation palpable at the first now becoming noticeably strained, and then almost as still as the wood around us. And then it came. That owl had waited until almost the last moment, the cusp of time between staying and going, and then he returned our call. He called twice, then three times. It was eerie at first, this sound, exactly like the one made by mechanical art only moments ago, now coming from somewhere in the distance, and approaching with each repeat. And as we waited, huddled together in the dark, he flew by just a few feet overhead. We heard him again in the trees before us, then he flew past again and we heard him call from the trees behind. Screech owls are territorial, and this little guy wondered what strange owl, who sounded so like him, had dared enter his abode. We found him after his final pass, following his call to strike him with the beam of our flashlight in a tree only a few meters away. I had never heard an owl in the wild before, and I most certainly had never seen one. Calvin and I gasped at almost the same moment (where do I think he gets it?), and we were not the only ones. Our view was brief. The poor owl, probably sensing that he'd been duped, took off to nurse his embarrassment elsewhere, and we continued on our hike, quiet at first, each of us cradling the sense magic in our own way, and then in a cacophony of whispers as we all had to talk at once; we had spoken to nature and it had replied.

It's possible that Calvin most enjoyed the campfire, hot cocoa and marshmallows that followed, but I'm not so sure. The whole way home he repeated the Great Horned Owl call in response to my repeated Eastern Screech Owl calls (ask Jon, it was quite delightful), and today he will still go into a whisper to tell you about how sweet the screech owl was, or practice either call whenever asked. For me, I am still holding the magic of those few minutes in the memory of my heart.

Nature seems to like us

The toad in our rock river, the mama robin under our deck, the chipmunk under our porch, the rabbit under our woodpile, the myriad of birds in our yard.  We seem to be on good terms with nature.