Spring is the time when things get moving around. We’ve had mouse visitors at the ranch house, but the dogs took care of that.
This li’l guy is a rough earthsnake.
The Hermit Haus office also got a visitor yesterday. Our neice, Kathleen, was there working when, to her surprise a little wriggly fellow crossed the floor. Luckily she’s a farm gal (she lives on our farm in Yorktown where Lee’s dad used to live).
Onviously it was a small snake. Those are small holes.
According to her, it took a while, but she got the little fellow to exit the building, and he or she quickly beat a retreat down the drain outside the door. We’ve been checking for our neighbor since then, but there have been no further signs.
And those ducks
I continue to get a lot of joy from the whistling ducks. This morning, three of them were sitting on top of our house across the street. It just seems weird to see ducks up high like that.
Three ducks on a roof.
Of course, I scared them off before I could get a closer picture. But they made that hilarious whistlig duck noise, so it’s okay!
You disturbed us!
Weather?
Hope your Friday is or was a good one. At least it’s no longer cold here. Monday started off in the 30s, and on Thursday it was well over 90! Texas weather is something else!
Our Austin house is minutes away from Bull Creek District Park and Greenbelt, a popular recreation destination and one of Austin’s most charming assets. It’s sad that Anita and I haven’t made our way over there after living in the Bobcat Lair for over a year. Today I was working from home and needed a break, so we grabbed my son and his partner, had some delicious barbecue at the County Line. There we enjoyed all the turtles and the massive carp hanging around wanting to be fed.
Check out those BIG fish.
Then headed over to check out the greenbelt. This was sort of a reconnaissance visit, since we knew we would not have time to go on a long walk or explore much, but we had plenty of fun.
I skillfully hid a car and a trash can to get this view looking toward the road.
There are beautiful oaks here that you know were here all along, not planted by someone.
Ah, peace and quiet in Austin.
What a joy it was to explore the quiet creek and riparian area in peace and quiet. This place can be quite busy, but we shared it only with a mother and her two sons, who reminded me of myself twenty-something years ago. The littlest one was buck naked and running around with a stick, poking it into chunks of algae and laughing in the way only a little kid with all the time in the world, cold water, and a stick can laugh.
I did so much over the weekend that I never got time to sit down, much less write about what I was doing!
Just for the beauty. Not a native tree!
A lot of my stuff was work-related, so I wrote about that over on the other blog. Much paint selecting, light fixture choosing, office rearranging and such. I’m actually quite surprised at how little my arms hurt after wrangling giant tables.
Fuzzy willow blossoms and a bit of the bluebonnet I was sniffing. They smell great.
Luckily, there was also some time to check out what’s blooming and flying overhead. I think the black willow flowers are really pretty, like fuzzy caterpillars.
Flying ducks
And all over town, as I was driving between projects, I enjoyed hearing the gurgling sounds of the black-bellied whistling ducks as they flew over.
I’ll try to get a closer photo.
I was not at all upset to need to take our helper, Kim, home, because I knew I’d get closer looks at the ducks. They really have day-glo beaks and feet! I love their visits, especially when I can spot them in trees.
Cedar waxwings backlit.
The cedar waxwings are still around, too, and their little chirps often surrounded me. Kim had to be very patient when I took a bunch of pictures. I had to!
And I’m friendly, too.
Saturday night we spent a bit of time with this fellow. He’d spent two weeks in the rye field across the road. He finally figured out there is a big gap in the fencing and took a stroll. After much discussion it was determined he didn’t belong to any neighbors and got taken to a sale barn where they’ll try to find his owner. You’d think someone would miss a Charolais bull this handsome.
See my sweaty back? I’m so tired.
My final weekend fun was getting the poor horses all sweaty. We went all over the ranch and did brave things. Fiona kept dawdling, so Sara and Spice kept herding her. Once we just waited in the cool shade of a wooded area. When Fiona finally made it, we looked down to see the grass higher than her belly. She looked like she was a toy in an Easter basket. Wish I’d had my phone!
