Scattered Seed

We left the house early this morning, wanting to drive around the countryside near home to see what birds were about.   Fortunately, George knows most of the back roads in the area and where they will take us.

We started out where we saw the snow buntings last weekend. George had spotted them yesterday on a training run, but today they were nowhere in sight.  We did see a downy, goldfinches, cardinals, blue jays, crows, mourning doves, Canada geese, a red-tailed hawk, chickadees, white-breasted nuthatches, eastern bluebirds, and a mockingbird along the way.

It was a frigid morning at 2 degrees, and I was thankful that we were doing our birding by car. Ice hung from the banks as we drove towards Watkins Glen,  and the falls that we pass by were frozen solid.

It was a beautiful drive up along Seneca Lake,  the sun shining,  and the water bright blue.

After a stop in Seneca Falls at Sauder’s for supplies,  we did a quick stop near the visitor’s center at Montezuma before going on to Auburn. George spotted two eagles passing over the fields,  and we tried several different places to catch a better glimpse,  and photos,  but they kept their distance.

We arrived at Dad and Evelyn’s in time for lunch,  then spent the rest of the afternoon playing euchre.   It is not a game that I play often,  so it took a while for me to get the hang of it.

By the time I had my strategy worked out,  the sun was going down, and we decided we’d better start for home.

My eyes were fluttering towards sleep as soon as we left Auburn,  and it was just by chance that I caught sight of a flock of turkeys crossing a field in single file.    It was an impressive sight,  about thirty of them,  dark against the snow.

Having that picture  (in my head only), I promptly nodded off.

It was a weather watch last night, and now a weather warning. Looking at the national map, it is covering a large territory, beginning in Texas. Rebecca and Melissa were headed there as the first leg of their flight to Hawaii today, so I was glad to hear that they made it out, and the storm did not deter their plans.

Now we await the snow to fall. 100% chance they say, so it’s just a matter of how much. Predictions are for 6-10 inches here.

I noticed there was heavy traffic at the feeders this morning, and George noted the same midday.   He gets credit for these photos.    There wasn’t enough time for me to pull out the camera before work.

The birds are a good indication of the weather to come.     I’ll plan to be out there early,  boots on,  filling the feeders.

I was trying to focus my camera on a hairy woodpecker in our willow tree. It would scoot out of sight, but then I noticed that I could see its silhouette on the limb to the right. It was interesting to watch the pecking action without really seeing the bird itself.

Remember,  I am easily amused.

We had tickets this morning for a pancake breakfast fundraiser, so that is how we started our day. Since we were already going to be up and out early, I packed my camera, binoculars, and field guide so that we could get out into the country and enjoy the morning sun and hopefully find some birds.

We saw several hawks,  at least three of them were red-tails.

This bird flew from the top of one bush to another.     Looking straight into the sun,  it was difficult to identify.    I’m still not sure because of the lighting,  but perhaps a northern shrike.

No matter where we drive in our area,  there will always be a hill that has been carved out to make way for the gas pipeline.   Not pretty…..

An exciting find,  was a flock of snow buntings,  circling over a field as we came around a curve and up a hill.   They seemed to disappear over a ridge in the field if we tried to get too close,  so we exercised patience,  and waited for them to continually return to the side of the road where something attracted their interest.     We still couldn’t get close enough for my camera to zoom in effectively.    This is the best I could do.   I counted at least thirty.

We also spotted the usual along the way…..mourning doves,  juncos,  chickadees, blue jays, cardinals,  crows,  starlings.

As we were making our way back towards home,  we came around a corner,  and I spotted this horse,  looking out at us from his spot amongst the trees.      An unexpected and delightful bonus for our Sunday morning’s drive.

I think we should do this more often.

It was a hard week.   Besides the getting-through-the-workday part,  there’s the dealing with the dark mornings, dark afterwork hours, and the cold. I am so anxious to be back outside, seeing daylight, and feeling warmth.  In the past couple of years,  I find that the cold cuts through me like a knife.

Yesterday was a tease, as the temperature rose above freezing, the sky was blue, and the sun was out.   I had a brief inhale of the springlike air,   between the end of the workday and the half hour until the sun went down.

Today it was bitter cold again,  with temperatures dipping towards zero.

Weekends lift my spirits tremendously…..especially the birds.

I had today off from work to celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, and spent much of it watching events in Washington, DC, including an airing of the ‘I Have a Dream’ speech from 1963.  Mid-afternoon Morgan called.   She drove down to DC yesterday afternoon with friends, to stay until after the inauguration. She was out walking amongst the crowds, and I could hear one of the commentators both on television, and through the phone at one point, although I couldn’t spot Morgan. She told me that she plans to get out on the mall around 4 a.m. tomorrow morning when it will be opened for the day’s events.   What an exciting day for her,  and for all of us!

On the homefront, I wanted to keep busy and make the best of this at-home day.

