herons – Page 2 – The Hermits' Rest

Hi There, Ranch Neighbors

Yesterday I wrote about farming, about which I don’t know much. Today I enjoyed residents of our greater ranch community, which I understand a bit more, and always get much peace and pleasure from.

I was delighted to see that the folks whose cattle live here had put some cows and their older calves out behind us. I recognize many of them, which is kind of cool. Some cows have been here since these folks first came here.

The cattle brought some friends with them, a little flock of cattle egrets (Bubulcus ibis). These small herons have spread across the world as farming practices have made their lives easier. They hang out near cattle and other large mammals and keep them free of insects and ticks.

Their expansion is fairly recent. I remember them being an exciting newcomer when I was a small child in north Florida’s cattle country. Mom loved to see them sitting on the Brahma and Hereford cattle.

The resident great egret is graciously sharing the pond. I’m not sure how the green herons are taking it. I haven’t heard them in a couple of days.

This afternoon, after a change in plans, I went over to Sara’s to see how her horses are getting along. Of course, this entailed much time oohing and aahing over Jhayati, who I hadn’t seen in a while.

She’s 2.5 months old and already getting gray hairs. Sara says that means she probably got two copies of the gray gene. She’ll finish graying out before Drew does!

Love the shape of her face, which is typical of an Andalusian.

Her coat is softer than velvet, and she’s very friendly. Sara’s doing a great job slowly teaching her life skills. Meanwhile, her mom, Sully, spends a lot of time pointing out that she is beautiful and needs to be petted, too.

The lead rope setup is what Tarrin recommended to Sara. And how about that tie dye! She made it.

Aragorn pretends the foal doesn’t exist, which is cute and probably right for the Head Horse, but the other horses are helpful. I really enjoyed my visit, though it sure was hot. Mornings are much better horse time, even if mine aren’t thrilled at first.

You can see gray on her face. She’s also shedding baby hair, so it’s a bit awkward.

I guess that’s it for the ranch neighbor report. It’s so hot and dry that we just can’t drum up any excitement. That’s absolutely fine with me.

Love, Herons, and Horses

Sorry folks, I’m running out of stuff that’s not navel gazing and depressing. I’ve got to stop dwelling on the end of democracy and the worship of guns over people. When did the second amendment become so much more important than the first? What a world. Ok. Last incriminating expression of opinion and back to cute animals.

Another cute picture of Vlassic as edited by Lee.

So, I’m concentrating on love outside of the hate-filled realm of humans. Yesterday afternoon, Sara came over to do her farrier thing and trim Apache and Drew. While she was working on Apache, Droodles did everything he could to get attention. His head kept coming through the hole in the pens and poking us. Luckily, Mabel was in the pen with him, so she distracted him some. They just did calm friendship things together. Lots of rubbing and nuzzling. It was sweet.

Everyone got lots of fly spray, since Haggard the bill was also hanging out, and like most cattle, he was covered in flies. Droodles immediately rolled his spray off. At least he rolled in a dry spot.

That’s better! You should roll too, Mabel. No thanks, I would rather swish my tail.

When Drew tired of Mabel, he bonded with his other friend, the bull. They played for quite a while. The horses have enjoyed him while he’s been over here.

Apache was just sighing and getting his feet done through all this. Both horses look much better now. I’m glad it dried up enough to get this done. It rained overnight of course.

After the trimmings I was hot as heck. It’s so humid. So I jumped into the pool. Suddenly, I heard an unfamiliar squawk. I looked over at the pond behind the house, and sure enough, there was a large bird at the very top.

I thought to myself, ah, that must be one of the green herons who are building a nest in there. I’ve been seeing them flying around together, and just recently saw them bringing large sticks over to what I figure must be a nest deep in the trees. I’m pretty excited about it. So, I took pictures.

Hold on, that bird has a neck and is not brown and green.

So, I dripped my way into the house and grabbed the binoculars. HA! That’s a male yellow crowned night heron in breeding plumage! Dang! How beautiful. I wish I had a real camera and good lens, because this guy was gorgeous. As I watched him, there was movement slightly lower on the tree. I saw a bill and realized his mate was also there.

That means there were two pairs of herons together. I confirmed it when the Merlin app identified them both during a squawking episode. I never saw the green ones, though.

The best part of my poolside bird watching was when the pair took off. They flew right over me, and with my binoculars I could see the beautiful female really well. Ah, love.

Speaking of love. We have at least ten nest boxes, but these ladies wanted to lay their eggs together. One blue egg, one white egg, one pinkish brown egg.

Birders Are Great, So Are Birds

Today it was certainly warmer here in Hilton Head than it was back at the Hermits’ Rest. Please be thinking of my friends, family, and animals tonight. I never like it when there’s a winter storm warning, but I know the animals are all protected!

