The magic tree

While we were on Padre Island, we signed up for a birding tour guided by a park volunteer.  She clued us in to the location of 'the magic tree.'

Yep, that's it.  It doesn't look like much, but it's the most substantial tree for miles, and it attracts migrating songbirds looking for a siesta.  We watched for about ten minutes as thrushes, orioles, grosbeaks, and a few warblers and other guys used the 'rest area.'

Rose-breasted grosbeaks were common, as were Swainson's thrushes.

Orioles, though, they were all over the place, the entire trip.  Baltimores and orchards.  Maybe only indigo buntings were more common.

A few mystery birds were around, too, like this flycatcher that never sang, which is pretty much what I'd need to make an ID.  

The magic tree is next to the maintenance shed for the park, certainly not glamorous.  Our guide told us most of the park workers aren't there for long before they become birders; they just can't avoid it.  In any case, I never thought staring at a shrimpy tree next to a shed could be so interesting!

A taste of vacation from the road

I'm trying my hand at blogging from the road, so bear with me here.  This trip is centered on the Gulf coast in Texas and Louisiana.  Most of our nights have been spent camping on the beach, like our spot below on Bryan Beach.  

We had this beach all to ourselves for the most part.  The Gulf is a wonderful white noise machine.

Another aspect of this trip is the wonder of being here during spring migration.  Birds (and birders) are EVERYWHERE!  We found some very nice photographic subjects, like this tri-colored heron, at Leonabelle Turnbull Birdding Center in Port Aransas, TX.  

And we are just now heading out from New Orleans, where we visited St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, which holds the reputed tomb of voodoo queen Marie Laveau, and had a seriously good muffuletta sandwich.  It's basically an Italian sub with a big slathering of olive salad.

Obviously, we wrote a "New Orleans exception" into our diet!

Spring grebes and gulls

We went to East Donegal Township Park today, since it was so warm and sunny.  The park doesn't have a very flashy name, but it's one of my favorite local spots.  It borders the river, there's a big wetland reclamation project, and it's in general a very birdy spot.

Still, I wasn't expecting to see so many ducks today.  Red-necked grebes have been hanging out on the river since January, but I thought they had all moved along.  But the first bird we saw was a red-necked grebe who seemed to be resting in an eddy out of the main current.

What really surprised me, though, was a horned grebe paddling around a small stream that flows into the river.  We watched it for 10-15 minutes.  I'm pretty sure it is missing a leg, although that didn't seem to slow it down or prevent it from grebe-ing.

This guy was unconcerned with our presence, so I took dozens of pictures.  Its red eye was extremely apparent in the late afternoon light.  This bird is transitioning into its adult plumage, but the golden-brown "horns" will grow longer and fill out, creating a really fun hair-do.  This is by far the best looks I've had at a horned grebe.

A lot of other ducks were around, too.  The wetlands area held ring-necked ducks, blue-winged teal, and a pair of wood ducks.  The cornfield ponds had northern shovelers, green-winged teal, american wigeon, and northern pintail.  I don't remember ever having seen that many different types of waterfowl spread out over the different parts of the park.  I am guessing the long-awaited relief from this killer winter is driving lots of ducks that would normally migrate at different times north all together.    

Another  migrant is on the move, too. The likelihood of seeing Bonaparte's gulls was the entire reason we went to the park in the first place. And, fortunately, the river was sprinkled with these small gulls.

A common feeding technique for gulls on the river seems to involve flying upstream, then floating back down on the current, looking for grub.  I estimated about 50 "Bonies" doing this, and found a couple that had nearly completed the transition to breeding plumage.  In breeding plumage, Bonies have a black head.  This is mostly a documentation shot as the gulls were very far away.  But you can get the gist!


 

Harbingers

Spring has finally, perhaps, sprung?  Bits of color are showing up, in any case.  When we bought our house, I was happy to find dozens and dozens of daffodils in the backyard.  Then, my mother-in-law gave me dozens more, plus allium, narcissus, sedum galore, and hellebore, and I rounded all of those out with some crocus.

Crocus nestled in Angelina sedum

Needless to say, spring is one of my favorite times in the garden.  Weeds are not awake yet, the perennials are coming out of hibernation, and the bulbs are going gonzo.  We're not quite there yet, but we're definitely headed in the right direction.

I have a nice collection of various kinds of "hens and chicks,"  also thanks  to my mother-in-law.  They've spent the winter curled up in tight little buds and are just now thinking of uncurling.

I have a lot of sedum that acts as ground cover, but I also have a few that mound.  I can't remember, off the top of my head,what this type is called, but its a favorite.  Right now, tiny little buds are emerging at the base of last years stalks.  They'll be edged in pink and will fan out symmetrically when they get bigger.

