After reading the book about oak trees last week, The Nature of Oaks, I felt compelled to go find some old oak trees and see what’s living and growing on them. What kinds of ecosystems would I find in and on the oak trees near me? The closest ones that are easy to see are the ones at the Walker’s Creek Cemetery, which are old white oaks that were probably planted there when they founded the cemetery in the late 1800s.
One of the beautiful oak trees at the cemetery.
Right now, they are in their blooming stage, so I got to see a lot of oak catkins, which Doug Tallamy told us in the book are the male parts with all the pollen on them. They do look pretty, even if they make many folks all clogged up with sinus stuff and turn our cars yellow.
Very fresh leaves and lots of catkins, pollinating all they encounter.
Two insects, or chrysalises or something. Note there are already holes in some leaves.
I was wondering what I’d see living on the shiny new leaves that had just poked out after their very chilly winter slumber. I found lots of little bugs, but I was having camera focus issues and couldn’t identify any of them. A few leaf clusters had multiple types of insects crawling on them, probably eager for some tasty young oak snacks. Another thing I learned from the book is that the leaves develop more and more tannins and get harder and harder as the spring moves to summer and summer leads to autumn. By the time the leaves are ready to fall, only leaf miners and other insects that can get to the soft centers of the leaves are able to get much nutrition out of oak leaves. How about that?
While looking for life on the oaks I couldn’t help but see some more life in neighboring shrubs. There were a few very interesting Eastern tent caterpillar nests. These have only one generation per year, and from the number I saw, they aren’t doing too much harm to anything. They appeared to be on hackberries, a native tree no one’s all that fond of, so I’m happy to let them build their nests.
Tent caterpillars and their poop.
This nest appears to be on a hackberry and a smilax vine.
The thing is, the little caterpillars are jumpy as heck! I’m used to caterpillars slowly moving along a plant, chomping away. These guys were flinging themselves around frantically. I don’t know if they were reacting to me disturbing them, were getting ready to pupate, or what. They were fun to look at, though.
I didn’t see any moths, but I did see a lot of little wasps that were too fast to photograph. I also saw a beautiful pileated woodpecker, chickadees, and the usual cardinals, all on the oaks, so I confirmed for myself that these oak trees support a lot of life.
What’s going on in your neck of the woods? (look, I stuck with my tree theme!)
Not bunnies. Not baskets. Nor roosters! Not even from capons (see below). Most of them come from the grocery store or the drugstore, as far as I can tell. This question is just an excuse for me to talk about chickens…again.
It ruffles my feathers to think I’d try to lay an egg!
It’s been quite a time in my chicken-raising career, but it seems like things have settled down. I finally seem to have a bunch of hens and dear Bruce, who have stabilized and aren’t getting eaten by anything. I did see the harrier out yesterday, though. Beautiful hawk, but I’m keeping my eye on it.
I do want to get some more hens soon, as soon as the henhouse gets set up to keep young ones separate for a while. I now know which kinds to get, anyway. Tough ones.
Of course, I’m looking forward to seeing if the eggs Star is setting on will hatch. I’m hoping they’re hens, since I don’t know how to caponize (castrate) a cockerel (young rooster). I have no idea if anyone around here does it as a service. I did read, though, that capons make great brooders and surrogate mothers, since they have hen hormones, but don’t lay eggs. The things you learn on Wikipedia!
I actually caught star out on one of her daily food runs recently. She is all fluffy, I guess from sitting all fluffed up on the eggs. I took a peek at the eggs, and they all look fine. I debated removing the dud egg, but didn’t want to confuse her. I’ll remove it when and if the others hatch on the 15th!
Even a good mom needs a break sometimes.
It just makes me happy watching them explore the area and down massive quantities of insects. We always seem to have plenty more, so I don’t think they’re ruining the ecology out here (it’s mostly ruined by herbicides the tenant ranchers put on the fields, anyway).
Henley says to leave her alone. She’s NOT sociable.
It’s so relaxing to just sit on the grass or in my official chicken-watching chair and enjoy what they do. And I guess I’ll always be looking for egg stashes, since I think that darned Bertie Lee may have gone somewhere else now that I took all her supply from under the work bench.
None of these ranch hobbies are inexpensive, but I do get a lot of joy out of the animals, and I think that’s what counts. They got me through the quarantine by giving me a purpose every day and something to do that forces me outside in the fresh air. I’m pretty grateful for the chickens (and the horses) for that.
If you celebrate Easter, I hope you enjoy your eggs, whether from a hen or from a rabbit that poops out chocolate ones. I haven’t had a chocolate bunny in years, though I do manage to snag a creme egg on sale after Easter every so often. They are tasty!
