Finally Spring

It has been a long, cold, buried in snow winter!  The swamp has been slow to thaw, with just channels of open water visible last week.  That all changed this weekend, with temperatures in the upper 60's reaching 70's on Monday.  I finally ventured down the hill Monday morning and was a bit dismayed at the number of fallen and broken trees.  The swamp is severely lacking in trees now, with only one heron nest remaining at the far end.  It looks to be an active nest so that at least is a good thing.

I saw several Wood Ducks but was disappointed not to see any Hooded Mergansers.  

One pair of Canada Geese.

Red-winged Black Birds and Grackles were plentiful.  Swallows were also swooping madly, not in great numbers as I've seen before but a good number for early spring.  It seems as if my free time to visit the swamp is the wrong time of day for the angle of the sun!!  Washes out all the pictures, but it sure felt good.  Some drastic  damage to my viewing area.  The log I stand on has begun to rot and is slowly falling into the water.  The tree I lean against must have looked tasty to the local residents. 

 The tree I used to attach my wildlife camera to is currently on the menu or the engineers plan, I'm not sure which.

View From the Swamp

It has been a while, but I finally took a few moments to check on the swamp on our one sunny morning this week.  The water is high so it does not appear that any geese are nesting on the rock this year.

 Looks like herons may be on the three nests in the swamp.  I did not see any Wood Ducks or Hooded Mergansers.  There were a few Red-Winged Blackbirds but not the numbers I usually see this time of year; there seemed to be more Grackles than anything else.

Tree Swallows were back, but there are not an abundance of trees still standing in the swamp for nesting spots.  I played around with the color on this one because the sun was too bright to capture his iridescent blue.

This Red Squirrel jumped onto the stonewall in front of me nearly causing me to fall off the upended tree I was standing on.

Not a very riveting post just a dry report from the swamp.  My sister and I are trying to get hiking again.  We've taken a few years off due to hip pain then replacements and then a correction for her and grandbabies for me.  On a short hike last week we spotted Golden Crowned Kinglets!  A first for both of us.  They are so very small but noisy!  We heard them first and stopped to look, thinking they were Cedar Waxwings.  What a surprise when two spiraled down to the forest floor almost at our feet.  No camera that day, only binoculars.

Canada Geese on the Swamp

I haven't seen any nesting this year.  I did manage to check on the swamp about a week ago and was surprised and a bit unnerved to find NINE geese just off my viewing log....maybe 20 yards, if that!  There was a bit of posturing and quite a bit of honking as the ring leader of the nine kept chasing off a pair that swam by too closely.

Views From the Water ~ Friday

These ferns are almost as tall as I am!  The tallest came up to my shoulder.  They are right near the edge of the swamp.

One gosling.  It was so neat to watch this family maneuver across the swamp, with baby safely in between.

I couldn't get a good enough look at this busy bird to identify it.  It was flying back and forth, looked like it was making the nest ~ bringing white downy material and molding it in with its chest.  I think this picture is a tail shot as it was stuffing the material down in before molding it with its body.

I apologize for the terrible picture quality ~ a blue bird pair was very busy feeding babies, apparently.  It was nonstop action for the hour I perched on my log.  This is the male at the entrance to the nest.  Unfortunately, I could not see in but I could see mom and dad as they flew out and skimmed the surface of the pond for tasty bugs.

Swallows and Warblers and Owl!! Oh My!!

Chilly, damp morning in the rowboat on the swamp....water was higher due to heavy rain this weekend and we decided to just drift.  Swallows have arrived!  I wish we could figure out a way to put up some nest boxes for them as each year there are fewer and fewer standing trees in the swamp.  A lot of activity among the brambly dead fall near the water's edge drew our attention and we were not disappointed; about a dozen Yellow Rumped Warblers!  I thought I had been hearing Warbler song the last few days but hadn't spotted any!  We checked on "Mother Goose" and she is still sitting on the beaver lodge.
  We continued to drift and paddle, making our way toward the heron rookery.  Spotted one sitting in the first nest and watched two adults flying into the woods and back to the lowest nest.
 Saw something odd in one nest and snapped a few photos, figuring we'd see better when we could enlarge it.  My guess was tail feathers or perhaps just parts of the tree branch sticking up through the nest.  Hubby said the heron's must be the culprits taking the neighborhood cats!  As we circled around the nest, it did seem as if the prongs were following us.  Getting closer, we confirmed it was an Owl.  We think a Great Horned Owl.  While it was neat to see, I'm not all that thrilled to find an Owl in a heron nest.

I don't think the herons were all that thrilled either.

Saturday In The Swamp....Really

A SPECTACULAR Saturday IN....yes, IN the swamp!!!  An old aluminum row boat purchased years ago (ten or so), dragged down the hill and left near the edge of the swamp.  Hubby surprised me Saturday afternoon as he grabbed the oars down from the garage and said, let's give it a try.  No leaks, not many bugs, nothing living inside it....dragged it over a few trees, struggled to get over a submerged log near the edge, and off we went, using the rowboat like a canoe! ~ facing forward, each with an oar to paddle...and occasionally pole!  Such a different perspective from my years of viewing from the end of a log on shore!!  We discovered the Canadian Goose pair nesting on the beaver lodge this year instead of the rock!  She is very well hidden and has her head down, blending in nicely with the sticks.  It was just so amazing to be behind and beside the rock and lodge I've been looking at across the swamp for years!

 Unbelievable how large this tree is that the beaver are obviously working on!  

Heron rookery!!  This is the newest nest.

These shots are the three nests down the far end of the swamp.  Turns out, they are not all the way at the end of the swamp as I thought!!

Hard to fathom that 23 years ago when we bought the property, we could walk across the swamp on mostly dry ground and that 15 years ago our children walked across on fallen trees.  What a treasure.

View From the Swamp: SPRING!!

 The ice is leaving the swamp!

March 7th

March 19th

You have to click to enlarge these photos.  Canada Geese and a pair of ducks....I won't try to id them.  The next shot you also have to enlarge to see another goose pair as well as a duck - Wood Duck or Hooded Merganser perhaps??  Even enlarged it is difficult to see.  It never ceases to amaze me how well camouflaged they are!

As my husband and I were about to leave the swamp Saturday, we took a final look down the far end of the swamp.  When we first arrived, the heron nests were empty but as we were about to leave, we spotted a heron flying and were just thrilled to see it land in the newest nest.   A second arrived within minutes and as we passed the binoculars between us, well.....spring has arrived!  We'll be looking forward to seeing the nest full and we'll do our best to keep you posted.

Empty Nest Blues And Ongoing Construction

New Great Blue Heron nest construction continues. I'm not sure if they don't like the lower nest and are trying to rebuild or if this is another Heron pair. Then there is the solitary Heron with stick, a new nest there?

The nest is empty.....no Mother Goose, not on the nest, not nearby,......

New Construction

Seems to be some new construction down at the swamp. Early evening Easter Sunday I was checking on the swamp. The two Heron nests at the far end are occupied. You should be able to click on the pictures for a larger view to see the nests with GBH in them. A pair of Canadian Geese won the turf war and the nest on the rock is now occupied.
I'm hopeful for a successful hatch but not optimistic. The past two years have yielded nothing. The biggest surprise down the swamp is a new Heron nest under construction. I did not have a camera with me on Sunday but I watched as two Great Blue Heron stood in a naked tree in the middle of the swamp. I watched as it took 45 minutes to place one stick. So, when I left Sunday, there were maybe two sticks that had been worked into the tree branch. This was the scene Thursday morning.