Last night I went to the El Camino Real Master Naturalist meeting, as I do most every month. I wrote up a post for their blog with lots of details about what I learned, so here I want to share my deep enjoyment from listening to women who are passionate about birds and birding as they share their passions with others.
Three women from our group spoke about how they engage in bird watching, each with a different perspective and knowledge base. I sat there like a little kid, all enthralled at the details they shared. It was thought-provoking to look at how each of them engaged in their hobby. Here’s what I saw (just using first names here).
Ann tells us you really, really need a good bird book.
Ann has been birding for many years, and she does it for the same reasons I do: basically, she likes birds a lot. Her passion and enthusiasm for identifying new and unusual birds was very obvious, but she reminded me of my methods for birding. She said if she didn’t know what a bird was from quickly observing it, she’d often just move onto the next, in contrast to her birding friend who just HAD to identify every single bird she saw, in a scientific way. Of course, Ann knows pretty much all the birds you can see around here; she just doesn’t stress over what she doesn’t know.
Joyce shares the various ways we can upload our observations to help researchers.
Joyce also loves birds, and watches them in a very accurate and detailed way. She keeps good records of her feeder, counting them carefully, and only identifying the ones that come into her feeder watch zone. There is a great deal of discipline to her approach to observing birds, which goes along with her amazing attention to detail in other parts of her life. We need birders like Joyce, too, to provide accurate data for researchers. (Of course, she’s also having fun.)
Here, Ann is listening to Cindy tell us her suet recipe. Some samples are on the table.
Then, there’s Cindy, whose approach to birding is to figure out how she can practically help the most birds. She shared with us her recipe for making lots and lots of suet for little money, so that the woodpeckers and other birds that like to feed on trees and eat more than just seed can be satisfied. She’s not there just to watch or count or record she’s there to help the birds thrive.
(All the women also carefully feed and water their birds; I was just contrasting their main styles.)
Another birder style was described by Ann, who talked about a very intense young man who asked to come to her house, because he was on a mission to get three more birds on his Milam County list of 100, and she had some of them in her yard. As soon as he saw one, he went on to look for the next. No lollygagging, watching behavior, or anything. And he didn’t stick around to chat; nope, he had to go to Bell County to work on his count there. These are the kind of birders people often gently poke fun at, but hey, they aren’t hurting anyone, are they?
Bonus sinset from the meeting yesterday.
Like any other hobby, there are many ways to enjoy birding (don’t get me started on process versus product knitters). Do you like to watch birds? Do you feel like you need to know what they are? Do you just enjoy their antics? Do you use them to tell what season it is? Share!
Now, that is a yellow flower!
By the way, I was almost late to the meeting, because I had to take this photo of beautiful evening primroses along County Road 140 across from the cemetery.
I got a request for an update on the hawks at my workplace. You know I just love requests. Since the people in our office spend a LOT of of our break time looking at them, there’s no problem with coming up with a report! The raptor couple are the talk of the water cooler, which pleases me a lot. We have a lot of budding birders being developed!
Thinking about sitting on that ledge.
Here are some of the behaviors we’ve observed:
Eating small animals. They like to do that at the parking garage.
Working on the nest. Every so often, a special new stick comes over.
Dealing with windows. There’s a report that one of them went BOOM into a window earlier this week. Both birds seem okay, now.
Dealing with ledges. While I’ve seen one of them successfully land on the narrow ledges on our building, they also miss frequently, and flap around awkwardly to regroup.
Screeching. Lots of screeching.
Engaging in synchronixed flying. It’s just beautiful watching then swerve and curve then land delicately on the roof or nest.
Being friendly. They groom each other and snuggle up, both before and after what we call their “special time.” We expect some EGGS out of all this! (I do believe Mrs. Hawk is looking, um, plumper.)
I got to sit on the front porch for a few minutes this morning. Finally. And I got excellent news!
Here’s where I saw the swallows. You can also see trees budding out. Ah.
