birds

vacation : beach

girl, , , Leave a comment

I love the beach. Any beach, any weather. I love the pebble beaches of Lake Erie, the quicksand swampy beaches on Cape Cod, the cliff-lined beach in Carlsbad, and the rocky beaches in County Donegal. It is safe to say I haven’t met a shoreline I didn’t like. Hilton Head is no exception, which is no surprise, as everyone loves the beach there. The sand is hard-packed and easy to walk on, the high tidemark is (seeming) miles from the water at low tide, and there are all kinds of sea creatures great and small wherever you turn. Since this wasn’t my first trip to the ocean, I didn’t insist on going in the (still quite cold) water for hours on end; instead we walked the beaches nearly every night and participated in a ritual dunking on the last morning of our trip.


Keyhole urchin.

I had very few goals on this trip, and one of them was to acquire a sand dollar. Acquiring a sand dollar of a consequential size from the beach is harder than I realized, for a few reasons. First, it’s illegal to take them from the beach when they’re still alive. Second, they usually live along the bottom of the ocean. Third, if and when they do wash up onto shore, the gulls peck at them and break them, especially the larger ones (which I imagine are the only ones that have enough food inside to make breaking them worth the trouble). This adds up to lots of pieces of larger sand dollars, which are the skeletons of dead keyhole urchins, and lots of smaller living keyhole urchins washed up on the beach at high tide, and quite a few pecked at and soon-to-be-both-dead-and-broken keyhole urchins, but very few of our target item of suitably-dead-but-neither-broken-nor-tiny sand dollars. In the end, we collected a handful of what could best be described as urchin corpses: urchins that were in a relatively advanced state of decay but had not yet dried to a full sand dollar skeleton. In the end I was glad that I took this approach, as there were hundreds of sand dollars washed up on the beach that night and none any of the other days we were there. We also saw two starfish that night, floppier than the ones in the Northeast and beige-speckled like the crabs we came across; no pictures of either of those, as I was busy trying to throw them back out into the water.


Jellyfish, washed up.


Different jellyfish, washed up and kicked around by children.

I think it’s safe to say that the most disturbing part of our vacation for my partner was the jellyfish. Since Hilton Head is where I first visited the ocean, and my first visit was following relatively major storms, the jellyfish that were washed in with the tides were exactly as I remember jellyfish. Enormous. Which is why I’ve always been trepidatious about them, and have stood in awe of those friends from the Northeast who poo-poo jellyfish and talk about ‘just brushing them aside’ should you happen to encounter them in the water. Apparently, this awe has been totally unearned all these years, because jellyfish in the Northeast are about two inches big. Yes, two inches. No wonder they thought I was a silly land-lubbing Midwesterner for being just the teensy bit afraid of getting stung and not terribly confident in my ability to ‘just brush them aside.’ Because the jellyfish on Hilton Head are quite literally as big as my head, that’s why. Once my partner realized this he pretty much refused to go in the water at all, and most definitely refused to go in the water along the stretch of beach where we were seeing a jellyfish corpse about every 10 feet or so.


Little clams exposed by the tide.

One of the many creatures on Hilton Head that aren’t on the north Atlantic beaches, as far as I’ve been able to tell, are little tiny multi-colored clams that live on the shoreline with only a thin covering of wet sand. They are exposed in massive numbers by the tide washing in and receding, and then promptly wiggle around and dig themselves back under the sand. Which makes them darn hard to take a picture of. At first I thought they were just getting washed back out, but after digging around with our feet we realized that the sand was laden with them. Also, if you stand on the mass of them you can feel them wiggling their way back under cover; it’s a weird and compelling feeling. You begin to see why I love the beach, I could do things like stand around on pile of little tiny clams for hours and continue to be entertained. Not so much my partner, which is why we have other experiences to report than ‘I went on vacation and stood on clams.’


Jack’s sand castle.

