Nor'easter with Blackbirds.

3-3-18 SHORT HILLS: The Nor’easter that just passed through here was as bad as a named storm. Trees are down in town, and streets are closed. It snowed, but not so much locally. The yard was full of broken branches and sticks this morning.

The storm started with rain, which turned to slush, and it slushed overnight. We got about two inches of precip in total, part of that an inch of slush/snow, which has almost melted. Lots of houses on our block have no power.

It was cold and very windy, in fact, it’s still windy. I’ve already cleaned up most of the broken branches. Branches from our elm tree had flowers open. This was just the sort of storm that I was anticipating for the nasty part of March. I haven’t seen any major damage in our yard as yet.

Dozens of grackles and red-wing blackbirds arrived with the storm and drained the feeders, one of them had to be filled twice.

New blooms: elm tree.


Blackbirds invade, grackles and RWB's, slushy pachysandra.

Cardinals will not be driven off. The holly is iced up.

Redwing blackbirds hang out with the grackles.

Would you challenge him for a spot at the feeder?

Snowdrops Start the Parade.

2-28-18 SHORT HILLS: Three weeks until the Equinox. This February was too warm, like last February was also. All the flora are responding to the warmth, which would be OK, except that all of March could bring us very harsh weather. Nasty weather in March means that the tender new growth will be nipped in the bud, which is just what happened last year.

Snowdrops opened about a week ago. They are always the first flowers to appear.

I got outside yesterday and started doing clean up, it was sunny and in the fifties. Judy let all the dogs out at one point and I got swarmed.

New blooms: snowdrops.


Snowdrops, always the first flower to open, about a week ago.

Canine ID, from L to R, Gus, Kaley, Maizie, Bally.

Same order here also.

New Bird, New Dog.

2-25-18 VERMONT: We are about to wrap up another short visit to VT, but are heading back to NJ with four dogs instead of three. We picked up Kaley in Goffstown, NH this morning. Marcia, the owner and breeder at Starquest Goldens, just retired Kaley at age five and after three litters. We introduced her to our mélange, our menagerie, and everyone seems compatible at the moment.

It will take at least a few weeks for all of them to sort out their place in the new hierarchy. Kaley has just finished nursing her last litter and is thin and has lost a lot of her coat. A month at Judy’s training table will have her fully furry and rotund.

It was a tough trip in the snow/sleet/rain mix we got this morning. There’s about two inches of new slippery stuff here. We had, at best, a couple glimpses of the sun this whole long weekend.

I did get a glimpse of a ruffed grouse a couple mornings back.


Ruffed Grouse, above and below.

Grouse again, walking away from any attention.

Maizie.

Gus on his way back from a pasture jaunt.

Bally.

Kaley is dog number four in the present pack. We picked her up today. So far, everybody is compatible.

Game Cam.

2-23-18 VERMONT: We came up yesterday in rain/snow mix that became all snow as we got further north. It tapered off when we were almost here. Today started with a little hazy sun, but soon got overcast, and then it began to sleet by mid-afternoon. Tomorrow is supposed to be nice.

We have two game cameras taking pix when we are not here. The first one, a Moultrie, has been looking at the pond from the deck for six months, has taken a lot of pix, and at most caught a couple songbirds and the gardener one time. A rather disappointing performance, possibly due to bad choice of location by me.

The second one, a Bushnell and a recent gift, has taken the pix below in the past month. The pix are not horizontal, but it actually caught something.

I repositioned both of them to get more pasture views, and a view of the spot with the only open water at the moment.


Maizie as a ghost golden last night. The date, time, temp and moon phase are shown on the bottom bar.

Beginning of the month, a cat, possibly feral, in a midnight snow storm.

Partial turkey in the evening. The camera slipped a little off the horizontal.

Red squirrel, the color isn't good.

Willa, the neighbor's dog, on a dark afternoon.

New Snow, Now It's Gone.

2-20-18 SHORT HILLS: After tomorrow, there’s only one month until the Vernal Equinox. We had six inches of heavy, wet snow over the weekend, but two warm days have made it disappear. The snow did break some branches, and I have done some clean up and pruning.

At this point in the season, I am much less enthused by the white, wonderland produced by a new snowfall than I was in December. The ground is getting muddy as it thaws. Buds on the shrubs are starting to swell and show green on their tips. We have been able to walk the dogs most every day.

Something, squirrels or possibly raccoons, have been knocking the feeders down at night. I have tried to make them more secure and more secure after each incursion, and have added a new dome to hang above one feeder. The birds are so polite, eating seeds one at a time, but those mammals are wily and greedy, and they eat so much more than the birds. Does that sound disloyal to my taxonomic classmates?


Six inches of new soft-as-down snow.

"Look, Gus, there's grass under the snow!"

" Yeah, you're right, Maizie. Imagine that, and dirt under the grass. "

Guns and Bullets.

2-16-18 SHORT HILLS: The shooting at Parkland, FL was horrible, as horrible as all the rest of the shootings, and it seems as if there is a new one each week. The NRA apologists, mostly Republicans, offer their ‘thoughts and prayers’ after each incident, which is almost as bad as the incident itself. The pious hypocrisies about ‘not talking about gun control in the wake of a tragedy’ are equally infuriating.

Someone posted on Twitter how much money some prominent Republicans received from the NRA supposedly for re-election campaigns. The donations listed came to about a million dollars. Can you imagine how much they gave away in total to Congressmen and State legislators? It must be in the hundreds of millions.

To take it one step further, the gun and bullet business must be so incredibly profitable that they can give away hundreds of millions of dollars. What do the lives of the seventeen victims matter in the face of those profits. It also makes the point that the NRA is not a bunch of hunters and sportsmen, but the big business of arms sales.

How can we get meaningful gun control?

Key West Birds.

2-12-18 SHORT HILLS: Judy said that the best bird pix from Key West weren’t posted, and that I should do a Key West bird special. Not needing much encouragement to do another post, I complied with her suggestion. The birds at the Butterfly Conservancy are not native to the area except for the flamingoes.

We saw frigate birds and possibly ospreys that didn’t pose for me.

Here in NJ, I saw a red-wing blackbird yesterday and a grackle today, neither has been here since last fall. The last two days were pretty warm and very rainy.


Chickens wander all around the old part of town. They are feral descendants of fighting cocks.

Brown pelican.

The next six pix, are from the Butterfly Conservancy,, American flamingo.

Flamingo profile. These birds can be native to the Keys.

Mandarin duck, male. [ID from Mike R.] on the ducks and finch.

Mandarin duck, male. they aren't native to the Keys.

Zebra finch, female, also not a native.

Mandarin ducks, pair.

The two birds on the top left are royal terns, the rest are laughing gulls. the brownish one at he bottom is immature. They are all in non-breeding mode.

Black skimmers in flight, Gulls on the railing.

Palm warbler.

Shallow water on the reef with a gull, egret and cormorant.


Cormorants at the mangrove island. The light colored one is an immature.

Back in NJ, this fierce looking bird is the first grackle of the season. I also saw a red-wing blackbird yesterday. They often travel with the grackles, and neither has been here since the late fall.