View From the Swamp

Today is supposed to be a 52 Ancestor Challenge post, and perhaps before the day is over I'll be able to put one together.  I found a couple pictures I haven't posted from my first trek to the swamp.  I was hoping for Warblers but instead I found more common local residents.  The photos are not great, I apologize.

Eastern Blue Bird

Tree Swallows

Tufted Titmouse singing like mad!

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.

I've Lost February!

I'm a bit shocked to see I haven't posted anything since mid-January.  It's been a busy time of helping the babyMomma adjust to a young puppy in her home.  Accidents are getting fewer and fewer as we get this little one on a schedule.

It was a busy early February helping the babyMomma and Grampy get ready for travels.  Grampy headed out for a week in Vermont and then ten days overseas.  The first week he was gone, I was mostly ok.  It was short, the babyMomma was off to NYC to study for 9 days at the American Ballet Theatre Company.  What a grueling, stretching, incredible learning experience for her.  Physically, mentally, and emotionally tough 9 days.  Her mother-in-law came up to take care of puppy, Charlie, and the babyDaddy.  I spent a week working on quilting therapy, covering for my sister's job while she was away for the month, trying to visit my folks.  This quilt top needed a few spots taken out and redone.  Now it will wait for some batting and backing and quilting inspiration, then a binding and some tabs ..... and a hanger for a spot high on my living room wall.

 The last three days the babyMomma was away, I lived at her house taking care of puppy and Charlie.  What an exhausting and busy experience that was!  No wonder there are days I find that she hasn't had a complete cup of coffee or even eaten!  By Sunday it was getting better and I've been over there to help while she transitions back to home.  Very lonely existence.  Being a special needs parent can be so isolating.  Because her babies are medically fragile, people just stay away.  Winter time especially!  So, her only getting out of the house is grocery shopping with hubby and Charlie, if Charlie is healthy enough, and then her ballet teaching on Thursdays.

It's been a very emotional February.  Nine months without Amber and I am still finding it so hard to breathe.  On a more positive note, January gave me a Bobcat sighting, and February a Red Tailed Hawk.  The picture is not great as it was snowing and I was shooting from inside the house.

The babyMomma's mother-in-law spotted it from across the street.  Much larger than the Sharpie I've seen catching birds from my bird feeder in years past.  I have about 75 picutres.....none of them very clear.  The joy of digital instead of film!   

 Hubby and I did get out on snow shoes one rare day he was home and it wasn't snowing!  The shot above and below are taken from the rock looking back at my viewing spot!  You can't see our house through the trees, but our neighbor's house is visible.  The pine tree in the shot below is right where my viewing log is.  I often lean on the pine tree for balance.

 Underneath one of the Great Blue Heron nests.  There are only two left now.  These foot prints were in a single track that we found frequently throughout our trek around the swamp.  I know, I should have a dollar bill with me when shooting track shots.  The single track looked like a drag, almost like a single ski.  I am stumped!!  Hopefully, we'll get back down there.  No deer runs through our back yard where they usually are.  We did find them at the north end of the swamp.  We also discovered our town had purchased some acreage that abuts us and is now Conservation Land.

A View From the Swamp

I haven't been down to the swamp since March, I believe.  Yesterday morning I finally managed.

View of the Swamp

These pictures were all taken the same week, four different years.  How neat if I could have taken them the same day and been a bit more consistent with the same view, but I didn't.  The week is March 20 - 27th, and the years from Top to Bottom are 2013, 2012, 2011, and 2010.  We bought this property in the fall of 1986.  How extraordinary if I could have been taking pictures from the same spot all these years!!  In those first years, hubby and I walked across on mostly solid ground.  When children arrived and were walking on their own, we would walk across and have a picnic on the rock, easily visible in the bottom left picture.  During their middle school years, the beavers had begun in earnest and the kids would walk across on logs scattered across the growing swamp like pick-up-sticks.  These past several years, you have to wait till it's frozen.  New neighbors who live closer to the edge have ventured out in snow mobiles this winter, well, last week actually!

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.

Blue

After several days of mostly gray skies and responsibility, it was a beautiful morning to head to the swamp and check on spring arrivals and activity.  The tree swallows were out in abundance and a few actually landed where I could see them!  The blue was just striking and the blue sky as well.

View From the Swamp

Took a moment to put the wildlife cam back at the edge of the swamp and then stood on "my" log and was entertained by these two, flying back and forth.....I'm thinking Eastern Kingbird? or Phoebe? or some sort of flycatcher?