Walking in the evening after the kids have been taken in for dinner and the tide is just coming back in, we came across many abandoned sand castles. This was the best one, for a few reasons. One, it had a functional moat. Two, it incorporated keyhole urchins, which we liberated into the moat after this photo was taken. Three, it clearly stated next to it ‘Jack only, no Mom!’ Which I’m sure was heartbreaking for Jack’s mom, after she brought him to the beach and all; we, of course, found it hilarious.

Because of the late winter this year, there were not yet any Loggerhead turtles coming up onto shore to lay their eggs. We would have been at the very beginning of the nesting season and lucky to have seen one around the first of May during any year, and the folks at the Coastal Discovery Museum relayed that not a single nest had yet been reported by anyone. This was one of the other things I really wanted to see, it just wasn’t meant to be on this trip.

vacation : beach

vacation : all I ever wanted

girl, , , , , , Leave a comment

Last week we took a vacation, our first in four years. It got off to a bit of a rocky start, as we went directly from a family funeral to a full day of driving. Nonetheless, we were glad to be out of town and glad to be seeing someplace new; I’d been only once, about twenty years ago. We spent the week in a house in Kingston Cove, a development in the Shipyard section of Hilton Head Island, which we rented from a neighbor who was unable to use their timeshare week for the first time in twenty-odd years. The house was nice, the block was quiet, and the noisy frogs on the lagoon behind us were excellent; I only wish I had been able to see them in addition to hearing them, but the alligators were quite the disincentive to approaching the bank and peering into the water at dusk. When we weren’t on the screen porch drinking coffee or on the couch watching cable TV, we were on our rented one-speed cruisers riding around. We rode back and forth to the beach and around to various strip malls for lunch, breakfast, and more bottled water from the Piggly Wiggly. I will admit that when I first saw the cruisers I regretted not bringing Pearl, but once I realized that (a) you’re not legally allowed to ride in the road there and (b) cars have the right of way if they hit you and (c) the sand and salt water are uber-bad for a bike, I was glad I left her at home.

Although we weren’t following any set schedule, the week was a full one. We went birding in Pinckney NWR, adding several exciting new birds to my lifelist, which was a trip deserving of its own post. We sat through a timeshare-hawking presentation, and endured various (and seemingly endless) frustrations when attempting to use the Exciting Prizes we received for our trouble, an experience also worthy of its own writeup. At the end of the week, we returned with sunburns, several small keyhole urchin skeletons, and a variety of arts, crafts, and preserves. While we were gone, the yard turned into a blooming green jungle, thank you April showers, and the house is bursting out at the seams with papers to be recycled and belongings to be put away. Everything in its own time: we’re glad we went, and we’re glad to be home.

vacation : all I ever wanted

garden : weeding, transplanting, and a baby dove

girl, , , , , Leave a comment

After days of pulling up chickweed and dandelion, I finally called it done and mowed the backyard this morning; I’m leaving the front until next week to enjoy the violets a bit longer. I am quite sure I didn’t get all of the weeds, as I couldn’t be bothered to get the dandelion digger and just took the flowers. Plus, the short chickweed that I missed among the tall grass will survive my ample 3″ mower position and be back again next spring. I did learn this week that chickweed is edible, like dandelions; since we’re up to our eyeballs in the greens we actually pay for, I’m going to give eating weeds a miss this year. If the recession deepens, who knows.

In the category of ‘garden labor that is neither killing invasives nor walking around looking at flower buds’ I also moved some plants around this week. The moving around went something like: iceplant (which is really a type of sedum, although apparently now booted from the sedum family as well; I suppose taxonomists have to do something to pay the rent) from back to front; yellow daylilies from front to back, bluebells from back to side, Summersweet from a cup in the kitchen into the front bed, and some of my neighbor’s lovely little spring starflowers into the front bed. As a result of all this moving and planting, the bed along the sidewalk is starting to look quite respectable. The native phlox is blooming, and pollinators—that’s what we’re calling bees and bee-like insects these days, right?—are flocking to the lavender flowers. The aster and coneflower will be moving out of that bed to new spots by the foundation, just as soon as we get that bed prepared.