I hope you also are experiencing some hope for the future. I am, because it’s actually raining over here. Rain brings flowers and keeps those tanks full!
You don’t think I’d make it easy on you, so you? Says sassy Bertie Lee.
Springsteen, the Jersey Giant, reminds you that black IS beautiful, as are her pinkish eggs.
So tell me! What is bringing you renewed joy and hope this season? I’d love to hear from you! I’d also love to knit you some washcloths, if you feel like being a supporter of this blog and podcast. Click the support button on the main podcast page, or hey, you can even send me a voice message about what brings you joy and hope from there!
All the Hermits of the Hermits’ Rest send you lots and lots of virtual hugs and support, however you may need it.
Take THAT, Bertie Lee! You can’t fool us forever! You’re just a chicken, and we are human hen detectives! I think they could start paying me for this egg-finding work. Yep, I finally found where Bertie Lee is currently stashing her eggs. I say currently, because I only found ten. Of course, she could have just started again after finishing molting, or after the cold episode. I don’t know. I’m not a chicken.
Look at all those sort of dirty Bertie eggs! And one very clean Henley egg that was just laid.
Lee helped on this one, because yesterday he said he saw her coming out from behind the work benches again. He thought maybe she was laying in her old spot, which she’d gotten chased out of. So, this morning, I decided to look even harder than usual, and used the step ladder to climb on top of the sturdy old workbench. I looked down behind it, and there they were! Eggs!
Bertie Lee tells Bruce that she’s glad the garage is such a mess, because it’s easy to hide eggs in. Her eggs are secretly under that white cabinet.
Of course, they were in a really hard-to-reach place, as Bertie Lee is a smart hen. She survived the 2019 and 2020 hen attacks that lost us a lot of our flock. I found the perfect egg-moving device however, our fishing net. I was able to carefully roll them forward and get them, without injury to me or any eggs. Well, two of the eggs were cracked, but I think Bertie must have done that herself, since the mess was dried up.
When I brought the eggs in, I immediately tested them for viability by seeing if they floated, just like I did a couple of days ago when I found Big Red’s egg stash. These were all in GREAT shape, with only one looking slightly iffy. I put it in with Big Red’s, along with a couple others, ready for becoming deviled eggs for Easter!
Bertie is trying to tell Buttercup to hide her eggs better, but Butter is focused on bugs.
Now I have seven hens capable of laying, and six of them are active (I hope; I couldn’t find Springsteen this morning, and she’s the low chicken in the pecking order). Theoretically, I may have enough to start giving eggs away again. And I can’t wait to see if Star hatches any baby hennie chicks! She’s still in there, setting away.
She knows she’s my favorite. Don’t tell Buttercup.
What a great way to start a day off! The Sherlock Holmes of Laying Hens strikes again! I’ve already had my personal Easter egg hunt.
This one had us laughing much of last night. You may remember that not too long ago, I used my chicken detective skills to discover that my Hermits’ Rest hens had decided to start laying eggs in an artificial Christmas wreath on top of our garage refrigerator. I’d looked high and low, but finally saw Springsteen up on the fridge in the middle of the day, looking very much like she was laying an egg. Now everyone lays there except Bertie Lee (mystery location) and Star, who’s brooding three eggs in the nest box, where they are supposed to be laying eggs. I just climb up on the fridge every day and retrieve the eggs. Not an elegant solution, but it works.
There’s one more chicken, though. Big Red lives with Apache and Fiona, and I hadn’t gotten an egg from her in over a year. Hmm.
I think I’m a horse.
What’s Red’s Story?
Well, once upon a time about three or four years ago, there was a chicken coop and run over the cabin on the greater ranch property. At one point, two people decided to raise some chicks, and got like two dozen production red chicks and two dozen black meat chickens. It was fun to watch them grow and grow. (Here’s a link to a longer story from 2018; podcast listeners can search for chickens on the blog and find it.)
I really loved these guys.
Soon we were getting a LOT of eggs (I say “we” because I took care of them when their caregivers were out of town). I dutifully trotted them up to the neighbors’ storage area and labeled them, where they got sold at farmer’s markets.
Fast forward, and one partner stopped coming around, the residents at the cabin moved out, and I ended up being the caretaker. More babies arrived, some we bought and some that came as gifts. I became the half owner. We ended up with Americaunas, barred rocks, leghorns, and more and more. I sure enjoyed all those chickens, and enjoyed selling my half at work.
Yep, the neighbors had a LOT of chickens back in the day. That’s Buckbeak, the nice rooster, in the center.
