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Ten Egrets and a Flamingo

Ten Egrets and a Flamingo

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I had to look closely because its hue wasn’t as pink as I thought it would be. But I definitely saw a flamingo on the beach yesterday. It was hanging out with ten egrets (I counted them), feeding in a tidal lake that appeared last year and has grown bigger since then. The birds seemed on good terms with each other.

The egrets raised their elegant heads, struck a perfect profile shot, as the flamingo tried to blend in. I’m not really pink, he seemed to be saying. I’m just one of the gang.

As I mentioned in another beach posting, mockingbirds are actually the state birds of Florida, though flamingos are more closely identified with the state.

I wish I’d been able to snap a shot of the flamingo itself, but I often walk the beach without a phone or camera. I’ll have to content myself with this lone egret I spied later in the day. He’s obviously a bird on a mission. Perhaps he’s looking for another flamingo.

The Wood Thrush

The Wood Thrush

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In yesterday’s post I mention hearing a wood thrush. I mentioned it as if it were part of an ordinary day. But in truth, it wasn’t ordinary at all.

I’ve heard this song a few times before, but only deep in the woods. I’ve never known what bird was singing, but figured it was a shy creature that didn’t like to show itself. Its trilling song has a touch of the fairy tale about it. It makes me imagine I’ll soon happen upon a cottage made of gingerbread.

When I heard the song again on Sunday I tried to find its source. A rustling in the leaf litter drew my eyes to a brown bird with a white breast darting along the length of a decaying tree trunk.

I have no idea why I thought then that it was a wood thrush. I couldn’t get close enough to see the spots on its breast, and I have no app on my phone that identifies its call. Maybe I’d read somewhere of its sweet song and reticent ways.

Whatever the case, when I had time Sunday evening I searched “wood thrush song” on my computer and heard this. It was the same melody that had caught my attention hours earlier. It sounded like the very soul of the forest. And now, through a lucky guess, I could identify it.

(Photo courtesy of the National Zoo)

A Firefly Farewell

A Firefly Farewell

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Our guest from Paris leaves tonight. During his stay he’s seen deer, squirrels, chipmunks, cardinals, jays, bluebirds, hummingbirds and the hawk I wrote about yesterday. Only the fox has been elusive.

But last night, as we dined on the deck, came the final performance. Deep in the summer grass, the fireflies emerged, blinking their messages of love and longing.

“Here I am,” they said, as they flitted through their mating dance. “Over here.” Slowly moving up from ground to sky, the bugs flashed in the darkness. Their pinpoints of light made the backyard seem a fairyland.

I doubt we’ll convince this Parisian that it’s better to live in the suburbs. He’s ridden into the city on Metro enough to know the length and the hassle of the ride. But I hope we’ve represented ourselves well. It’s not the only way to live — a fact that is painfully obvious to me every time we travel — but it has its pleasures.

(No firefly photos, I’m afraid. This is a shot of the Mekong River in Cambodia from a work trip in 2019.)

Like a Hawk

Like a Hawk

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The hawk looks contemplative here, as if he’s pondering the world and his place in it. But in truth he’s looking for dinner. He’s watching his prey … like a hawk.

He showed up several times last night as we supped on the deck, making me wonder for a moment if he was sizing us up, too, but realized we were too big and tough.

The raptor was here a couple of nights ago, also, perching on the deck railing and on top of the rain gauge, as he does here. I imagine he’s keeping his eye on the bird feeder. There’s a resident chipmunk this summer, too — or at least there was.

Whenever I see hawks now, I think of the close encounter I had with one a couple of years ago, how the parakeets barely escaped his talons, how they might have perished had I not been there. The parakeets stay inside now. The world is too wild for them.

But not too wild for me. How privileged we were last evening to spend long minutes gazing at this guy.

The Word on the Trail

The Word on the Trail

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The word on the trail yesterday was the fox napping on a big, flat-topped rock in the middle of the stream. He was having a lazy day, his tail hanging almost into the water.

I heard about this from a fellow walker: “Did you see the fox?” she asked, as her small, black, unleashed dog ambled beside her. “He’s sunning himself in the creek.”

This isn’t the only animal sighting I’ve heard about from a fellow walker. I’ve been tipped off to deer and birds, too.

Usually, we trail-walkers acknowledge each other with a nod, smile or wave, seldom exchanging words. But a fox on a rock in the stream — that’s worth a quick conversation.

(Alas, no pictures of the critter. I was walking without phone or camera.)

