Today is Global Big Day, and I’ve already been out birdwatching for over an hour. Come join me! No matter where I go birding, my heart feels happy. Normally, I’m home on the farm, but today I’m camping in one of Georgia’s amazing state parks. The sounds of morning birds on a campsite near a lake are second to none in the great choir of feathered friends. Join me in a bird count today!
Last night was another fabulous night observing one of our resident Great Horned Owls on the Johnson Funny Farm here in rural middle Georgia. Usually the pair arrives together, but last night it was one lone owl putting on a show. I have been slipping out to the front porch around 7:45 each evening, armed with my camera, binoculars, and eBird app on my phone. I sit on one of the loveseats on the porch, as still and quiet as I can be. The owls fly in from the west side of the farm and hang out right at the top of the driveway in the clearing. They swoop from ground to tree, then down from tree to ground, looking for prey.
This morning, I’m sharing these photos I took last night. I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed taking them. Be sure to zoom in on the one with the flag – the yellow eyes are mesmerizing!
A couple of autumns ago, I found some summer patio furniture on a ridiculous clearance sale and bought two loveseats and two coffee tables for the front porch.
I knew I’d like them, but I had no idea how much peace they would bring to my life. As an early riser, I can sit outdoors in the morning in the most extreme heat of the summer, before the sun comes up, to begin the day writing and listening to the treetop concert of the Johnson Funny Farm.
I rise at 5 each morning. I shower, get dressed, put a little color on my face, and brew a cup of Eight O’Clock coffee in the Keurig. From there, I take my computer, phone, and lap desk out to the porch to savor my morning writing time.
Most days, I also do a little birding in the mornings. I listen as much as I watch. We have two Great Horned Owls who chat over their coffee, too, back and forth across the east side of the farm. I like to try to spot them through my binoculars when the sun is high enough to see through the shadows of the Loblolly Pines. So far, they are winning our game of hide and seek.
The woodpeckers are a different story. They put on a show most mornings. We have Pileated Woodpeckers, Downy Woodpeckers, Hairy Woodpeckers, and Red-Bellied Woodpeckers. I keep watching for a Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker, but they keep not showing up. On any given morning, there are as many as 25 species of birds flitting through the trees, singing, and bringing joy to the start of my day.
The Ruby-Throated Hummingbirds dart around, squabbling over whose feeder is whose and avoid mid-air collisions at every turn, even though I don’t see how. As much as I anticipate the cooler weather of fall, I’ll be sad to see them move on, especially the ones who like to hover two feet from my face – the only birds who take the time to look me in the eye and thank me for the all-you-can-drink nectar. This month, they will begin their migration to Florida for the winter, like so many people who seek the same warmth.
Others are here with us all year and have no travel plans in the coming weeks – the Northern Cardinals, the Carolina Wrens, the Blue Jays, the Tufted Titmouses, and the Mourning Doves. We’ll wave goodbye to our summer guests soon, and stand ready to welcome the whole fold back next spring.
And perhaps it’s a little extra, but I can’t help worrying about my little hummers. I want to pack them a picnic for the trip and ask them to text me when they arrive safely and put a little teeny-tiny GPS tracker on them to see where they go for Christmas.
Somehow, I think they know I’ll be watching and waiting for them from my front porch seat, coffee in hand, ready to greet them next April and celebrate their long-awaited return.
Saturdays in 2023 are still savory. We begin the day with coffee and a bite to eat somewhere before spending the day together. We are blessed that our jobs allow us to have some common weekend time to get out and enjoy life, and we don’t take that for granted!
Smitty’s in Woodbury, Georgia was our choice on Saturday. Our friend Bob Oxford owns this restaurant, and his brother Mike helps out on weekends. Their mother, “Miss Jewel” Oxford, was the oldest living member of Concord Baptist Church, where we attended years ago. Her fried pies were delicious, and Bob still makes those pies from time to time, taught by the best! When I served on a pastor search committee with Bob, he’d bring those pies to the meetings, and they went lickety-split!
I enjoy rereading some of my rural life go-to books occasionally as we wait on our breakfast to arrive. Yesterday’s choice was Stillmeadow and Sugarbridge by Gladys Taber and Barbara Webster. Their exchange of letters from the 1950s between their homes in Pennsylvania and Connecticut describes country living at its finest. I like to feel part of that, particularly when my biscuit is made from scratch that very morning, and with each bite I think of the simple joys of rural life not afforded in big cities.
