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You are here: Home / Nature & Respite / Birdwatching / Warm Fuzzies Open Thread

Warm Fuzzies Open Thread

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I don’t think I’ve shared this photo before, but if I have, forgive the rerun — seems like we could use some warm fuzzies around here regardless:

Warm Fuzzies Open Thread

I took this photo of a limpkin parent and chicks last April. Prospective parents for the 2020 limpkin crop are keeping me up all night with their piercing screeches; it’s courting time in Limpkinville, and good lord, they are loud. Chainsaw loud.

The lady who wrote The Yearling and Cross Creek, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, lived not too far from where I live now. Her 1930s cracker shack is preserved in a state park. Rawlings published a lesser-known cookbook that featured a recipe for limpkin. But the limpkins are safe from me.

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

50Comments

  2. 2.

    Chat Noir

    I recently watched “Cross Creek” on Amazon and really enjoyed it (Mary Steenburgen was great). My 5th grade teacher read my class “The Yearling” and I was obsessed with the book for a time after that.

    Love your waterfowl and dog pictures.

  4. 4.

    Betty Cracker

    @schrodingers_cat: Badger yerked all over a throw pillow on the sofa a while ago, but he seems to feel better now. Daisy is old, poor thing, but she doesn’t complain about it. ;)

    @Chat Noir: From what I’ve read, Rawlings was an enthusiastic and excellent cook. She didn’t live at Cross Creek all that long, but it stuck with her.

  5. 5.

    germy

    The gangly, brown-and-white Limpkin looks a bit like a giant rail or perhaps a young night-heron. Its long bill is bent and twisted at the tip, an adaptation for removing snails from the shell. Limpkins are tropical wetland birds whose range reaches into Florida. They specialize in eating apple snails, which they hunt both day and night, and they often leave telltale piles of snail shells at the edges of freshwater wetlands where hunting is good. This bird’s haunting cries, heard mostly at night, are otherworldly and unforgettable.

  6. 6.

    TomatoQueen

    Similar experience w/The Yearling and then came to Cross Creek and Cross Creek Kitchens after moving to Fla. What is wanted is a cow named Dora, who tho’ foul tempered, gave the most golden milk, whose cream made the most glorious ice cream. I have made “Utterly Deadly Pecan Pie” with good results, and can also attest to the Sherried Grapefruit, which sounds weird but is NOM.

  7. 7.

    Elizabelle

    The limpkins are beautiful.  Glad to see them.

    Limpkins in the wild, not on a plate!

    I guess we are all having an easier time telling Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings from Marjorie Stoneman Douglas, alas.  And we have another excellent writer from Florida right here, albeit a bit more irreverent.

  8. 8.

    Mnemosyne

    It’s mating season for the stray cats in our alley, which is really freaking our cats out — does that count?

    They really enjoy birdwatching when the babies start hatching and they can watch Bird TV through the window. It’s probably like us watching the Food Network: delicious things that we can imagine eating but are too far away.

  9. 9.

    Hungry Joe

    Alice the Dog — she who was attacked and badly mauled by a lunatic neighbor’s lunatic dog just over a year ago — turns 13 tomorrow. She has recovered completely, both physically and emotionally, and remains a happy goofball. My badly bitten hand is 100 percent, too. I just hope our celebration of her Valentine’s Day birthday isn’t marred by my current nightmare fantasy’s coming true: a pardoned Roger Stone strutting about in triumph, arms raised, fingers in the Nixonian “V.” It’s gonna happen, but please — not tomorrow.

  10. 10.

    Betty Cracker

    @germy: Amazing lashes! I think the bird I’d least like to encounter would be the cassowary. They’re about the size of an emu and descended from velociraptors. They have 4-inch claws. One killed a dude on an exotic animal farm over in Gainesville a while back.

  12. 12.

    Elizabelle

    Sherried grapefruit, hmmm?  Sounds worth a try.  And very easy. Source:  Damon Lee Fowler’s blog.

    To that end, here’s Sherried Grapefruit, a refined yet nearly forgotten classic that whispers of old china, silver, and crisp linen. It makes an exquisitely simple and lovely first course for brunch, lunch, or a light dinner. It also makes a refreshingly light dessert for the end of a fish dinner or heavy winter meal like pot roast or hearty meat stew.

    Sherried Grapefruit

    Serves 4

    4 large, ripe pink or red grapefruit
    Medium-dry sherry such as Amontillado
    Sugar
    4 mint sprigs

    1. Cut each grapefruit crosswise in half. Cut out the sections with a citrus knife or serrated utility knife and transfer them to a glass bowl. Add just enough sherry to barely cover them. Let sit 15-30 minutes, taste, and add sugar as needed. Gently stir until the sugar is dissolved, then cover and refrigerate until thoroughly chilled. You may make it to this point up 8 hours ahead (if you’re serving it for brunch, make it up the night before).

    2. Meanwhile, scoop the membrane from the grapefruit rinds, being careful not to tear or puncture the shells so that they form natural cups. Cover and refrigerate them until needed. (If you prefer, you can omit this step and simply serve the fruit in small glass dessert bowls.)