I made buckwheat pancakes for our breakfast.  Any other weekday it is cold cereal for me. Lesson learned….the box of buckwheat flour from the grocery store currently sells for $3.80/lb. and a bag of the same from the Mennonite bulk food store sells for .72/lb. I’m still using up what’s left in the box, so those were pretty expensive pancakes!

I threaded a string of peanuts for the titmice and chickadees and George hung that outside the back door.

My sewing project was a new bed for Martha. I bought the fuzzy material for the outer layer at Christmas, and she has been very patient using just that for the past few weeks. Today I created the inner pillow, stuffed with cedar, and she seems to like being nestled in.

Finally, I mixed up a batch of homemade laundry detergent. It’s something I have wanted to try to do for awhile,  so we’ll see how that works out.   I’ve always hated all those plastic detergent bottles as they cycle from manufacturing to my grocery store to my laundry area and then into the bin.

And through the day there were the birds, always faithful, always putting a bright spot on my day.

Last night as we watched the news and pre-inauguration events, George suggested ordering a pizza.   Garrett found a place that could make any kind imaginable, so we shared a Buffalo chicken pizza….spicy hot, but yum.

We slept pretty well on our air bed,  complete with our flannel sheets and pillows from home.

I was sleeping near the patio door, and was able to peak out occasionally to check on the weather.

We watched some more of the events in Washington this morning  and Garrett made us some homemade sloppy joes and coleslaw for lunch.   I enjoyed sitting at his new kitchen table, watching the comings and goings at the apartment complex. The meal was just perfect for a winter’s day, and delicious.  He’s a good cook.

We were on the road about 3 o’clock, and immediately we knew it was going to be slow-going for awhile. The snow was quite heavy, and we encountered near-white-outs in places.

Coming in to East Aurora,  the theater marquee glowed through the falling snow.

More miles of heavily falling snow,  and I was thinking that it might have been a better idea to have stayed with Garrett another day.    Just at that point, the weather broke and we saw the light of day.

West of Warsaw, as we came up a rise in the road, suddenly before us, the hill was covered in wind turbines. We had seen no sign that they would be erected there on our last trip to Orchard Park, so it was a little startling to find so many on the horizon. They made the barns below them appear to be in miniature.   It seemed there were at least twenty across the hills to either side of us.

Once I knew that the weather had cleared and the going would be easier, my eyes began to flutter, and I dozed off for a half hour or so.   It was just enough to refresh me,  so that when we hit a bump on 390,  I was fully awake again for the remainder of the ride home.

We arrived here about six, with evidence of new snow in our driveway, but nothing as measurable as we had encountered as lake effect near Buffalo.

We headed out early this morning, when the temperature at home hit a record low overnight of -19. Here in Orchard Park it was +10 mid-afternoon.

Our drive up was uneventful, and the accumulated snow about equal to what we left at home until we got to the last mile before Garrett’s place. Here we found new snow clinging to the trees, and anything else that got in its way, and quite a bit still packed on the road.

We made our stop at the hobby shop where George had a gift certificate from Christmas,

then here to the apartment to meet Garrett and off to a new Japanese restaurant nearby for lunch.

Garrett had planned to make us a home-cooked meal tonight, but we all ate so much at lunch, that that may be postponed till tomorrow.

Inside we are snug and warm, soon to inflate our air bed for tonight’s sleep. Tomorrow there are 3 – 5 more inches of snow expected. It is Buffalo, and it is January.

That is the word I decided upon to describe today, rather than “dreadfully cold”.   There was a windchill of -11 when George headed off to work this morning and I pulled the covers up around me for a little longer sleep.   I had the day off, and waited till the temperature rose to its high of 9 degrees before heading out on my errands.   Long johns were definitely the order of the day.

Before I left the house,  I put in a full morning of cleaning and organizing,  getting things in order so that we can have a smooth departure in the morning.    I set up the tripod at the kitchen window,  and photographed the bird visitors as they came and went.  They enjoyed the offerings I had put out,  and I enjoyed their company on this winter’s day.

Here is a hairy woodpecker,  swinging from a block of George’s homemade suet

and here again,   checking out the same recipe,  but closer to the house

A little downy showed up as soon as the hairy left.   One pecked a nice hole in our deck rail last year,  which seems like something this one is contemplating.

The juncos were looking through all the nooks and crannies for seeds.   This one disappeared from view several times as the hole (my bootprint) was quite deep.

I counted thirty mourning doves in the yard at one point,  but sometimes I miss one or two that are well-camouflaged in the willow branches.

I even felt sorry for the starling who came looking for food,  and seemed to shiver as he (or she) rested.

Tonight the temperature is Zero……windchill -11,   as it was when the day started.    My bed buddy has been warmed in the microwave,  and I’m headed to tuck it under the covers,  and hope for a warm night’s sleep.

It’s so very cold, and we don’t venture out after work. Up before daylight, and off to work as the sun rises. Home as the sun sets, and in from the chill. Tonight it is supposed to dip to 4 degrees. Tomorrow and Friday will be even colder. It is encouraging at least, to have the daylight hours increasing ever so slightly each day now. I think we’re all getting tired of the winter, barely one month into it.