We also made a rare discovery: Georgia peaches! Most of Georgia’s peach crop was lost this year, so coming by Georgia peaches has been close to impossible – – until yesterday! We stopped at a produce stand in Woodbury and found them. I bought two large baskets to slice and eat with our yogurt this coming week. It’s breakfast today, before tuning in to You Tube to hear Dad preach at St. Simons Island First Baptist Church. Our son and his family, home waiting on Baby #5 to make her appearance, will be watching, too!
Our time yesterday was spent driving and birdwatching. My husband is a former deputy in the county where we live, and as a current elected official, he also enjoys time to get out and ride the roads to check conditions and washouts on the dirt roads. We both love this quiet time for different reasons, but it works all the same. He reminisces about the experiences he’s had here throughout his life, and I watch and listen for birds.
Way back in the day, Flat Shoals was filled with hundreds of people on weekends (“mostly drunk,” my husband added, thinking back on the times he had to respond to calls out in this area). It was a popular place to bring a cooler and an inner tube or raft and find a spot in the rock shallows on the shoals to stay cool all weekend. Today, you might see a few fishermen angling to stock their freezers for the next fish fry.
We were there for the birds.
I logged seven new species in the county yesterday along the waterways here at Flat Shoals. Through birdwatching and long Saturday drives followed by coffee together in the morning, I find that I get through the stress of the work week better when I know I have the weekends just around the next corner.
While others are packing our local air-conditioned movie theater to see Barbie, we have a front-row seat to the birds!
When it’s a remote workday, that’s a day to work overtime gathering data from the field. I gear up for the clinical setting of my workspace, and while there is no air conditioning in these areas, it sure beats a day in a windowless office!
So here I begin with my cheep entertainment for the day.
Answer calls and emails. Check.
Set up a meeting. Check.
These are things I do from the field, whether it’s stop one, stop two, stop three or four.
I put on my work hat and grab my keys, calendar, notebooks and computer.
I drive to Stop One.
As I leave my driveway, I put my window down so I can hear the sounds of nature all around me. I never know what wildlife will appear, so I keep my camera near to collect rich data in the field.
At Stop One, I check on the Blue-Gray Gnatcatchers in the tree by the park, and at Stop Two, I visit the House Sparrows under the pavilion. All the way to the Red Oak Covered Bridge, I listen and do a head count of my feathered friends. Some are pairs – they fell in love online, and the rest is history. They follow each other on Twitter, these left-wingers and right-wingers – – they tweet in unison.
These are my Georgia red clay dirt roads with the rocks that grit underneath the tires while warm air blows in through the windows and cool air through the vents with the only radio the song of birds – and crickets, even in the daytime.
Along the way, I have a chat. A Yellow-Breasted Chat, to be exact. Second one of these today. Add that to the count.
The tally grows. Collecting data in the field is hard work, but someone has to do it.
I like to use the data to bridge the gaps….so I’m always on the lookout for just the right bridge. Come along for the ride with me if you dare, and more alarmingly if you trust my driving. There’s only a 9-foot clearance (the sign says there’s also a 3-ton weight limit).
Mom waves a red flag over there from the bushes, reminding me to slow down, make sure my seatbelt is fastened, and drive safely. Thanks, Mom!
And my buddy the Eastern Towhee, in magnificent abundance here in this rural area of middle Georgia, reminds me to watch the ditches on the edges of the roads – – this is no easy place to have be “tow”ed.
A full morning of data gathering is complete, so I check my “calls” once again and return home to analyze my data.
I have no egrets about spending my morning working so hard.
I’m spending some time with one of my grandsons this week, and we’re getting outdoors by day and watching movies, reading, and playing board games by night. Today, we took a walk along our county’s nature trail and did a little bird counting and rock finding before visiting our bookstore on the square to support a local business!
Our time on the nature trail was the one brief window of the day when it was pleasantly cool ~ although it was raining, the canopy of trees gave us a nice umbrella that shielded the rain down to a mere drizzle. During the school year, students frequently participate in identifying trees and shrubs along the path, and often members of the community paint rocks with colorful images and inspirational messages to leave along the trail.
My grandson helped me locate the sounds of bird calls, and we were able to spot a Red-Bellied Woodpecker we’d been hunting by following its song.
Then, on the way, home, we saw a sign for Silver Queen corn grown less than a mile from our home, so we stopped and bought a dozen ears and shucked the ears together on the front porch this afternoon. They went perfectly with our steak, sliced tomatoes, and green peas.
These summer days, though hot and humid in the Georgia heat, are the times of our lives – the peaceful, carefree hours of reading, talking, sharing meals, and embracing the simple pleasures of living.
All except watching 47 Meters Below Uncaged.
This Nana’s heart doesn’t do well with all the stress of a thriller, which I used to absolutely love!