I enjoyed looking at large groups of ducks out in the ocean, which to me looked like hooded mergansers. They were so far out, though, that I couldn’t quite tell what they were. It was frustrating, but they and the dolphins were fun to watch. More on the ducks later.

My best photo of the ducks. What quality!

After work, Lee and I went to what passes for a town center here, and I got a couple of hats, including one that makes me look a lot like I live on Gilligan’s island. But the pink lining is oh-so-flattering.

I have on my new Hermits’ Rest Ranch sweatshirt, from Side Hustle Shirts.

We had an early supper at our favorite Greek restaurant, It’s Greek to Me. I had absolutely fantastic Mediterranean style cod and Lee had lamb, which he didn’t like at first, but warmed up to. I sure like the quality of food at this place!

We enjoyed watching this great blue heron catching something (looks like a leaf).

When we got back, I headed out for a sunset beach walk, which is my favorite activity here. It was cloudy, but there was a beautiful pink and pale blue light that turned the water the color usually called seafoam green.

I even found some actual seafoam, and interesting patterns of what appears to be pollen deposited at the highest point of the tide. Elm trees are already in bloom here, so my guess is they have something to do with the formations.

I enjoyed watching seagulls at the water’s edge. They would go to the wettest part of the sand and stomp their little feet, stirring up whatever little creatures they wanted to eat. I eventually took a little movie of them. Even lowly seagulls can be fun to watch!

Dance of the Gulls

On my way back I kept stopping to look at the ducks. I saw a man with a big camera up by the dunes. Eventually he walked over and asked me if I thought those were hooded mergansers. I said I saw white on them and they had what appeared to be large heads.

The man then shared with me that they are often spotted here in big groups (rafts), but that there are other birds that they could be. He asked what else I saw, which was great, because he said that the osprey I saw is “the” osprey of this beach, and that the yellow-rumped warblers are everywhere right now, so it’s no wonder I kept seeing them.

Soon a young-ish woman (younger than the man and me) came up and asked about the ducks. We embarked on a wonderful conversation about what birds we’d seen, what apps we use, and what we’d like to see here (the man lives here, lucky dude). The woman suggested the birds might be scaups (there are two kinds here). At last, the man picked up the fancy camera and took a few pictures, after which his battery died, but not before we got to see an image. They were scaups! The white I saw was the body of these lovely water birds, which do have large heads. I should have guessed the birds were scaups, because I could tell they sit lower in the water than ducks.

photo by taarnersuaq on iNaturalist. The top bird is not a scaup. It’s a coot. A cute coot.

Just as we finished talking about terns and I was about to leave, a large bird swooped by right above the water. I said, whoa, that thing could be a skimmer! The man said it was! Lucky for us, it came back, and I got to see this fascinating bird up close. They are relatives of gulls that feed by flying barely above the water with their mouths open and the bottom jaw in the water. I got a great view of it, then got a not-so-great photo next time it considerately passed.

Charles J. Sharp took this picture on Wikipedia. What a cool bird!

Wow. That’s enough birding for one day! I just enjoyed the heck out of all the birds I saw and felt so lucky to run into such generous fellow birders. I love how much information bird lovers share with each other. They are the kind of people who restore my faith in humanity.

Welcome to the Hermits’ Rest Aviary

This week, I’ve truly felt like I live in some kind of private bird sanctuary or something. There are so many beautiful birds to enjoy. This morning I went out to feed the hens, and the ground was heavy with dew, which must have made all the birds in the world happy. Once again, we were heavy on the heron family, with the usual great blue heron and green heron (the tricolored heron did not make an appearance) joined by an entire flock of great egrets (usually we just have one or two). There were also a couple of cattle egrets (distinguished by their yellow legs as opposed to the black legs on the larger birds).

Plus, there were ten or twelve black vultures, hopping and bopping along the edge of the pond or tank. They were drawn by the dead armadillo, who’s contributing to the Circle of Life by feeding both these guys and turkey vultures, who were out in force yesterday. Turkey vultures have red heads, while black vultures’ heads are black. That makes for easy identification.

There were also the twittering English sparrows flitting around, along with all the grackles that sit on the electrical wires then fly around in a huge murmuration, descending on the fields, then departing again. Cardinals are constantly coming and going, as well. Plus there was something that makes a big screech sound, which I haven’t managed to catch on the Picture Bird software to see what it is.

That’s a lot of birds. Plus the storks are still around, which warms my heart.

When I tire of the pond, I go over to the black willow trees beside the front tank, which now has a little water in it, thanks to a bit more rain (hooray for the rainy season).

There I’ve been seeing one, and just one, scissortail flycatcher. I wonder if it somehow didn’t migrate. By the way, did you know they’re related to the Western kingbird? We have those here, too!

The trees are just chock full of tiny birds, including chickadees, orchard orioles, and warblers I can only hear but not see. Oh yeah, and the mockingbird whose territory is the telephone pole across the street, who mimics the woodpecker who also hangs out there. Since I don’t have photos of those guys, here are some sparkly dew-encrusted tiny mushrooms.

