The Backyard and Beyond

On Wednesday, May 6th we took a day trip up to Horicon Marsh. It’s becoming one of our favorite birding sites. It’s an amazing place: 32,000 acres; mostly open water and cattail marsh. You can really only see a very small portion of it by car or on foot. You’d need a boat to access most of it and much of it is inaccessible, even with a boat. That’s what makes is such a unique place. Millions of waterfowl migrate through each year but it also provides nesting habitat for many water birds as well as habitat for frogs, fish and mammals. It’s close too, only a little over an hour each way. Here are some interesting things we saw:

Tree Swallows having some sort of argument.

No sense in sticking around and getting yelled at.

The water was pretty low, compared to last year, exposing mud flats that attracts shorebirds. This is a Lesser Yellowlegs.

The Dunlin is one of the most common and best-known waders throughout its breeding and wintering ranges. It breeds in Northern Alaska and the Canadian Arctic so they still have quite the trip ahead of them.

The Palm Warbler is passing through on its way to Canadian breeding grounds. A bird of thickets and open areas, usually seen low or on the ground.

We happened across this baby Snapping Turtle in the middle of a grassy path.

Forster’s Tern. They were diving into a pond and catching minnows. Wish I had a video because they dive headfirst, full-speed into the water, come to a dead stop and somehow take to the wing from the water after a catch.

I am always amazed at how big Pelicans are. You really can’t miss them.

And here is one on the wing.

Our first ever sighting of a Whooping Crane. With less, than 200 individuals in the wild, we were pretty lucky to see him. CORRECTION: There are about than 200 PAIRS in the wild, so about 400 individuals. Here is some more information about this particular bird. Another visitor to Horicon talked to a Ranger who identified the bird we saw an “Nougat”.

And lastly, a Yellow-headed Blackbird. Not very common and Horicon is one location where you’re pretty much guaranteed to see a few.

Our first trip to the UK was wonderful. We are so happy we made the decision to untether ourselves from North America and explore another part of the world. It was a great place to start and now we feel like it was simply the first of many trips to come.

September 1, Day 1: We boarded a plane on August 31st in Madison, flew to Detroit and then had a 4 hour layover before boarding our red eye for Heathrow, London. We tried to sleep as much as possible during our 6 hr and 40 min flight. I think we did sleep, but it most certainly wasn’t good sleep, and we arrived in a bit of a daze. After collecting our luggage we hopped a shuttle to the rental car office. It was small and crowded and took us almost another hour to get the car. We had decided when we booked it, to get an automatic transmission, which I think was one of our best decisions on this trip. Almost all of the rental cars have manual transmission which would have made driving on the left a much more daunting proposition. There wasn’t really any opportunity to practice in the car lot—it was full with very narrow aisles so we just had to face the road and London airport traffic head on. It was fairly easy getting on the M-5 and heading west towards Bath. Driving on a divided freeway, with all the cars heading in the same direction, didn’t seem that bad. We were lulled into a false sense of security until we arrived in Bath and ran into rush hour traffic and a endless jumble of narrow, winding streets and promptly got lost. Had to stop and ask a tour bus driver, who turned out to be Spanish and didn’t speak English, how to get to the hotel. Thankfully I had the address on a piece of paper and he had a GPS.

Bath, England. The Arylington was lovely and most certainly the best accommodation of the entire trip. Our room overlooked a perfectly groomed garden in the back of the guest house.

We stayed 3 nights and included breakfast in the dining room. Here’s the traditional, full english breakfast, vegetarian option. Of course I had to try it but decided that I preferred toast with jam.

September 2, Day 2: We found Bath to be a very nice city. We would go back there in a heartbeat. Our hotel was within walking distance to the city center, the roman baths, Bath Abbey, restaurants, parks and museums. We did a lot of walking during our 3 day stay. Here are some of the thing we saw and did.

A bridge over the River Avon.

Parade Gardens along the River in Bath.

Another view of Parade Garden.

Bath Abbey.

Inside the abbey.

Royal Victoria Park. The gardens were beginning to fade a bit. I’d like to see them in the spring when they are in full bloom.

Royal Victoria Park

Divided into three segments of equal length, the Circus is a circular space surrounded by large townhouses. Each of the curved segments faces one of the three entrances, ensuring that whichever way a visitor enters there is a classical facade straight ahead. Completed in 1766.