Double Crown

Double Crown

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Over the weekend, Kentucky Derby winner Golden Tempo added the Belmont Stakes to his win column. He skipped the Preakness, so he could not win the Triple Crown. But winning two of the three races means he wins the “double crown,” which is not a designation I’ve heard mentioned but is worthy of note.

Yesterday I watched a replay of the the colt’s come-from-behind victory. As the thoroughbred made up a seemingly impossible amount of ground, I thought about the heart of a horse who can achieve such a feat.

What is it that fires up the winner, that pushes an animal to run faster than the others? What role does temperament play? Anatomy? Training?

I learned this morning that Golden Tempo is a descendant of Secretariat, a horse with a 24-foot-11-inch stride. I remember seeing markers demonstrating this stride at the Kentucky Horse Park years ago. It seemed an impossible foot (hoof) fall.

But mechanics are only part of the equation. A horse must want to come from behind to win, must respond to track and rider. How much of this is a mystery, something we’ll never know or understand? Quite a lot, I think.

Waiting for Scouts

Waiting for Scouts

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Hummingbirds typically reappear in these parts around the end of April. Often on April 28th. Which is not to say that you can set your calendar by them, but close.

This year, feeders have been in place for more than a week, installed during one of the hot days in this on-again, off-again spring. But I’ve yet to see one of the early arrivals, the so-called scouts, male birds who fly into an area a week or two before the females to search for food.

I look at the feeders, notice that one has lower levels of nectar than the other. Maybe I’ve missed a few birds, but I doubt it. Just to be sure, though, I’m writing this post from the deck.

Bunny Hop

Bunny Hop

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In my neighborhood, we have squirrels, chipmunks, fox and deer. We have owls and hawks, too. But rabbits have always been scarce. I imagine that the fox, owls and hawks have something to do with that.

Yesterday, while ambling the Lake Anne trail, I spied this bunny, which hopped right in front of me and posed (froze in fear) in hopes I didn’t see her. I had time to snap this shot before the critter reversed course and vanished into the underbrush. Was she off to feed her young? Was her zigzag path an attempt to throw me off the scent?

I just read about cottontail nests, which are hidden in plain sight, in tall grasses or piles of leaves. I wonder how close I was to this bunny’s nest.

When I was 9 or 10, my father disturbed a rabbit nest when he was mowing. Thinking the mother had abandoned it (which she most likely had not) we took two babies inside to care for them.

I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. I fed the wee creatures with an eye dropper, cuddled and nurtured them. One of them escaped from its box, leading us on a merry chase throughout the house, jumping out from under the skirt of an arm chair and scaring my mother half to death.

It was an adventure that became part of family lore. And thanks to the bunny that hopped in front of me yesterday, it was top of mind again.

The Redder the Better

The Redder the Better

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We are flush with cardinals here in my corner of Virginia, but the male at the feeder yesterday was one of the most vibrant I’ve ever seen. He practically glowed.

I did a little research, and sure enough, male cardinals are at their most vivid in late winter and early spring. Diet determines color, and females want a partner with a seed stash. The redder, the better.

You might wonder how such an outlandishly bright bird manages to be one of the longest lived, up to 15 years old in some cases. Male cardinals certainly aren’t hiding from predators.

The answer, according to the Cornell Bird Lab, is that cardinals avoid the stress of migration, and staying put gives them a longer breeding season. They are “habitat generalists” who can nest in a variety of locations, and the females of the species are far less conspicuous than their mates. They camouflage themselves in tangled shrubs (of which we have plenty).

It’s easy to be ho-hum about cardinals, given how many we have. But their springtime brilliance reminds me how lucky we are to have them in our midst.

(I snapped this photo during a late-winter snowstorm several years ago. This fellow was already an eye-popping scarlet.)

Young Fox

Young Fox

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The young fox skitters across the yard, angling along the diagonal path that his family has followed for years. He slips between pickets as if they weren’t there. Proof that our yard is a passageway, a corridor between woods and meadow.

How do I know he’s a juvenile? His long, coltish legs give him away. That and his antic energy.

Two weeks ago, I saw two kits in the yard, leaping and playing. Two days ago one of them was limping. These are harsh days for injured animals.

I tell myself he had a clump of ice embedded in his paw, that it melted and he is fine. That he is the very fox I just saw galloping atop the ice-crusted snow.

(Wrong season, wrong fox. This is one of the few fox photos I have on hand. I haven’t snapped a shot of the little guy)