Mute Dancer

I am sure that my friends have long tired of my obsession with this one very small creature, but I can't get over the rarity: As of today, our rufous visitor remains with us. I hadn't seen him in more than a week, and assumed, as I have erroneously assumed a number of times over these last few months, that he had migrated. So certain I was that I didn't bother to refill the feeder or ask the neighbors to bring it in at night while we were away for Thanksgiving. And yet there he was on the feeder this morning. So he arrived about 3 weeks earlier than last year, and he's already stayed 2 weeks past his departure time of last year - surprising to us all. I wonder what exactly is going on in his mind - or body - that keeps him here, whether there's a chance he may decide to overwinter. I know they are intelligent and able to survive almost unthinkable conditions; their symbolism in native cultures as "resurrection birds" is well earned. But it just seems that he must, must move on soon. How can he not?

In the meantime, I share a lovely article on watching hummingbirds by Diane Ackerman and another of Stan's wonderful photos. And wait.

A Space Filled with Moving

Just five days earlier, I had written here:

I am not-so-secretly hoping they will make another stop here, if they found their way south after leaving (though based on the indignity of the banding, I suspect the female may do anything possible to forget this place exists). It's tempting to think that our home may have imprinted on their flyway path, that we have developed something like a relationship.

And last Tuesday, 9/17, I glanced out the window to discover that my hopes were rewarded: A rufous hummingbird at the feeder! This one was an adult male, even more obviously a rufous than the two juveniles from last year, which were difficult to distinguish from the ruby throats. I immediately contacted Bruce from USGS, who helped trap and band last year's rufous migrants and notified all the local community birders. We theorized that it must be last year's male, now grown, because given their rarity in this area, it seemed too coincidental that we could have an entirely new migrant visitor. This is several weeks earlier than last year, and that adult males migrate earlier than juveniles also added to our theory this was the same bird. Bruce asked me to see if I could get a close-enough look to determine whether the bird was banded. Hmm. This species is much more skittish - hard to blame him, since he's been captured here! - than the ruby-throats, rarely perches, and I have poor eyesight. How on earth was I going to be able to see if his teeny tiny ankle has a teeny tiny bracelet?

In the week since, Stan was able to come out with his Very Fancy Camera and get a few photographs, to get some answers. Some cropping and enlarging and some keen eyes (not mine) were able to make out enough numbers to verify that yes, this is the male who visited us last October. Interestingly, after he left here, he was apparently captured and banded again, as he is sporting bands on both ankles. It's interesting to compare these to the similar images from a year ago; he is so much more vivid and colorful as an adult.

Bands visible - Photo credit: Stan Bentley

Rare moment of rest - Photo credit: Stan Bentley

We're all very curious to learn where he has been in the last year, where else he was trapped. Bruce plans to make the drive down from Maryland soon to see if we can trap him again and solve that mystery.

Noiseless & Patient

I'm not sure who noticed them first, but they are hard to miss. My first sighting was while walking out the door a few mornings ago. A thread had been attached to the door frame in the middle of the night and I tore it free with my exit. This particular Neoscona crucifera, a Hentz orb weaver, was nearly as startled as I was, as she - because we learned that it's only the females who spin webs - skittered up the side of the house. Their webs are impressive and stunning.

We've been in this house for three years but have never seen this particular species, but right now, we've got about half a dozen in various crevices outside. Z. has named the one outside her bedroom window "Orba," while the two other most visible ones are "Peg" and "Meg." She told me that some spiders spin different types of silk, some sticky and some not, so they can move freely across their webs. I guess I had never really considered why it is that spiders don't get stuck in their own webs. The orb weaver typically doesn't spend much time in one place, though, and several days later, most have moved on to new locations. Such excitement this morning when I woke Z. up  with the news that Orba had returned to her location sometime in the night. We're all hoping that there will be eggs and wee spiders (perhaps a thousand or more), before the frosts come.

 When I was in Pittsburgh last summer, one had spun an intricate, massive web along the entire length of my hosts' front porch. It was impossible not to stop and examine it, and I came and went every day, impossible not to admire how much effort and detail go into such a complicated - at least, complicated in my mind - endeavor.

Retroactive Remembering

I'm tempted to cheat on this blog a bit here, because I really ought to date my entry for May - when, according to the scribbled words in my notebook, this actually occurred - but really, it's September and I'm only now getting to this. It was a summer of too-muchness, and things that mattered fell too far to the sides of that unusually busy season, too busy to be fully present and to enjoy my most favorite of seasons. Leaves are changing and soon it will be a very distant thought. Next summer, though, next summer.

My purpose is that I wanted to record this year's arrivals for the archive:

Male ruby-throat first sightings: 4/18/13
Female ruby-throat first sightings: 5/15/13 (much delayed from last year)

My daughter's second-grade teacher-substitute for the next few weeks is a woman who was present for our rufous-hummingbird adventure, and with Z's homework, she attached a sticky-note asking if we'd seen them this year. We're still several weeks from the departure of the ruby-throats and the time when I first noticed the migrants last year. I am not-so-secretly hoping they will make another stop here, if they found their way south after leaving (though based on the indignity of the banding, I suspect the female may do anything possible to forget this place exists). It's tempting to think that our home may have imprinted on their flyway path, that we have developed something like a relationship.

