To my Blog-fans

Sorry I have been so lazy lately. I promise to turn over a new leaf and get back to blogging ASAP.

Wordless Wednesday

Since I haven't been doing much blog-worthy the last few days, I thought I'd put up a gratuitous photo of Sky to fill in for a Wordless Wednesday, but I've never done a Wordless Wednesday post before so I thought I'd explain to you why I'm doing one now, except that I realized that all these words defeat the purpose of Wordless Wednesday, so maybe I shouldn't be doing all this explaining, but now that I've started it, I don't know how to quit, since I seem to be stuck in this loop and ....

Oh, forget it. I suck at Wordless Wednesday!

Too Busy to Post

This week has just been CRAZY! We have been overwhelmed with sick patients, some very critically ill, every day of the week. I have come home from work every night and crashed from exhaustion. At least, I managed to keep up with my pottery classes. On Tues and Thurs, I left home at 7am, worked from 8am till 6:30-7:00pm, including working through "lunch", then spent two hours at the studio, and made it home by 10pm Tues, by 9:30 tonight.

Whew! I'm beat.

Three day weekend ahead, so I'll get some words and pics up soon.

So there, SGN

Susan (Gets Native) insists that I am a birding jinx. (For video proof, click here.) I insist that we never see any birds because I can't get her out in the field before noon. Regardless whose fault it is, we do seem to come home from birding trips with pitifully short Trip Lists. We spent 3 hours birding yesterday and got less than 20 species.* Let me explain why we miss more birds than we see:

A) Any birding trip that involves Susan and I includes lots of laughing and talking. This is great fun, but makes it hard to find birds. Either we make so much noise that they fly away, or we don't notice the ones that are right in front of us. Or both.

B) We are easily distracted by other natural things around us - flowers, butterflies, dragonflies, frogs, cavities that might hold nesting birds, and, in Susan's case, dead stuff and dog poop. Yeah, she really stops to examine poop along the trail. Thankfully, she only picks up the dead bits with her bare hands, not the poop.

C) When birding during the Brood XIV cicada emergence, Susan pauses every five minutes to brush the bugs out of her hair or off of her clothes. I wear a big straw hat, primarily as a sun screen, which serves to ward off most cicadas, and try to catch them to throw on Susan. It's the Cicada Stomp, a popular Clermont County dance that occurs every 17 years.

Despite our jokes, we actually DO see birds, and hear them, too. Here's what we got yesterday:
1. Northern Cardinal
2. Chimney Swift
3. Mourning Dove
4. Red-bellied Woodpecker
5. Red-shouldered Hawk (heard only)
6. Field Sparrow
7. Indigo Bunting (Any trip that involves that much blue can't be bad)
8. Carolina Wren (heard only)
9. American Crow
10. Great-crested Flycatcher (my first confirmed of the year)
11. American Goldfinch
12. Northern Mockingbird
13. Pileated Woodpecker
14. House Finch
15. Eastern Phoebe
17. Chipping Sparrow (pair)
18. Downy Woodpecker
19. White-breasted Nuthatch (a whole family - mom, dad, and 2 kids)

Now, a 3 woodpecker day is a good day in my book, Indigos are always lucky, and the GCFL made my week. Plus, the last 5 species we got while birding by butt, sitting on the back deck of the Visitors' Center in the shade. How decadent is that? Finally, you could not believe the cuteness of the Chippies or the WBNU family - so sweet you could eat 'em on crackers, I think Susan would say.

Why no pictures? Because I focus on birding, using my bins more than my camera. Susan takes pictures - it's one reason why we're a good team. The Jinx Team is making plans to invade Cape May next fall. If you want to see birds there, maybe this isn't the year you should go. Just warning you.

[*Edit: I forgot Brown-headed Cowbirds. We did get 20 species after all. Neener, neener, neener!]