What a symphony! That’s what I’ve been enjoying lately. I’ll spare you the cuckoo, owls, and many sparrows in the woods. It’s too muddy to try to get photos of them, so I just listen.

I can’t wait to watch the geese and cranes migrating.

What’s Good with You?

I hope you’re finding good things in your life. They’re in there somewhere! Today I enjoyed a sunrise. Ok. The sunrise. There was just one.

It was pretty in every direction.

I was surrounded by color!

That was my idea of goodness. No day that starts this pretty could be all bad. Even when you realize your pond has gone dry.

Ooh a barrel. Maybe Drew can pull it out!

There’s stuff blooming, though. And I found a passion fruit.

I even have a new friend, the garden spider who guards the henhouse. She decided to build her nest right across the door. I walked through it. Yuck. And she’d started rebuilding by the time I finished feeding the chickens. She’s good, though. I got to watch her deal with a grasshopper that got in her web. In mere seconds, it was all wrapped up and probably wondering what the heck just happened.

One more bit of goodness was that I saw an unfamiliar bird land on the back pond, the one with water. Then another. It was big, but not as big as a vulture or heron. But it looked like a heron…something was different about its head. Sure enough, it IDed as a tricolored heron! Yay! Now I’ve seen five: great blue, great egret, green heron, cattle egret, and the tricolor.

Blurry, but the shape of the bill is distinctive.

That’s plenty of good. Plus I got out of the house to go look at houses this afternoon AND ate dinner out with Kathleen. So glad she’s recovering! To celebrate, enjoy dog photos!

The Latest Case of Missing Eggs: Solved

I may have mentioned that the family reported no eggs the entire time I was in Austin last week. I found a few over the weekend, but not the usual amount.

In case the fact that Star had gone broody was making laying hard on the other hens, I set up two cardboard boxes with bedding in them, to make more compartments in the old roosting area. No one used them, far as I could tell.

Then on Saturday, when I went to check for additional eggs under Star, I realized that the eggs I’d marked with a star were no longer there. Three different eggs were there. THAT is when I decided eggs were being laid, but consumed. Grr.

I can’t make the grass around the coop die and the big mower can’t reach it. I thought putting the food container in that space would be useful, but…ants came.

I knew it had to be a snake, because nothing else, other than a human, can get in. Then I was worried for Star, since she is setting so dedicatedly on her nest! I must have checked for a snake a dozen times this weekend, and other people were checking, too.

These blurry but happy chickens are eating all the food I had to throw out due to ants. They also eat ants.

So, today, when I FINALLY had a chance to move my butt off my office chair, I went to check the chickens. There were two eggs under Star. Good. Then, I went back, because I was thinking that perhaps if I set the new nesting boxes I put in sideways, the hens might like them better. I moved the one on the left, and heard the weirdest sound. I carefully peeked in the other box, and there, under the chicken bedding, was a very content rat snake. I KNEW it had to be lying around somewhere nearby, and it was just hiding! I’d probably missed it earlier.

I asked the nephew to please eliminate the snake, which he did quite efficiently. As always, I hate doing this, but I know it would come right back if I just moved it off to the woods (previous experience). Besides, I am pretty confident we have a LOT of rat snakes here, so I’m not leading to their extinction. Ranch life is hard. To cheer you up, though, here’s one of our herons in the tank behind the house.

If you put goldfish in the troughs, expect a visit from me, the fish killer.

And…it’s raining again. I’d hoped to go visit Aragorn the beautiful dream horse at Sara’s later today, so I hope there’s a break!

Random Goodness

I may as well share the good and/or interesting stuff of the day. Maybe I’ll do this every so often.

First, I got the little bistro sets up in the break area by the stairs at the Pope Residence. They surprised me by fitting. I even ate lunch at one. Now that no one else eats in the office, I’ll fine solo in style!

Kathleen and I picked these out in hopes that they would fit.

And I opened the box with the dishes for the office. I just set out coffee cups, in case a visitor wanted some coffee. The rest are i. The cabinets for now.

If it’s deemed too junky, I can put them away.

So that was fun. I also had fun looking at birds this afternoon. I finally determined the small heron I keep seeing is a green heron. It was out with the blue heron behind the house, and while I was looking at them and turtles, I spied the BIGGEST bullfrog I ever saw. Turns out they can weigh up to 1.5 pounds!

There was no way to get a photo of the frog, but I did get a picture of this scary kissing bug. It will not give me Chagas’ disease because it is deceased. Buddhism fail.

The best news is this! We had four eggs today! That’s the first time I got four eggs since we built the hen house here by our house. Thanks, Springsteen!

Bertie, Fancy Pants, Springsteen, and Hedley.

By the fall molting season, we may have a few more kick in! It would be nice to be able to share them with friends and family before they shut down to molt.