Absolute All

“Dogs are our link to paradise. They don't know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring--it was peace.” 

—Milan Kundera
 

 

Pepper, Fall 2002 at the Pittsburgh Collie Frolic

What a difference eleven years makes for our favorite "foster failure." In the 'before' photo (2002), Pepper is about a year and a half old and suffering terribly from demodex mange. It took several years before she fully recovered, and many more after that until she grew in a typical collie coat (I sometimes think she'd rather have stayed hairless, since she hates grooming so much now). She was never meant to stay with us permanently, but she'd been in rescue for a long time already and was likely to stay there. She needed us, and we'd eventually discover we needed her.

 

In the video, Pepper is going on thirteen, is arthritic and is now mostly deaf, but she still knows how to have a good time with her golden retriever BFF Petie, even when he knocks her down in his excitement.

 

Three out of four of our pets are now seniors. I want them - Pepper especially - to be with us forever.

Many thanks to the amazing folks who volunteer their time with the Northeast Ohio Collie Rescue for bringing Pepper into our lives.

Presently the Floods Break Way

The New River can be seen in the background

Bisset Park is reopened (though many of us had been using it anyway) after the epic January flooding, and on Sunday we took Petie & Pepper to the dog park there for the first time since. While the city has cleared away all the debris, it's stunning to see how much the landscape has been altered; the paved and grass-covered riverway park resembles a sandy coastal beach. It's still unclear how much blame exists beyond that of the weather, but one thing is clear: it could be a very long time before the landscape will be the same, if ever.

For now, though, The Girls are enjoying playing in the sand.




Too-Muchness

What happens when you give two children cameras on a mid-winter afternoon hike through Wildwood Park? This happens: 268 new photos (a great many of which are of the ground and/or a certain child's sparkly light-up sneakers) and two dead camera batteries. It's amazing to me that, in a seemingly empty, dormant landscape, children are able to find amazement and images worth preserving. When I asked V. why she was taking so many photos, she said, "I just can't stop Mom! Nature is too beautiful!"

 

The Smallest of the Tiny

Mid-October, I glanced out the kitchen window at the flurry of morning bird activity at our two feeders. At this time of year, our visitors are the usual and unsurprising suspects: Carolina chickadees, tufted titmice, cardinals, wrens and sparrows (LBJs, "little brown jobs," birders call them). But then, something else I thought I saw: the characteristic hovering of a hummingbird in the smoke tree. But no, that couldn't be possible, not this late in the season. Even stranger was that this bird was brown, not the familiar green. Our large ruby-throat population had been gone for many weeks by then, the last of the nectar discarded and all the feeders washed and stored in the garage, awaiting their always-anticipated return in April. Perhaps, I thought, I'm just imagining things - wishful thinking. Or, probably just another LBJ.

Female rufous - Photo Stan Bentley

Flashforward, two weeks later: There, examining the red-topped seed feeder I saw it again: Very definitely a hummingbird, and very definitely not a ruby-throated humingbird. I put sugar water on the stove to boil and went to the garage and retrieved one of the feeders. Over the next few days, the bird became a constant in the yard, and with my field guide and Google, I became fairly sure this was a rufous hummingbird. Really interesting because this species' habitat - and its migration route - is the western US, nowhere near Virginia. I thought of what Terry Tempest Williams says in her memoir, Refuge:


“...there are those birds listed as ‘accidental,’ one species, or at best a few, that have wandered far from their normal range.  They are flukes in a flock of predictable migrants.  They are loners in an unfamiliar territory.” 

Accidental indeed. In search of a more precise identification - and because I knew we had something both unusual and special in our midst - I turned to experts, first to some of the local university biologists and then to a local birder, Clyde, who had led a bird-watching excursion (yes, that's me in the video) I took a few years ago. Clyde helped distribute photos of the bird among the local birding community - most agreed, rufous - and then to Bruce Peterjohn of the USGS. Bruce maintains the national bird banding database and outside of work, spends time - all his own - traveling around the region to band these types of reported "accidentals." I got an email late on Thursday, 11/15 from Bruce, asking if he could come out on Saturday morning to try to capture and band the bird. Could I possibly say no to such an opportunity?

Male rufous - Photo Stan Bentley

So bright and early on that cold Saturday morning, a small group of us partook in that adventure, which the wonderful blog Ridge and Valley has chronicled so thoughtfully here. Our experience also made the Roanoke paper a few weeks later. We learned that morning that my identification was correct, but we actually had two different rufous hummingbirds visiting, a juvenile male and a juvenile female. To be able to see this species here in Virginia is rare enough, but to have had two birds at the same time? A once in a lifetime experience, and one I'm thrilled to have been able to share with so many other wonderful folks, and my family; my older daughter braved the cold to help out with the trapping and banding.

Male rufous - Photo Stan Bentley

Me, holding the male rufous just before release - Photo Stan Bentley

Sadly, the female appears to have fled as soon as the banding was completed - who can blame her, really? The male continued to visit for another five days or so before leaving. I had secretly been hoping they'd try to over-winter here before returning to their western homelands for the breeding season. Perhaps they will imprint on this place as a food source along their flyway, will sometime again visit us on one of their journeys. Safe travels to you, the smallest of the tiny.