Today’s maintenance report is appended as a comment at the bottom of this page: https://ridout.net/edwin/?page_id=255.
Birds
Herring Gull
Rose-breasted grosbeaks
Rose-breasted grosbeaks seen from Dad’s kitchen window on his 95th birthday weekend.
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Will have to keep trying to get a decent shot of the male.
April visit to Export
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Top left is from our little hike at Bushy Run Battlefield. Then going crazy with the zoom lens looking from the corn field bench to the top of the neighbor’s pylon. Row two: It’s years since corn grew in the corn field; as we sat on the bench there waiting for the sunset (looking downhill towards the gooseberries), dozens of these unknown bushes were almost blazing, covered in little tiny white flowers. The turkeys and the Baltimore oriole rufous-sided towhee (thanks Nick!), both from inside the kitchen, were not keen to wait for the camera to be ready. That’s the red-bellied woodpecker on the tree near the feeder, and a remarkably tame baby squirrel under the feeder.
Nuthatch
Icicles
The slate-colored junco, currently our most common backyard bird (due to this year’s dramatic reduction of the local goldfinch population). I was actually trying for a shot of the two bluebirds which have been frequenting this feeder over the last few days. We’ve also had a male/female pair of cardinals paying alternate visits, and I was wondering whether the icicles would grow long enough to deter them.
Snow day
5½” on the patio table, and 14F at 7am. By 9am the sun started to poke through the clouds, and a flock of goldfinches were jockying for position on the feeder. Then we spotted this stranger — the female bluebird maybe?
Curtis Lake
From the Curtis Park dam early Sunday morning, Hartwood, Virginia.
The Fredericksburg paper had a picture of a swan at this spot in March of 2013. Today I could also see two more on the far side of the lake. The Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries said in 2012, “The mute swan is classified as a non-native exotic (nuisance) species in Virginia.”
Happy Saint Patrick’s Day
Tufted titmouse about 7am, with 5″ of snow on the ground. We had another inch by noon, and initially thought we were snowed in for the day. Again, schools and government offices were all closed. But we were able to get out in the afternoon to attend the event commemorated a bit later.
Eastern Goldfinch
Usually our most plentiful feeder visitors.