At the moment, with the violets in the lawn, the daffodils by the porch steps, and last year’s free irises sending up purple and white flowers it looks quite nice. It’s a bit frightfully respectable, as Christopher Lloyd would say, with the purple and white and yellow (which will only be enhanced when the white carpet phlox and basket-of-gold go into the front bed); although the crocuses didn’t bloom after last year’s transplanting, they are also in the same palette. Soon, however, the flaming pink azalea will be in bloom around the corner of the house — along with more white in the form of the other azaleas along the front of the house. The backyard has the huge salmon ball that is the quince bush and the flaming yellow tower that is the forsythia. What can I say, I’m not a fan of the pink, although the bright oranges, yellows and reds will be well-represented in the new sunny foundation bed. Along with (of course) more blues and whites.

As the icing on the cake of actually having flowers coming up in the garden, I was visited by a young dove while I sat on the porch. I’ve never seen one that small before, but it could fly and was following its parent on a tour of our yard. I think the nest is in the neighbor’s hedge, which is an excellent spot now that the neighbors have gotten better about keeping their cats indoors. I’m always pleased to see any birds in the yard; as I’m no longer stocking the feeders, they’re a decent gauge of how well our plantings provide food and habitat all on their own. So far the verdict seems to be: not too shabby.


With digital zoom in order not to get too close to the (4-5″ long) dove.

garden : weeding, transplanting, and a baby dove

Yellow-crowned Night Heron in the town park

girlLeave a comment

Yesterday, on my rainy walk around town, I came across a (possibly resident) Yellow-crowned Night Heron stalking worms on the muddy town field. In the midst of a flock of robins all poking at the ground was this tall gray bird behaving as if it were at the edge of a pond. It was pretty funny to see it standing stock still staring at a patch of mud and then darting down to grab a worm. I assume it was grabbing worms that were being flooded out of their tunnels, as I didn’t see anything else, like hordes of frogs or toads, that it could be eating. It criss-crossed the field a couple of times while I was walking by, but when I passed by again on the way home it was gone. I believe herons return to the same nesting grounds each year, so this is likely the same bird I saw over the creek two years ago and in the branches of a tree last summer. I had thought it was just migrating through, but other residents reported seeing a mating pair later in the season last year.

Seeing the heron was a nice treat as I haven’t been doing much purposeful birding lately, and haven’t added any new species to my lifelist since last summer. I have, however, updated the list with photos; they’re almost entirely public domain photos from government sites, which is a handy way to illustrate a page like mine. I’m hoping to add a few more new sightings later this spring when we take a trip to Hilton Head at the end of next month. Even if I don’t catch sight of the endangered Wood Stork, I hope to get another look at the warblers and shorebirds that I’ve still only seen once or twice before.

Yellow-crowned Night Heron in the town park

updated lifelist

girl, , Leave a comment

I’ve updated my lifelist to reflect the sightings of the past month or so. I still need to find usable photos (e.g. those in the public domain or licensed for non-commercial use) and enter a bunch of latin names, but the list of birds itself is now complete.

Through doing this update I’ve realized that I’ve crossed the 200 bird mark! This number includes all birds sighted everywhere, i.e. the 27 birds I saw in Ireland (the Ring-Necked Pheasant is the only bird that appears in both places). It’s my goal to reach 200 birds in North America by the end of the year. I would say ‘no problem, I’ve been going gang-busters since the beginning of the year!’ except…. Except I’m trying to be realistic: it’s been the spring migration and that’s no way to gauge how the rest of the year will go. Nonetheless there are still whole categories of birds I’m completely weak on — owls spring readily to mind — and more that are common in the right habitat. I’ll be traveling north again toward the end of the summer, and with a little luck I’ll be able to pick up some more locals in other places.

Twenty-four (more) new birds before the end of the year seems daunting, but I remind myself that I’ve already seen fifty-two new birds this year. Fifty-two! I had no idea it was that many until I tallied them up just now. I’m kind of impressed with myself. So there you go.

updated lifelist