It was a very good week weather-wise, but a wet weekend. The warm day on Thursday brought out more ladybugs than you could count.
I wouldn’t have wanted to be in Bermuda when Hurricane Gonzalo came blowing through this week, and no place to hide.
We got a touch of snow on Sunday, which brightened up the landscape for a few hours before it went away. It won’t be very long before that white stuff will be here to stay.
It was a tad nippy that morning too. It was the coldest day so far this fall at 25 degrees when the sun came up.
The birds have been hanging on until now and all decided to move south together, along with some of our neighbors.
Big flocks of white crowned sparrows, chipping sparrows, slate-colored juncos and white-throated sparrows have been seen in the roadside ditches and at my feeder. I have put bands on a few of them so maybe someone south of us will get a look at one of my bands.
The saw whet owls have also been moving at night and hitting my nets as they come to my owl tape playing in the yard.
I caught three the first night I tried for them and then a barred owl showed up and I didn’t catch anymore that night.
I tried another night and the barred owl came right away, so I took the nets down as they will kill the little owls that get caught. A couple rainy nights went by and nothing doing.
Then the next clear night came and it was good as I got eight owls before 10 p.m. when I pulled the nets. I have got to sleep sometime.
Last night (10/20) I had a flurry of little birds just before dark as I had put up the owl nets. It’s easier to put up the nets in the daylight than after dark with a headlamp.
Well, the little birds came in from somewhere and my nets were full of birds.
I banded 19 juncos, two white crowned sparrows, nine chipping sparrows, one ruby crowned kinglet, one hairy woodpecker, one chickadee and one sharp shinned hawk.
The hawk got a hit on my finger as I was measuring its wing and drew a little blood.
The owls didn’t show up until about 8 p.m. and I caught two in two checks. Then bigfoot hit one net and laid it down in the beech leaves from top to bottom; what a mess.
He was careful getting out and didn’t leave a very big hole but I picked leaves for over an hour. I decided I had enough for one night and pulled the nets before he came back through another time.
Earlier in the week I had another first at Eight Acre Wood in the bird banding world as I got a Carolina wren in my nets.
I had caught two ruby crowned kinglets earlier in the day and then I looked out and thought I had a red breasted nuthatch, but it was the wren.
I had seen one last year in the honeysuckle vine on Christmas count day but I didn’t have nets up then.
It was the only sighting I had of the bird. These birds are making inroads to our area, little by little. The hard winter killed a few that were feeding at feeders in the area but more are on their way.
The woods have taken on their gray winter colors except for the copper beech leaves and the tamaracks which give us a week’s worth of yellow that fades quickly.
The snow on them Sunday morning brightened up the landscape for a few hours.
We should get a few days more to clean up the gardens, cut down the dead stalks, gather seeds that are left and scatter them in new places.
Put down the leaves you raked from the yard or driveway and till them in the ground. You can also use them to cover some plants that aren’t rated for zone three.
I used to put them over my carrots and that way they would never freeze under the snow.
I just marked the rows and dug them during the winter.
Once in a while the shrews would find them and eat off the bottoms but that was a chance I took.
I never had much luck storing them in the root cellar as they would get soft during the winter.
Most of the green tomatoes that I picked have colored up and are ready to eat.
With all this water running it’s time to hook up with some spawning salmon…but that’s another story. See ya.