Bath Canal. We saw quite a few of these long boats on the canal. Because Bath is in the hills, and navigating uneven terrain would be impossible otherwise, there is a series of hand-operated locks that anyone traveling the canals has to negotiate.

Street market

For some reason, my blog had some issues and no emails were sent out to my followers when I published this post. So I’m going to re-publish and see what happens.

It’s been almost 3 months since we’ve been back from our trip to the UK but I just haven’t been able to get it together to sort through our photos and sit down and write something. At first my heart wasn’t in it because we lost our little Maisy the day before our trip and it was very tough coming home to an empty house and adjusting to life without her. We thought we would wait awhile before getting another dog but of course our resolve ended on September 19th when we adopted our newest family member, Maggie. On October 14 we brought home Marlo, a 2 year old rescue dog. The efforts of housebreaking, constant puppy supervision, and a very shy, skittish dog in the mix have left us with little time for other things. So before the travel pictures I’ll show you a few of the new kids:

Here is Maggie—she’s 6 months old now.

Marlo came from a puppy mill in Missouri. She is quite shy and a little scared of loud noises, strangers and quick movements, but she is adjusting surprisingly well to her new home.

We are pleased that the girls like each other. There are entertaining wrestling matches and races around the house every day.

I love this blurry photo of our little star runner. This was taken shortly after we got Maggie so she still has her puppyish looks.

Another baby picture from the same day.

A warm fall sweater is a must, don’t you think?

This is getting too long so I’ll create a series of another posts for the United Kingdom travelogue.

Our few days will be spent in Bath. Looks lovely, wouldn’t you say?

In just a few days we’ll be starting on our big adventure! Sunday we’ll be hopping on a plane here in Madison, flying to Detroit and then on to London. We’ll rent a car and drive to Bath, which is about 2 hrs or so from Heathrow. I am a little apprehensive about driving on the wrong side of the road but I think I’ll adjust pretty quickly. I’ll take it slow, go with the flow, and it will be just fine.
We’ll be staying 3 nights (Monday-Wednesday) at The Ayrlington and exploring Bath and the surrounding area. We plan to take a day trip to Stonehenge among other things. Then on to Gloucester for two nights (Thursday & Friday). We’ll meander through the Cotswolds and visit some of the iconic British countryside.

We’ll leisurely explore the British countryside looking for scenes like this.

Saturday we’ll drive back to London, drop off the car at the Airport and take the tube to our hotel. We’ll spend the next 3 nights (Saturday-Monday) in the city and plan to visit the British Museum, Highgate Cemetery, the Tower of London and maybe some other attractions, time and energy permitting. We’ll fly home on Tuesday, September 9th.

Here are a few pictures from the last few weeks.

The chipmunks finally decided to let me have a few of their tomatoes. These are heirloom varieties known as Cherokee Purple and Tigerella.

We’ve had only a female or two at the feeders this year. They also enjoy the bee balm.

Great Blue Heron fishing in the Yahara River.

A disapproving toad we found on one of our walks.

I think these little flycatchers are awfully cute.

Song Sparrow

Northern Catbird with a nice catch.

So, unwittingly we’ve created a chipmunk heaven in our backyard. We’ve provided a home (a deck with soft soil underneath for burrowing dens and making a series of tunnels), an abundance of food (a garden filled with lovely vegetable AND a bird feeder with plenty of fallen sunflower seeds and peanuts), cover from predators (a tangle of blackcap brambles along the entire fence line in the back) and fresh water. Great for them, bad for us. They’ve decimated the beets and are taking bites out of every tomato that just starts to show a hint of red. They stripped the cherry tomatoes off when still green and have put holes in the green peppers and the jalepeño peppers. I couldn’t take it any more. I got a live trap last week and decided the population must be reduced. I couldn’t bring myself to dispatch them so decided that relocation was an acceptable alternative. Obviously still not ideal, but I had to do something. So far 7 chipmunks have a new home in the woods along the Yahara River trail. I made sure not to release them near houses because that would just be foisting my problem on someone else. I wish them well in their new home, I really do.

Who wouldn’t want to live in our backyard?

Okay, enough about chipmunks. On to the birds.

