Weeding to Spot Bobwhites

I saw the first bobwhite I've ever seen in my life this morning, while weeding the Apple Valley Memorial Garden.

I figured weeding would not only fulfill a volunteer obligation as a member of the Apple Valley Garden Club, but also help me learn more about gardening and get me down and dirty so I could see more life for my Nature log.

While the bobwhite gets top billing this morning, I was also thrilled to watch an inchworm inch along and then stop, seeming to be thinking about tasting a leaf.  I found it when I was aiming my camera at a moth.   Even the lowly earthworm I found thrilled me, testifying to the good environment in the garden and reminding me of the worm's value in aerating soil and making paths and fertilizer for plant roots.

It's harder to justify my thrill at seeing flies on leaves because we tend to think of only houseflies, not being aware maybe that--as the authors of the National Audubon Society Field Guide to Insects & Spiders point out--there are more than "86,000 known species [of flies], with about 16,300 in North America, and many more awaiting discovery."

I also saw robins and a bird species I couldn't see well enough to identify--and many bird calls or songs I couldn't identify.  And I saw a cabbage white butterfly and a silver-spotted skipper.   Skippers are close relatives of butterflies.

The sight of the bobwhite living in the garden hedges made me think that when I heard what I thought was a turkey-like gobbling from groundhogs was probably the quail chasing a groundhog away from the quail nest.

Why Are Robins Pecking at "Frozen" Ground Now?

I wondered why robins would be pecking at frozen ground.  Surely, there aren't any bugs or worms in the ground with these freezing nights?  That's what I and a friend thought.

But when I dug a hole today to plant a pine tree, the shovel went in easily and I saw two worms and a grub.  I also saw a beetle but he may have come out of a bag of mulch I emptied in the tree hole.  I had stored that bag since last summer at least in the garage.  It was intermixed with whole peanuts stored there by my garage dwelling mouse, who cached them from my bags of whole peanuts for the birds, or those I spilled.

Speaking of mice, I saw one, maybe the culprit, this evening when I straightened out a door mat on the deck, after the wind had upturned it.  To my shock and his or hers, I had exposed a field mouse that was hiding in the folded mat.  The mouse froze by the doorway for a second or two and then fled the deck for the bushes.  It had a long tail and looked like a field mouse.  I suspect he was after the bird seed spilled on the deck.

I plan to check the screech owl box tonight and the vernal pool tomorrow.  Conditions could be right for the salamander march to occur between midnight and 7 a.m. on Wednesday, March 19, if the 45 percent chance of rain pans out.

Screech Owls Lay Eggs in Mid-March

Screech owl in a neighbor's box.  My neighbor reports the owl comes out nightly a half hour before sunset.  (Photo by Debbie Hurlbert)

Screech owl box in a tree near Apple Valley Clubhouse, in park across from our home.  Photo taken Jan. 2, 2014 at 5:50 p.m., showing no leaves inside box or any signs of occupancy then.  (Photo by Don Comis)

I took a short walk today across the road to the park near the Apple Valley Clubhouse to check the lake for ducks and check out the screech owl bird house.

When I put my binoculars on the bird house, I saw it was stuffed with dried leaves.  Screech owls lay their eggs in Ohio in mid-March, so this might be an active nest.  I plan to check on this nest frequently, especially a half hour before sunset because a neighbor sees "his" screech owl leave the box provided in his yard that time daily.

The way this day was so cold and windy I could see why the owl might want all that insulation!  The lake was mostly frozen so I saw no signs of ducks.

I did see two crows yelling at a hawk, a flock of 12 robins, and two deer.  I knew to look whenever crows caw because they might be chasing a hawk, but I forgot that when the crows are fixed on a tree, I should look a few limbs below them.  The first time I looked I didn't see a hawk.  Later, on the walk home, I looked from another angle and saw the big bird below the crows.

Grackle in Flock of 40 Blackbirds

My latest new bird arrival at my feeders was a grackle, in a flock of about 40 blackbirds, mainly starlings I think. I know more grackles are on the way.  On the American Birding Association's Ohio-Birds listserve I saw a report of four grackles just north of Cincinnati on March 2.  And John Switzer reported in his column in the Columbus Dispatch (Sunday, March 2) that he had seen at least one grackle for the first time this season at his feeder.