A familiar chirp told me to look up. And oh happy day, there were barn swallows scoping out the area. I love watching them swooping around and eating bugs. I don’t mind the two nests they rebuild every year, either. It’s our thanks for their services.
The shrike WAS on that post.
As I was looking for a swallow to take a photo of (failed), I saw another familiar friend, our loggerhead shrike. These guys take care of larger bugs for us and leave them impaled on barbed wire fences. I wrote a lot about them when I went on a field trip looking for them at last year’s Master Naturalist conference.
I also love porch sitting.
One reason I love porch sitting is the easy bird watching. I’ve seen a red-tailed hawk, black buzzards, mockingbirds, and of course, the field sparrows, too. I hear crows. I sure wish my laptop battery wasn’t dead, so I could do my work outside.
I chose to drive to Boerne, Texas today on the back roads. That rarely disappoints me! The hills and valleys to the west of Austin and San Antonio provide new surprises every time you take a corner or reach the top of a hill.
I passed many beautiful ranches, and saw many longhorns and exotic game. I even saw four axis deer NOT in a fenced area. I guess those guys are here to stay.
I also finally got to visit Kendall County, and Kendalia, where I fulfilled a dream of taking my picture by the sign.
Doing my chipmunk imitation. Kendall in Kendalia.
Everything on the back roads went well until I went to find the Hampton Inn. The Maps app didn’t realize it was on the OTHER side of the Interstate. I called for help, and the poor young woman who answered had just moved to Boerne and had to get help of her own. She gave me an extra water bottle, because I was nice about it.
Yep, it’s on THIS side of I-10. Construction confused my navigation app.
She was also impressed that I brought my own dozen roses with me, thanks to my annual gift from Freytag’s Florist.)
Traveling in style with roses and a fancy coffee in a rose cup.
After all that, I needed fresh air. I checked out the really pretty pool area behind the hotel. There’s a fun waterfall, so I sat in a lounge chair behind it (hey, it was over 50 degrees F!).
Whee! I’m behind the fake waterfall!
Suddenly, a familiar blurry shape descended. A Cooper’s hawk landed in a small tree on the other side of the pool. It was a male or juvenile, quite petite. I watched him checking things out around him, paying no attention to me.
Watching the watcher. Hello, hawk.
I guess this is my season to be reminded of the vigilance and protectiveness of hawks.
It’s been a fun weekend here at the Hermits’ Rest. I managed to go horseback riding twice, which is rare, and Apache and I had lots of fun.
Sara is setting up our cone obstacle course.
Sara set up cones, so we got to ride in patterns. He did way better on Day 2, like he figured it out. I also prevented him from eating thistles unless it was my idea.
Today we went into the pasture where a lot of cattle were. Spice did a great job herding them, and Apache managed not to panic when a big mama came toward him. Baby steps.
The new veggie garden at the cabin. Tyler hopes it will be chicken free.
Meanwhile, Fiona was “helping” Tyler work on his new vegetable garden. And hee-hawing. He has patiently built a fence and covered it, to keep the chickens out. That’s nice of him.
Let me out of this car.
Even more exciting was the fact that the sheep’s owner had come to pick them up to shear them. She got the male in her SUV but the ewe would NOT be caught. She thinks she’s a cow, dang it. In the end, they let Sheep Man back out. That’s one for them!
Ooh! Carrots and celery! Thanks!
As for the chickens, they were excited this weekend by food fun. I got them some dried mealworms, which they love. They’re sort of creepy, though, because they look sort of alive when you pour them. Plus, they got even more excited when I bought them veggie leftovers from the dinner I was cooking.
One of these eggs is not like the other!
The it was my turn to get excited! The chocolate brown eggs have started! It’s amazing how tiny pullet eggs are. I want to save the shell!
Homemade chicken and dumplings. Comfort food rules.
Now to eat my chicken and dumplings. Dumplings are secretly flour tortillas cut up. Chicken is not from my hens!
But! I’m going on a fun jaunt and will have things to share later today and tomorrow.
The Hermits' Rest 