Cleaning up the kitchen after lunch, my eye was arrested by the sight of a lonely bluebird huddled on top of the nesting box in falling snow. The temperature was 18 degrees, and I could only imagine that, despite his fluffed out feathers, the little fellow was feeling a bit cold. Grabbing my camera, I …
Monday musings
My calendar insists that today is March 4th. In sixteen short days, we will observe the spring equinox, the astronomical first day of spring in the Northern Hemisphere; in other words, the first official day of spring! Here in Ohio, we will "spring forward" next weekend, turning our clocks an hour ahead for the beginning …
Backyard bird gallery
Male Eastern bluebird Weatherwise, February is usually a dreary month along the south shore of Lake Erie, but this year Valentine's week brought a few birds to the backyard buffet that I hadn't seen in a long while, most notably the beautiful male bluebird and the red-breasted nuthatch pictured above. To be honest, the birds …
Confused by the weather
Since the beginning of the year, our weather has been unsettled, or maybe I should say unsettling. We've had snow, extreme cold, and now rain. Glancing out the kitchen window this morning, I noticed an empty hopper feeder. Slipping on my jacket and boots, I sloshed out and refilled the feeder. A short while later, …
Would you believe?
Barely a week ago, we were shivering inside our house, wrapped in blankets to keep warm, as the temperature plummeted to zero degrees and below. Then the weather prognosticators, that is, the experts that should know, predicted a warming trend. We found it hard to believe, but, sure enough, yesterday and today we experienced a …
Too cold for trailwalking
As I warned in my last post, right after spotting the red-bellied woodpecker above, our temperatures plummeted and for the past several days have hovered around zero (F). Yesterday the high temp here along the south shore of Lake Erie peaked at zero degrees Fahrenheit and went down from there. The "feels like" temp, given …
When the snow finally fell…
I saw a walker hurrying toward me... Then I noticed why she was in such a hurry. A big buck behind her was closing in! And right behind him were two more bucks, headed her way. With a healthy sense of self preservation, I clicked off a few pictures, swung around, and left them all …
Christmas 2018…Just a little late!
Christmas wasn't our typical family gathering this year. We weren't exchanging presents because we're all saving up for a special family vacation in July, which will be our gift to each other. On Christmas Eve, we got together for a delicious dinner at Becky and Marty's house before Bob and I went to the 11 …
It was a cold evening in the park…
As I trekked down the trail, I was joined by some birds and a few other woodland critters. As usual there were some curious deer, watching from among the trees. Only one ventured close enough for me to take a clear picture. She opened her mouth, as if to ask if I had a treat …
Evening in the park
This little herd of deer was standing near the split rail fence, one of my favorite bird watching locations, when I went to the park with my camera on Sunday evening. They were more interested in browsing than curious about what I was doing, so I decided to take their picture before I headed out …
SEEN ALONG THE TRAIL 