Usually by the time I read his column the bird species, if not individuals, at his feeders come to mine, in Howard, about 50 miles northeast of Columbus.  I hardly believed his report of an aggressive robin that chased away other birds at his feeders, but my daily robin visitor is like that, using up precious energy to chase away birds in a 10-foot-radius around, when there is plenty of food for all.

Last year I saw a grackle on January 1, but they didn't start coming regularly to my feeders until March 17.

I'm not sure I've ever had a robin come to a feeder, let alone eat from it.  He may be just picking out the fruits I have in the seed blend.  I haven't checked to see if robins will ever eat seeds, I just know they primarily eat worms and bugs.

Our Cooper's hawk is getting bolder.  On Sunday, when we were shoveling snow from the driveway we scared him and he flew over our heads and low over the driveway to the nearby woods.  I think that's the closest I've ever seen a hawk.

Vultures are Latest Arrivals in Central Ohio

Turkey vulture.  (Photo by Debbie Hurlbert)

This robin has been in my yard just about daily.  Usually he's on the ground under my side yard feeders so I can't tell if he's eating seeds or finding worms and bugs in the dirt.  But on Feb. 28 I saw him on our wooden deck definitely eating seeds dropped from numerous feeders.  He's pretty bossy too with other birds and so tame and unafraid of people that I'm beginning to think he really is a too-early spring arrival.  (Photo by Don Comis)

Today on a warm day before a predicted storm, when I parked at the Brown Family Environmental Center at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, I saw a male red-winged blackbird singing for a mate from the very top of a tree near my parking space.

The sight of me didn't deter him, nor did the coming storm.   This bird does seem to go by the calendar and not the weather, so it shouldn't surprise me that if this blackbird arrived on February 23, he knows the ladies will arrive the first week of March, so why not start right away on March 1, at least he'll be well practiced.

I also saw my first vulture this season, a turkey vulture soaring near the Center.  The talk at the Center is of the arrival of red-winged blackbirds and vultures.  Later in the day, the talk at the seed store was of robins and red-winged blackbirds.

I've seen recent "OHIO-BIRDS" e-mail postings about sightings of sandhill cranes.  One e-mail even reported chipmunks stirring out of their partial hibernation.  They're not true hibernators, but I've yet to see one in winter.

Much as I love winter, I do look forward to joining chipmunks in sunbathing in our yard!

Right now the only mammals I'm seeing are deer, opossums, skunks, raccoons, and one mouse that ran out of my garage.

I saw a skunk in the neighborhood on my way home this evening and an opossum when I pulled in my driveway.  My wife saw a deer across the street.  I can't help but wondering if it was the warm day or a sense of the pending storm that got these animals moving around earlier than usual--or am I not outside enough at 7:30 p.m. to see them?


As I wind down about 1 a.m., I checked outside--no snow, just a raccoon on the front deck, with no concern for the flashlight I shine on him or her.  The predictions of snow starting at 10 p.m. seem to have changed to overnight snow, with snow totals down from about 5 to 10 or 12 inches to 5 to 7 inches by Sunday night.

Northern Robins Trying to Trick Us?

Cedar waxwings I saw, Feb. 9, 2013,  feeding on the berries of two crabapple trees decorating a lawn.  A northern robin was feeding with them.  (Photo by Don Comis)

I saw two robins today, one as I drove down the road leading to our house in Howard, Ohio, and one in my yard again when I got home.  As I drove into the driveway in late afternoon, I flushed a flock of about a dozen mourning doves feeding on fallen seeds, the biggest flock I've had so far at least this winter.  And the robin was nearby.

After I wrote the blog yesterday and thought about the northern robin appearing in a crabapple tree on February 9, 2013, with a flock of cedar waxwings, I began to realize that part of the reason the northern robins become visible suddenly in Feburary may be because their food sources in the woods are running low and they move over to people's crabapple trees which form berries in February.

Maybe the robin hung out with cedar waxwings in the woods as they fed on holly berries and then moved with them in search of crabapple berries?

It's intriguing, too, to think that maybe the robin in my yard has hooked up with a flock of mourning doves since I've seen her twice in the vicinity of doves.  At least both species are ground feeders.

The cold and wind this evening that ends a brief thawing period makes me also think that weather also plays a role in the sudden public appearances of northern robins in February.  Did the warm thaw period  draw them out of the woods, in addition to dwindling food?

Whatever the case, this sudden appearance of two robins near homes in our development makes it even harder to convince people and myself that these are not our spring robins returned!