I was on my way home from relocating a chipmunk this morning, and spotted this beautiful American Kestrel enjoying a mouse breakfast. Too bad it wasn’t a chipmunk.

A Great-crested Flycatcher

We saw this Eastern Bluebird Friday on a trip we took to New Glarus.

Scarlet Tanager, Janesville.

Red-eyed Vireo, New Glarus.

Red-headed Woodpecker, New Glarus.

I looked out the window this morning around 7:15 a.m. and saw our Mama duck waddling around with 9 little fuzzy balls of fluff in tow. She was searching urgently for a way out of the fenced yard. I called Annette out and we opened the gate and gently shepherded them out to the front. Then it was a 1/2 mile march with them to the Yahara River during the morning commute. Traffic was heavy (for Stoughton) so I am so glad that we were here to play crossing guard. We had to stop cars a few times and it was a bit nerve-wracking but they made it safely and really very quickly. At one point we lost them when they beelined through a couple yards and they had to jump off a 2.5 ft. retaining wall before crossing one of the busiest streets in town. It reminded me of the book, Make Way for Ducklings that I read when I was a kid. Does anyone else remember this book? Dawn?

Make Way for Ducklings, published in 1941 was the winner of the Caldecott Medal in 1942. In his acceptance speech, McCloskey explained his motivation for the story. While attending the Vesper George Art School in the early 1930s, he would spend time in the Public Garden feeding the ducks. After some time away, he returned to Boston to paint a mural and created a draft of the book after inspiration from May Massee. To better illustrate the story, McCloskey spent time at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, visited an ornithologist, and eventually brought home for models six ducklings to live in his studio at 280 West 12th Street, apartment 4C, in New York’s West Village.

Here is a map of the route that the mother duck chose to lead her ducklings to water. It was a pretty direct route and the instinctual sense of direction is incredible considering that in previous trips, she went by air.

The ducks route is in red. The blue dotted line is what Google maps suggested. She had other ideas.

I can record video on my new camera so I took this little clip of the babies being led out of the yard by their mom. Pretty cute. Kind of sad to see them go. Maybe she’ll be back next year…

And here they are, safely in the water. Whew!

So the longest day of the year is history. Can you believe that?! Everything is looking pretty good in the yard. The garden is growing at a good clip now. It seemed to start out very slowly but we’ve had lots-o-rain and humid, warm days so now things are taking off. Today we cleaned out the shed and moved everything to the garage. We are tearing the old thing down and will put up a new one before winter. It’s an old, rusting, mouse-pee infused metal model that just had to go.

To complicate things, there was a huge old, 700-800 lb. safe inside that we had to get rid of too. Previous owners of this house had a grocery store here in Stoughton and it belonged to them. We got it when we bought the house, lucky us. It’s been out there for 10 years taking up space. We had no way to move it. Annette put it up on Craig’s List and we had lots of inquiries. A guy from Madison came out to get it but didn’t plan for it’s size and weight. He couldn’t budge the thing. The 2 guys who ended up getting it out were here for a good hour and a half wrestling with it. They had a truck with a winch and dragged it out on boards but it was really pretty tricky. I’m just glad it’s gone now. It ended up at the High School and will be used for teaching purposes in welding classes according to Gary, the guy who took it. Another guy, Dan, is coming to get the shed tomorrow. He has a salvage business and will take metal of any kind.

Gary and Dan moving the safe out of the shed.

We put a couple strawberry plants in the herb garden.

I knew that the chipmunks would not share these berries with us so I had to build a chipmunk-proof cage to protect them. It’s actually is working!

Mama duck is doing well. She is on the nest most of the time with a break once a day to eat. She flies out of the yard but isn’t gone for too long. We are expecting ducklings the first week of July.

Starling mother and (big) baby.

A few pictures from our trip to Horicon Marsh on June 9th.

Yellow-headed Blackbird. Horicon Marsh is the only place we’ve ever seen these birds. They are rather striking.

We saw over 100 American White Pelicans. Pretty impressive and these birds are HUGE!

Black-crowned Night Heron along Dike Road. Pretty cool to see one so close. We took these from the car which makes a nice blind.

Redhead Duck

The fields here in southern Wisconsin are filled with grassland birds. I love the Bobolink song. It’s kind of a crazy jumble but very unique and you can’t mistake it for something else.

