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.

Last Key West.

2-10-18 SHORT HILLS: Now we’re back in the cold and rain, today and tomorrow, missing the sun of Key West. The last morning we hiked back up Duval St to Le Petit Paris with Lynn and Bill for breakfast. Excellent. Then it was check-out, taxi to EYW and United to EWR.


Brown Pelican and Laughing Gull share a railing.

Our hosts Deb and Sid and GO Marc.

Banyan tree flashing its trunks.

Flag of the Conch Republic, no longer independent of the USA, but given the situation, who knows.

More Key West.

2-8-18 KEY WEST, FLORIDA: This was an early start day. We had to be on the dock by 8:30 for another sail cruise. Of course we didn’t leave until 9:15. Lynn, Bill and Ken joined us for a Danger Charters morning sail to the reef west of the island where we snorkeled.

The water was about five feet deep with a sandy bottom, about 70° and not very clear. We saw mostly sponges, a few small, sandy colored fish and a couple of small jellies. We were back in the boat in twenty minutes.

We passed places where the water over the reef was only a few inches, and wading birds were working the shallows.

Our second stop was at a mangrove island, which we kayaked around. The mangroves create land by growing in the shallows and retaining debris and trapping sand. The islands are home to birds. This one had pelicans, gulls and turkey vultures, but cormorants were the most common species. Other mangrove islands have different birds populations. One gap in the mangroves, ‘The Green Room’, was big enough for all six kayaks. We had a mini-lecture about black mangroves and red mangrove trees, how they deal with ocean salinity.

On the trip back to the dock at the hotel, we saw two parasails aloft, one with three people aboard. A new cruise ship had come in while we were sailing out.

After a quick lunch at a Papa Chichi’s Cuban Cafe, we napped until the Farewell Dinner.


Black skimmers at Margarita hotel also having a reunion.

Cruise ship staying in the middle of the channel.

The reef is only inches deep in places. A mangrove island in the distance.

Snorkeling on the reef.

Mangrove island inlet. 'The Green Room.'

Mangrove island.

Turkey vulture, looking for work.

Double-crested cormorant. Check out the blue eye.

Danger Charters ketch.

Looks like fun.

Key West.

2-7-18 KEY WEST, FLORIDA: We, the class, went for a trolley car tour of the island shortly after breakfast. Jim, our guide in the second of three open-air trolley cars, basically a bus, was a non-stop talker, and we learned history, local lore and legends, economy and sociology of Key West. It took about ninety minutes.


Trolley riders.

Afterwards a group of nine of us walked up Duval St, had lunch at La Te Da restaurant. All dining in Key West is outside, but usually under a roof or umbrella. The cuisine is heavily into seafood, and conch stew/chowder is a local favorite and recommended by this diner.


Lunchers.

This lunch was on the way to the Key West Butterfly and Nature Conservatory. There were a few stops for tee shirts on the way. The butterflies are in a big, two-story greenhouse. It’s hot and humid inside, filled with tropical plants and trees, a stream flows out of a small pond and winds through the exhibit. In addition to many, many butterflies, there are two flamingoes, some ducks and other birds in the trees. I have pix, but few ID’s as yet.


Blue Morpho butterfly and friend.

Falmingoes and ducks in the corner.

That's a wow.

We took a break back at the hotel before the sunset cruise on a big catamaran operated by Fury Key West. We swarmed all over the boat as it motored around the ocean west of Key West, serving cold beverages and mingling with dozen of other sunset cruisers. It was a successful sunset and I saw the green flash, just as the sun disappears below the horizon, for the first time.


Pirates out for the sunset.

Our boat.

A moment before the green flash.

 Our group taxied back to Duval St. after the cruise, for dinner at Ocean Grill & Bar. It was truly excellent. As has often been the case, Margaritas preceded the meal. Judy made the rez for this meal after searching through Zagat.

Judy and I walked back alone as the rest of the group taxied away, and we stopped at Le Petit Paris for desert and coffee, also on Duval.