Wordless Wednesday

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.

Color

In the midst of grief, spring is here and beautiful

 Yellow.....forsythia blooming and goldfinches sporting their bright yellow after a drab winter...can you see them without enlarging?  They are well camouflaged!

and a little splash of blue...these are tiny bulbs I planted several years ago,  that now appear in random areas of the yard.

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!

Oh, Dear!!! DEER!

A nearby town made the national news for snowfall this week.  Silly, to most of us, as this is New England!  We've had snow in April before!  It was pretty and deep and a wet snow, making a beautiful backdrop for a flock of first of the season Redwing Blackbirds.  We also woke up to tracks all through our yard and the neighbors.  

They found the male holly at the corner of the house.  I can't blame them, it was a very poor year for acorns. Usually our yard is covered with acorns and we rake them and send them over the hill where the deer feast all winter.  I think in the 25 years we've lived here this is the first without acorns.....there were a few, but a very few!!!

 In the 14 years since we've had the house built here (has it been that long?), this is the first we've had deer eating right up against the house.

Spring

  Spring arrived over the weekend, with some little touches around the house thanks to my daughter.  I traded out the black tablecloth that is so perfect for fall and winter with its clusters of apples and vibrant splashes of red, orange and green for a blue damask with dragonflies and flower clusters.  My daughter took it from there.

My granddaughter and the babyMomma planted a bulb of 4 leafed clover a few weeks ago, and it opened just in time for St. Patrick's Day!

I walked by this grouping for an entire day before I realized it was there!  While I don't believe I have a drop of Irish, the babyMomma does, thanks to great grandparents on her dad's side.  My favorite picture of the grandbabies....we were supposed to repeat this picture in the matching outfits this February when the light was just right.  We'll get to it.  Grandbaby girl still fits her outfit!!  We have a new one for her "little" brother that hopefully still fits him.  He's amazed us this year and is now bigger than his "big" sister!

A bird's eye view of the cake dome.....a white bird (ceramic? resin?), a nest with blue eggs, and vintage field glasses that were a mother's day gift last year from the babyMomma.

Green

I found this poem in a collection of poetry for children.....thought it was quite appropriate as we're waking up to white this morning!!

Wearing of the Green

It ought to come in April,
or, better yet, in May
when everything is green as green--
I mean St. Patrick's Day.

With still a week of winter
this wearing of the green
seems rather out of season--
it's rushing things, I mean.

But maybe March is better
when all is done and said:
St. Patrick brings a promise, 
a four-leaf-clover promise,
a green-all-over promise
of springtime just ahead!

-Aileen Fisher

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?

Too Busy!

Grand baby seems to be on the road to recovery.  Whew!  God is merciful, stretching me and reminding me of His lovingkindness just when I need it most.   The Babymomma had wrist surgery so we've brought in reinforcements ~ the Other Grammy!!!  What a blessing she brings with her gentle and quiet spirit,.....and meals,.....and sense of fun.  I get caught up in the business of living - laundry, washing syringes and delivering medication and trying to make sure babymomma is taking care of herself.  The Other Grammy makes sure babymomma is getting time to visit with her babies while she can't lift and hold them by herself, taking pictures to document some sweet and special moments and just wrapping a blanket of calm where it is needed most.  She's also taking overnight duty....round the clock duty....for our almost 3 month old grandson!!


I'm blessed to have friends who have popped in just at the right moment, to lend a pair of hands and to bless us with groceries!!!


I'm sad to have missed spring arriving on the swamp (80 degree weather isn't EXACTLY spring)....maybe I need to ask one of the local wildlife to take my camera back down for me!


So, a few pictures of recent spring visitors from inside looking out....

Something About May...Part II

The thrush alone declares the immortal wealth and vigor that is in the forest.
Whenever a man hears it, he is young, and Nature is in her spring.
Wherever he hears it, it is a new world and a free country, 
and the gates of heaven are not shut against him.  ~Henry David Thoreau


The Wood Thrush.  His song floats through the woods between the house and swamp, yet I can never pinpoint his location.
 An amazing week of cool and damp and wet....keeping black flies away!!  While others wish for sun and warmer temperatures, I am grateful for a week without the annoying pests to get some yard work done,

grateful for damp earth revealing tracks of deer which share the path through the woods,

...... grateful for the intensity of the shades of green!

Spring Color

Four Baltimore Orioles this morning but could only catch one at a time for a picture.  We had spotted one last week so quickly put orange halves in the suet feeders!  I couldn't get the best shot of spring color with the Oriole, Goldfinches and Cardinal all in the same shot but the view from our window on a dreary day was striking!!

Squirrel Nutkin....aka Stumpy

If you haven't read Squirrel Nutkin by Beatrix Potter lately, you can refresh yourself here.  After discovering the Owl nesting recently, I'm wondering if this little fellow under our feeders this morning was behaving as impertinently as Squirrel Nutkin.