At some point, an owl began systematically eliminating the chickens, including the wonderful rooster we had back then. Sniff. I felt powerless, because there was no roof on the chicken yard, and a hole in the door to the coop, which allowed owls in. But it wasn’t my coop, so I couldn’t exactly work on it. The other partner was going to make the hens all into sausage, so I took over as the queen of the dwindling flock. It was sad.
I decided to let nature take its course (which was awful, with so many dead hens), and to just get myself my own chickens at my house, with an enclosed coop, where they would be easier to care for and less vulnerable. As we know, the joke was on me, because we still lose chickens to predators over at our part of the ranch, though we have been working hard on keeping the chickens safe…at least when they are young. The old ones insist on living outside.
Well, I thought all the chickens over there were gone and stopped feeding them. But, soon we realized there was still ONE old chicken left. That’s Big Red. She outlived them all. She was out scrounging for bugs and grain over by the horse area. That made sense.
Plenty to eat around here! (August 2020)
We’ve enjoyed her antics with Fiona and Apache, especially when she drinks from the big troughs. We never found any eggs, but once found her laying an egg with no shell. That led me to start bringing some chicken feed over to her, which we give her when we feed the horses.
She’s a fine hen, and that’s no bull. (This beefy guy is behind our house.)
Once she started eating, she began to look better and better. She doesn’t look at all like an “old” hen, and she’s friendly as heck. She made it through the cold weather, too, and had a nice warm place to hide out. For the past few weeks, though, we’d been wondering if her improved nutrition has enabled her to start laying. I put on my detective hat again.
I’ve been looking in various spots, like the storage area, the cattle pens, etc. No eggs. Then, day before yesterday, I heard an odd noise in the old chicken run. There was Big Red, scratching away. Hmm, I hadn’t seen her over there in a long, long time.
So, yesterday, on a whim, I decided to take a look in the nesting boxes where the hens used to all lay. Oh my goodness. There were 9 lovely Big Red eggs in there!
What??? Eggs!
Well, of course. The great egg detective figured out that the eggs were in the egg boxes. Go me!
Which egg in the Easter basket is not from Big Red?
I took the eggs home, curious as to whether I’d found fresh eggs or ancient eggs. I tested them in a bowl of water, and while none of them floated (which means they aren’t old, rotten, bad, and such), a few of them were iffy. They are marked for future hard boiled eggs.
It’s hard to tell, but this is a picture of the eggs NOT floating.
My guess is that, at her age, Big Red is laying a couple of times per week, so these eggs may be from about the time the cold weather event occurred. I’ll be checking daily from now on, so I’ll know how often she’s laying. I’m so surprised and pleased that she’s still churning out eggs, especially since the production hens tend to lay a lot for the first year, then pretty much stop after their second year. Way to go, Big Red!
Now Suna the great hen detective needs to solve the Bertie Lee mystery. She should still be laying…somewhere.
It’s much cooler this morning than it was yesterday, so I wish today was the massive hay-bale unloading day. And, yes, I have a sore back and arms, but that’s not gonna stop me from getting out and doing things! Um, and theoretically today I’ll finally have time to work on the newsletter that’s going sort of slowly this week.
Anyway, I have a bird story. Every day when I wake up, I head over to our second-story bedroom window that faces the chickens and the pond to see what’s going on in the world. I can see dogs, hens, horses, cattle, and often birds.
Today, I saw two white birds by the pond. Seeing a white bird is not uncommon, since we have a Great Egret who visits often. These two looked like egrets, but not so great. They were smaller and had patches of a pretty salmon color on their heads and backs. They looked like this:
Photo from iNaturalist, copyright (c) Charlotte Bill.
I couldn’t get a photo, since my phone was updating its OS. The nerve. I wracked my not-really-awake-yet brain trying to figure out what it could be. It had a poky bill, so it wasn’t a duck. It had a long neck, but not THAT long of a neck. And it looked like an egret with a short neck and a short bill.
Isn’t that a pretty bird? Photo from iNaturalist, copyright (c) Charlotte Bill.
The phone finally finished updating, so I could look it up on Merlin Bird ID. That is one helpful piece of software! I entered its size as smaller than a goose, and its colors as white and orange. I couldn’t wait to see what exotic creature I’d seen, but not been able to photograph. I had to laugh when I saw what came up. The birds are a pair of cattle egrets in breeding plumage!
My own best picture of cattle egrets, in a large flock.
My gosh, I’ve been seeing these birds my entire life, but the color fooled me. Now I know they get all colorful this time of year. Looking through the photos on iNaturalist, I could see they can be quite colorful. I read that they get more colorful in some other parts of the world, too.