A new Mercy Thompson book

This is the eighth book in a series that I have grown pretty fond of over the years.  I have been on the library's waitlist for about a month, and last week I finally got it.  And read it in two days; these go down easy.

I guess you would call these books urban fantasy - there are all kinds of supernatural characters.  Mercy shape shifts to coyote form, she's married to a werewolf and is part of his pack, and there are vampires and fae and other wilder beings to spice things up.  And Mercy's smart, scrappy, and has a tongue that could strip paint.  

Usually urban fantasy series that become popular end up warping into some sort of unrecognizable crap by the time they get this far.  I have a lot of respect for Patricia Briggs, because her series stay on track.  I have read three of them and a few stand alone books and she is consistently great.  You never get the sense she's churning out whatever comes to mind to keep up a-book-a-year publishing rate.

   Final call:

If this is at all your bag of tea, try Mercy out.  I can't think of a higher quality series of this type out there!

An evening in town

One of the more charming aspects of life in Columbia is that the Susquehanna River is a 5-minute walk away.  Easy to slip down and see what's going on at the water.  Friday was warm and not rainy or snowy so we made the jaunt.  Plenty of nice atmospheric views across the water into the setting sun.  

Here you can see the old piers that once held a railroad bridge.  These are just north of the Veterans Memorial Bridge that you always see in my river pictures.  The story of both of these bridges, and how they were destroyed and rebuilt several times each is one of our more interesting local history topics.  

Speaking of railroads, the riverfront all along the west side of the Susquehanna carries some serious rail traffic.  They are Norfolk Southern lines here, at least.  Last summer we noticed that the rough gravel between the various sets of tracks seems to attract killdeer.  I am thinking they nest here.  

On the river itself, the usual cast of ring-billed gulls were present, along with plenty of turkey vultures soaring overhead.  This group of mergansers (red-breasted, I believe) was the only waterfowl spotted.  The Columbia side of the river seems to be somewhat less attractive to the ducky types than the Wrightsville side, so I was happy to see anything.

Quote Storm: The Luminaries

I debated doing a storm post for this book, but I have some time, so I guess you get one, haha.  This book does not lend itself to pulling out a couple of witty sentences here and there.  But on reflection - there are so many sentences in this book; a few are bound to work for my purpose!

...

"A lucky man, I've always said, is a man who was lucky once, and after that, he learned a thing or two about investment."

...

One of the main characters, assessing another:

His prosperity sat easily with him, Moody thought, recognizing in the man that relaxed sense of entitlement that comes when a lifelong optimism has been ratified by success.

...

Another of the twelve, making an observation about the men and a local prostitute:

"Every man has his currency," Gascoigne added after a moment.  "Perhaps it's gold; perhaps it's women.  Anna Wetherell, you see, was both."

...

Some subtle humor:

"My father hails from the county Tyrone.  Before I came here, I was in Dunedin; before that, I was in New York."
"New York - now there's a place!"
The reverend shook his head. "Everywhere is a place," he said.

...

Charlie Frost was no great observer of human nature, and as a consequence, felt betrayed by others very frequently.

...

And this part, describing Anna's relationships with her customers - while she is representing the moon, astrologically speaking.

The men with whom she plied her trade were rarely curious about her.  If they spoke at all, they spoke about other women - the sweethearts they had lost, the wives they had abandoned, their mothers, their sisters, their daughter, their wards.  They sought these women when they looked at Anna, but only partly, for they also sought themselves: she was a reflected darkness, just as she was a borrowed light.  Her wretchedness was, she knew, extremely reassuring.

...

"I daresay the afterlife is a very dreary place."
"How do you conceive it so?"
"We spend our entire lives thinking about death. Without that project to divert us, I expect we would all be dreadfully bored.  We would have nothing to evade, and nothing to forestall, and nothing to wonder about.  Time would have no consequence."

...

He possessed a fault common to those of high intelligence, however, which was that he tended regard the gift of his intellect as a license of a kind, by whose rarefied authority he was protected, in all circumstances, from ever behaving ill.  

...

When the sun and moon meet:

"I am afraid I am interrupting your solitude," Anna said.
"No, no," the boy said. "Oh, no. Solitude is a condition best enjoyed in company."

...

And a segment about the same, from one of the long chapter introductions:

... a connexion by virtue of which he feels less, rather than more, complete, in the sense that her nature, being both oppositional to and in accord with his own, seems to illuminate those internal aspects of his character that his external manner does not or cannot betray, leaving him feeling both halved and doubled, or in other words, doubled when in her presence, and halved when out of it...

...