This morning’s plan: sharing a breakfast of cinnamon rolls and coffee at our coffee shop on the town square.
We were taking an aerial tramway ride back down from 10, 378 feet above sea level from the summit of Sandia Peak to Albuquerque, New Mexico over the Cibola National Forest when I spotted a hawk that appeared to be riding the cable up to the peak.
How ironic, I thought. I’d been birding at the peak, counting my species and entering them into eBird, using Merlin ID to help lead me to the trees where they sang their identifying birdcalls. I’m always on the lookout for larger birds. I’d seen a Road Runner under a picnic table seeking shade from the brutal heat in Palo Duro Canyon State Park in Texas the day before, and after peering into all the trees and in the air for signs of these majestic soaring birds of prey, here was one comically riding the cable up to the top as I descended.
That’s my mama, I chuckled. She comes to me on wings. A bird in the depths of a canyon one day, and a bird in the heights on a peak the next. Three vultures when I’d prayed for the reassurance of an eagle at her burial.
“Is that a bird riding the cable?” I heard someone ask the tram operator.
“Oh, yes. That’s our resident hawk. He likes to ride the cable,” she explained. “When wildlife below falls beneath the shadow of the tram car, it scares his prey out of hiding. They run, and he swoops down for a fast-food-lunch. Makes his hunting easier.”
He gives the drive-thru a whole new perspective from the avian angle.
He also demonstrates his experience and intelligence. Here’s a bird who has figured out how to let a shadow do his heavy lifting while he sits and waits.
I’m inspired to think of all the times I make things so much harder than they have to be, when perhaps some creative thinking and a little patience would serve me well.
Which may be exactly what Mama was showing me.
On the top of Sandia Peak in Albuquerque, New Mexico
Palo Duro Canyon State Park in Canyon, TexasA Texas Longhorn
We were driving through Palo Duro Canyon State Park in Canyon, Texas when I spotted him. We’d taken a last-minute cruise through one of the campground loops to see how big the campsites were and whether they had water and electricity hook-ups. I’d just remarked that the awnings over the picnic tables were a blessing of shade out in the brutal heat when I saw something out of the corner of my eye; it looked like a legless bird with a hooked bill, a crested head, and a long tail.
“Stop! Back up a foot or two!” I urged my husband.
There, resting under the picnic table of an occupied campsite, was a Lesser North American Road Runner. At first, I thought it was a Greater North American Road Runner, but now that I’ve compared the notes on the differences, I am convinced that it was the Lesser North American Road Runner. With names like these, I’m wondering whether these birds inspired Dr. Seuss to write The Sneetches.
Lesser North American Road Runner resting under a campsite picnic table
A Road Runner. Not the kind from the cartoon. This one didn’t say Meep! Meep! and take off running from a coyote that left its outline where it crashed into a rock wall. I asked Google what the Road Runner says, and a Big-Bird-sounding Meep! is not part of its call. It sounds more like an impatient robot strumming its metal fingers on the counter at a Dollar General waiting on a cashier.
Apparently, this bird eats almost anything – rodents, snakes, lizards, other birds’ eggs, berries, cactus fruit, rabbits, spiders, and crickets. It can run at speeds up to 20 miles per hour and has an 18- inch wingspan.
I was conducting a bird observation in eBird when I saw this species I’d never seen in real time. I snapped a few photos to add to eBird’s media documentation and we carried on with our drive, but my heart stayed right there under the picnic table with that roadrunner – – until we saw the remains of a Mohave Rattlesnake in the road. My husband spotted it, and sure enough, it had the black and white tail bands, the greenish hue, and the eye stripe and body patterning that I could still make out to get a positive ID on the snake. I’ll leave its photo at the very end so that if you are squeamish of dead snakes, you’ll have had a heads-up.
Speaking of Heads-Up: My sister in law spotted the water snake with its head raised up in the center of the photo – it was checking us out! It’s coming out of the rock just above the waterfall.
We also saw Texas Longhorns, a water snake (observed by my sister-in-law, who despises snakes), a porch full of barn swallows, and several other species of birds, including a pair of Northern Cardinals.
The Bird Blind at Palo Duro Canyon SP – with identification photos and an observation log!
Palo Duro Canyon State Park is well worth the drive for its beauty and its wildlife viewing opportunities. Looking back through the bird observation logs, I noted that a day or so before we were there, someone had observed a wild male hog!
Baby Barn Swallows peeking their heads over the edge of their nest
If you love wildlife and enjoy the beauty of nature, don’t miss Palo Duro Canyon State Park! You really don’t know what you might see out there in the big Texas wilderness!
Common Threads 