Learning about these guys (Bubulcus ibis) on Wikipedia explained to me why I’ve seen them my whole life. It turns out that they were first introduced to the US (escaping captivity) in Florida, where I spent my childhood! They were observed breeding there in the late 1950s, and had spread to Canada in just ten years. Wow. They also busily expanded from their native Iberian peninsula, too. I guess where there are cattle, they follow.
I have a vague memory of my mom mentioning that they didn’t see them when she was younger, which makes sense to me now. I strongly remember finding these birds very funny when they rode around on the backs of the huge herds of Hereford cattle we’d see in north Florida in the 60s.
I guess it pays to wake up and look out the window, because it can lead you to learning a lot more about a bird you’ve enjoyed your whole life! It pays to stay curious!
Since it’s looking like it will still be a while before the relatives are back and I can get some new pullets (I need help rearranging the coop), I decided to try the old egg experiment again. You see, for the past few days when I go outside to feed my little flock of 6 (five hens and Bruce, the rooster), I see this:
MMM, chicken scratch.
Yes, I see five chickens. Someone is missing. That would be Star, the beautiful and large gray Czech Blue Sapphire hen. Coincidentally, she is now the only one laying in the actual hen boxes, since she chased Buttercup and Henley away. I still don’t know where Bertie Lee is laying, but everyone else has been laying away since it warmed up.
I’m busy. Shut the dang door.
Yes, Star has gone broody on us. I guess it’s her turn. I decided to go ahead and let her set on some eggs, if she’s so fired up about it. I took a couple eggs from the other hens and stuck them under her, so I’m guessing she has 3-4 under her (including one dud). I wrote down on the calendar when 21 days would be up, and we will see if she continues to brood away and produces some chicks.
I know she’s eating, because she gets out for a while when it’s warm outside. That’s probably when it’s easiest to maintain warmth. She’s definitely in there all night, and not taking up space in the garage (yay). So, I guess we have another waiting game on our hands, and this time no one is gonna shew the broody hen off the nest. We can spare a few eggs, and who knows, maybe some of them will hatch into hens that lay green eggs (thanks to their baby daddy, Bruce, who’s an Easter Egger).
I’m looking forward to hearing from you all! Send me some comments. Blog listeners can even send voice messages (unless that turns out to be a big mistake).
Just what I needed! It’s a day of solving problems and getting life back to normal! That feels really good, especially given the mood I ended up in after yesterday’s phone drama.
My shirt from yesterday said, “I may look calm, but in my head, I’ve pecked you 3 times!’ and has a blue hen on it.
After a good night’s sleep, I was able to figure out all the passwords and other information needed to get all my apps working on my replacement phone. I was way too frustrated last night to think rationally enough to take care of it. But, now email is flowing, Slack is slacking, Zoom is zooming, WordPress is pressing, and Anchor is podcasting. Things are all in the right place.
This sight of new bluebonnets in a field of stork’s-bill blossoms had to make me smile this morning when I went to the mailbox.
After I took the scary old phone out to be returned, I went to check on the chickens again, since the first time I went in, Buttercup was laying. This time, Star was in there, so I came up empty-handed. Oh well, I knew there’d be two eggs in there later.
People may consider false dandelion a weed, but I think they are charming and cheerful, so I took a picture of some over by the henhouse.
Now, every time I feed or check eggs, I also wander around the garage, where I have found two eggs in random spots lately. I just KNEW the other hens were laying, but I couldn’t find them. I looked high and low, or so I thought. I looked under a LOT of work benches and such. I’d also looked on the garage refrigerator, where we know they now like to roost (it’s warm there; who could blame them?).
Apparently I hadn’t looked high enough on that refrigerator, since all I had was a step-stool. Today, the first time I went in I spotted Springsteen, the Jersey Giant, sitting on the fridge while everyone else was out pecking. She sure looked to me like she was laying an egg. So, I resolved to get up a little higher next time I checked. This second time, I got on the washing machine and stood up. Aha.
Merry Christmas? Happy Easter?
Sure enough, Springsteen and Henley (the only one who lays white eggs) had NOT stopped laying after the snow event. They just found this convenient nest-shaped old Christmas wreath and started laying there, out of the wind and cold. There were 16 eggs, which nicely coincides with the weather event dates, assuming a couple days each of not laying. Mystery solved, all right!
I wondered if the eggs were still any good, so I decided to go ahead and boil any that didn’t float. They all turned out to be good!
No floaters in there!
I feel a lot better chicken-wise, but still can’t find where Bertie Lee is laying, or if she took some time off for being our oldest hen. That’s okay, because her entertainment value is VERY high. I’m also relieved that Vlassic isn’t finding all the eggs and eating them, though that may be what’s happening if Bertie Lee is laying hers at ground level. Dachshunds can smell eggs, it turns out.