The Meadowlarks are singing their loud song as well.

You can hear the Common Yellowthroat about everywhere but it’s hard to get a good picture as they are very “skulky” birds but I managed one this morning.

Sandhill crane babies are growing up.

Have a good week everyone!

Another thing about summer that I really enjoy is eating outside. It doesn’t have to be fussy—just take your plate outside and sit on the steps and enjoy the sunshine. The other day we made simple pizzas with fresh mozzarella and arugula from the garden. Annette found the recipe in the New York Times. Sometimes simple is better than anything else. It was delicious if I do say so myself. So here are a few pictures from the yard.

A nice evening to dine outside.

You can’t see it but there is fresh mozzarella under that pile of greens.

Pizza #2 with red sauce and fresh basil.

Can I have some?

Washed the pizza down with an ice cold grape Fanta.

A couple updates on the yard birds: The wrens didn’t use the nest they built in the house. I still see the male around. He sits on the fence and sings but I don’t see the female around. I did some reading and found out that the male makes a number of “dummy nests” and then the female chooses which location she likes best. Guess she didn’t like ours. Too bad. However, we do have a nest in the yard. This past week I was outside in the morning with Maisy and heard some hissing. Looked over and she was face to face with a female Mallard. Well, it seems Momma Mallard decided to put her nest amongst the vincas at the base of one of the large maple trees in the backyard. She’s been laying an egg a day. She leaves them after she lays but will start sitting on them full time when she has 8-12 eggs. I counted around 10 this morning so I think that will happen soon. Pictures to come soon.

And now a couple bird pictures from our recent birding adventures.

Eastern Phoebe

Killdeer

Momma Mallard, Fort Atkinson

Bobolink, Faville Grove Sanctuary, Lake Mills

Eastern Kingbird, Hook Lake Wildlife Area

A rare sighting of a King Rail at Lake Belleview in Belleville, WI

Red-winged Blackbird, Belleville

Believe me, I’m not going to complain about the 85 degree weather we had today. Not after that winter we just had. Things are growing fast in the backyard, mostly the grass (and weeds). We finally got the garden in this weekend and we’ll see what can make it up before the squirrels excavate. For some reason they like to dig in freshly turned dirt. This is what things look like in the backyard.

We accept and embrace the wild, un-manicured look. Especially in the far corners of the yard.

Last year we added an herb garden near the deck. We planted a couple strawberry plants in it this year to go along with the tarragon, sage, thyme and dill. I’m sure the chipmunks will enjoy them.

Looks like a nice place to sit, doesn’t it?

We put up a wren house this year and have a couple considering residence.

After it passed inspection, they started moving in. They worked hard all day sunday getting twigs through the 1.5 inch hole.

The garden is in and we’ll see what comes up.

Now some pictures from a weekend walk and my lunch time walk today.

Cape May Warbler

Female Blackpoll Warbler

Bay-breasted Warbler

Flycatcher

Green Heron

Some cuties I saw on my lunch walk today. There were 10 goslings in this family.

Hey, wait for me!

Well, it is prime birding season and so far May has not disappointed. As some of you know we were gone for a few days last week on our trip to New Jersey. Which, by the way, is a lovely state once you get out of Newark. We had planned to spend a day in NYC but decided to just stay put in the hilly countryside of Flemington. I knew nothing of this state before traveling there but would definitely return now that I’ve experienced it.

Anyway, while we were gone the warbler migration in Wisconsin went into high gear. Friday we both worked but got up early (6:00) and went out to one of our nearby favorite spots to do some birding before work. We also got out again this morning, early once again, and we counted 43 total species with 16 warbler species. Here are some highlights. I hope you like the birds ’cause that’s the subject (again).

First, the backyard birds. Mr. Rose-breasted Grosbeak.

And then Mrs. Grosbeak.

The Orioles are enjoying the grape jelly and oranges that we put out.

Here’s a Prothonotary Warbler. Not not that common so was very happy to find this one and have it sit long enough for a portrait.

Chestnut-sided Warbler. A first for me.

Black and White Warbler.

Least flycatcher.

Hermit Thrush.

Oh wait, this isn’t a bird.

Maisy is glad she can finally get some sun.