Watch this space

Sorry for the absolute dearth of posts here at KatDoc's World lately. The last two weeks have been filled with the anticipation of, the realization, and the rumination on, a weekend visit from an old and dear friend. I haven't been much in the mood to read and comment on others' blogs, let alone post to mine. I have a couple of things in the preparation stage right now, and should be back on the air real soon. Stay tuned...

Ain't Life Grand (Valley)?

Susan and I are racing to see who can get their post up first tonight! She has the advantage of a shorter drive home and a faster Internet connection, but she is working under the handicap of her back-up camera and maybe no software to upload her photos. (I will let her explain the camera crisis.) I had an hour and 15 minute trip home (had to factor in time to pick up my dogs from work) and my perpetual issues with uploading photos via dial-up, so it is even money as to who will win. (Note: Susan won. Of course, she is younger and faster.)

If you can't guess, we went to Grand Valley, aka the Camp Dennison gravel pits. Long a favorite waterfowl spot among the Cincinnati birding community, the pits have always been explored from above, using a spotting scope. Entry was forbidden, primarily as a safety precaution. These former quarries could be quite dangerous, and liability was a concern. Recently, the property was acquired by Indian Hill and the pits were renamed "Grand Valley Nature Preserve." Access was restricted to those with an upscale address, and the No Entrance signs were changed to Entry by Permit Only.


Susan has been steaming about this ever since her illegal (albeit accidental) trespassing episode last year, and my public scolding. (Bossy old me :-P) However, there is more than one way to skin a cat (or pluck a duck?) and tonight, we got into Grand Valley legally. The naturalist there is a friend of mine from Crooked Run Nature Preserve and CNC, and he graciously offered to let me come in whenever he is on duty. Thanks, Dennis, for inviting us in and making us feel welcomed, despite our low-rent ZIP Codes.

south end of the main pond at Grand Valley
See any ducks? Neither did we.

I was hoping for waterfowl, shorebirds and some good songbirds. At first, all we got were Mallards, Killdeer and Mourning Doves. But, then we added Blue-winged Teal and Wood Ducks to our waterfowl list, Least Sandpipers for shorebirds, and a sweet warbler who sat low and posed for us in excellent light. Susan cursed her point-and-shoot digital camera with its 2.8x lens, I studied it through my bins and looked it up in my Peterson's, while managing a couple of images with my only-slightly-better 4x zoom. I decided on Prairie Warbler. (Birders, chime in.)

Edit 9/22, 3:25pm: Dr. Zickefoose, Science Chimp and birder extraordinaire, has diagnosed my warbler as a male Cape May, not a Prairie. I forgot to look for the lemon-lime badonkadonk. (Actually, Cape May was my first guess, then I convinced myself I was wrong. No really, it was. I'm not making it up.)

There really is a warbler in the center of this photo.

See it now?

I didn't get any photos of the warbler with a gray head, white eyering, and clear yellow belly. Although I desperately wanted it to be a Connecticut, I am resigned to it being a Nashville Warbler, still a good bird. Other birds seen but not photographed include Pied-billed Grebes, a Turkey Vulture, Chimney Swifts, a Gray Catbird, Northern Cardinals, Carolina Chickadees, crows and coots.

We did have a good case for "Birding CSI." Any idea whose skull this is?

Does this help?

Yup, Canada Goose.
The Science Chimp would be so proud of us.

Susan spent an inordinate amount of time photographing a rock pile. Yea, that's blog worthy, Susan. And so attractive.

Reasons why we didn't see more birds:

5) Bad weather/too hot.
4) Dogs and kayakers spooked the ducks.
3) "Birding has been weird all week." (Dennis)
2) I forgot my spotting scope.

and Susan's number one reason why we didn't see more birds:

1) I am a birding jinx. (For the record, I don't think this is true.)

Why my Trip List is So Short

Top 5 reasons why I didn't identify many birds at Lake Erie last weekend:

5) Warblers are too small and too quick.

4) The trees had too many leaves.

3) I was distracted by mosquito bites.

2) "The lighting was bad - from all angles." (BT3)

and the number one reason why I didn't identify many birds last weekend

1) My dog ate my field guide.