Things are back to normal, for the time being. I’m vaccinated, the horse is off grass (thanks to Sara), the chickens are doing their job, and I can work, blog, and podcast without worrying something’s gonna explode.
And, oh yes, certain dogs are back to spreading hair on my good pillow, which I forgot to hide this morning.
I hope your St. Patrick’s Day is also full of good luck and positive vibes!
It was a beautiful morning here, with mist rising from the ponds and a very heavy load of dew, so the grasses and flowers were all shiny. As soon as I went downstairs and sat at my desk, I realized that there are even more birds in the field in front of the house than usual.
Some of the birds I scared off when I walked outside. Mostly starlings, but there’s a meadowlark at left.
The meadowlarks have been all over the fields for weeks now, but I realized that there are also a lot of European starlings, along with some of the red-winged blackbirds that I’ve mostly been hearing and not seeing. The savannah sparrows are also participating (a few white-crowned sparrows are at the edge of the woods, but they don’t like to come out in the middle of the field). Joining the crowds are our breeding pairs of mockingbirds and cardinals. This creates quite a cacophony.
Where I see all the birds. You can see some flying back by the trees. I scared them.
I wondered why there were more birds today than in the past couple of weeks. I put on my Master Naturalist thinking cap and thought there must be some kind of thing for them to eat now that wasn’t there last week.
The male cardinal is in the center. The mockingbirds flew off as I took the picture.
Sure enough, I recalled mentioning to Lee last night that the chickweed was all yellowish and looked like it had gone to seed. Could that be it? The name implies birds like it.
Chickweed in bloom.
So, I went off to search the internet and look at that. I found an article that told me chickweed is not native, but is good to eat for us humans, too. It’s chock full of vitamins and minerals. Most important:
Chickweed is also grown as feed for chickens and pigs, hence its common names clucken wort, chicken weed, and birdseed. Wild birds also love to eat chickweed seeds.
Well, there ya go. I used my brain and got my answer. It looks like I’ll have plenty of bird-watching fun for the next few days, right out my little window. Chickweed is my new friend, and officially a wildflower and NOT a weed (even though I already figured it was).
This is not fascinating, but does show some chickweed seed heads.
Anything exciting going on where you are?
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Since neither my sister nor I felt great after our vaccinations, we didn’t do dinner tonight. That, combined with the fact that it’s the first night of Daylight Savings Time led me to decide to spend some quiet time in the woods.
Hermits’ Rest woods just before the trees leaf out.
It wasn’t a quiet time, because there were so many birds, mostly white-crowned sparrows, mourning doves, mockingbirds and cardinals.
The female cardinal was chirping away when I took this.
I just wandered slowly (I left the dogs in the house) so I could see the birds, hear the creek flowing away, and enjoy the new leaves budding.
The creek makes a wide spot where lots of fish live.
It always smells good in the damp woods (even with the cow poop scattered around). It’s especially musty and lovely by the seep, the springy area in the woods that never dried up at all last year. I crouched beside it a long time, listening to birds and watching them fly around.
It’s like my own baby swamp!
While I was there, I heard a loud bird sound, then something big flew by. I was enchanted, and I confirmed my hunch when I heard a hammering sound. It then flew by again, with a flash of black, white and red. It was the biggest pileated woodpecker I ever saw.
Photo taken yesterday in Virginia by Bob Hass.
While I’ve seen them here before, never so close and so large. No, no photo. I was using my eyes!
Eventually I stopped being a hermit and joined Lee for a walk around the pond behind the house with the dogs. That’s always so relaxing. I was captivated by the perfection of dandelion seed heads and a little circle of verbena. A nice evening.
Today was one of those do nothing but clean up and get stuff done days. For some reason, floor cleaning hurts my back, so I am zonked. But you need to dust and clean occasionally, right?
I got some good knitting in. My entrelac looks like something now. I enjoy knitting forward and backward, so I never have to turn the work.
A little lumpy, but nice colors.
The other one I started took a while to figure out, but will look good as it gets bigger. It’s a lot of slip stitches.
Hmm. Barf or nice?
I did see a few pretty plants and other living things today, plus I checked on the new fish, who all seem to be in the barrel. Enjoy these!
Tiny snail
More bees!
Milkweed seeds
Tiny goldfish
Verbena
Grackle in College Station
Very young grasshopper
Sparrow.
My sister made me and Lee a salmon dinner followed by a nice cake. Good ending to the birthday weekend.
I have been thinking about a few things and will get more interesting next week. Until then, here’s a checkered skipper butterfly.
The Hermits' Rest 