    3. To serve, put the grapefruit cups into glass dessert bowls (or trim them so that they’ll sit flat on a glass plate, or omit them altogether). Divide the fruit evenly among the grapefruit cups or dessert bowls, garnish with mint, and serve cold.

  15. 15.

    Elizabelle

    @Hungry Joe:   Think about Alice the Dog, not Roger Stone.

    Glad to hear she’s fully recovered and celebrating a birthday.  Think of all the back sass you are missing, since she is not a teenage girl.

  17. 17.

    Bill Arnold

    The cat (<a href="male, 1/2 coon) grabbed a roasted Brussels Sprout from my plate 2 days ago, and ran off with it softly growling, hiding under a table. He didn’t eat it though, and gave it up without a chase.

  19. 19.

    Rob

    What a wonderful photograph! There was a Limpkin in southern Fairfax County Virginia, just south of DC, for some days/weeks late last summer. Unfortunately I was not able to make the 45+ minute drive to the park to look for it. It something like the 5th or 6th Limpkin reported from Virginia and a bird that I still haven’t seen.

    eta: Hopefully you’ll be getting some sleep soon, Betty.

  20. 20.

    TomatoQueen

    @Hungry Joe: Oh this is excellent news for Alice and for you. Happy Valentine’s Birfday too. As I recall there might’ve been legal proceedings against the lunatic neighbor–anything further to that?

    Individuals resembling Roger Stone, up to and including Roger Stone, are to be laffed at, good and hard. What a WANKAH.

  21. 21.

    FelonyGovt

    I’m trying to grow parsley from seeds in pots in the back yard. This morning I caught a bunch of crows munching the seedlings. Stinkers.

  23. 23.

    WereBear

    This seems a great time to share the latest review of my cat book! It is killah.

    5.0 out of 5 stars: Wow! I have chills

    Reviewed in the United States on February 6, 2020
    Format: Paperback-Verified Purchase

    Wow……. I have chills reading this book and I really takes a special BOOK to give me the chills- never expected a book about cats to do this.

    This book is more than understanding and helping our cats, it is about helping ourselves, our relationships with love, care, and tenderness.

    Thank you for this gem!

  24. 24.

    Avalune

    I saw a bird that looked a lot like that running around in a field in England… can’t be one of those and I never did figure out what it WAS but it ran fast!

  35. 35.

    Gin & Tonic

    Is there really any such thing as a squirrel-proof bird feeder? I have something pretty closely resembling this, hanging about 6 feet below a roof overhang by a very narrow chain, and this morning looked out the window to see a squirrel firmly attached to the screen/grating, and feasting on the seed. He seemed unperturbed by my protestations. This feeder is at least 7 feet above the ground, so I have yet to figure out how the bastard got to it, but I know they are clever and persistent.

  37. 37.

    Betty Cracker

    @schrodingers_cat: I’m not sure. It was ages ago when I read it. I should reread them!

    @delk: Pretty. I haven’t seen snow since 1993. I don’t want to have to drive in it or even leave a heated area, but I would like a vacation where I could sit beside a roaring fire and look out at snow, maybe sled down a hill until I got too cold.

    @Gin & Tonic: Yankee Flippers work, but they’re pricey. Also entertaining, to watch the squirrels’ efforts foiled.

  39. 39.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Betty Cracker:

    but I would like a vacation where I could sit beside a roaring fire and look out at snow, maybe sled down a hill until I got too cold.

    I just spent four days skiing in Utah. They have lots of snow there, and it got all the way up into the teens

    ETA: No shit, pricey. Wow.

  42. 42.

    WereBear

    @Gin & Tonic: This feeder is at least 7 feet above the ground, so I have yet to figure out how the bastard got to it, but I know they are clever and persistent.

    Much like prison inmates who plot escape. This is what they DO, all day.

  44. 44.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Betty Cracker: I’ve visited there a lot, both winter and summer. The skiing is among the best in the world, and in summer, the drive between Torrey and Bryce on Hwy 12 is one of the most scenic in the US.

  46. 46.

    TomatoQueen

    As to the squirrel-proof feeder. Well. No. Little bastards. The one thing we did to repel them worked well, but you have to remember to replenish from time to time: They don’t like grease, especially on their feet or fur. So Mom handed me the Crisco can and some vinyl gloves, and suggested a thorough application to the roof, the sides, the railings, and the pole, so I did, and with the result of infuriated squirrels shrieking and flapping at their sides and paws. But yes, you do have to re-apply. Dad’s favorite method was the Havahart trap and a ride up to the top of East Rock, but only for those little bastards that ate the rhododendron buds. I suggested a dab of blue paint on each deportee, just to be sure we weren’t capturing the same little bastard over and over again, but Dad ignored me because here came the little flock of wild turkeys hell-bent on destroying the same shrubbery. Suburban garden, joys of.

  47. 47.

    opiejeanne

    @germy: Cornell Labs is a great website for birds and the sounds they make.

    We lived a few doors down from a courting/nesting grove of  buzzards. The screams during mating season almost made us call the police the first time we heard them because it sounded like a woman was being murdered.

  48. 48.

    Bill Arnold

    @TomatoQueen:

    I suggested a dab of blue paint on each deportee, just to be sure we weren’t capturing the same little bastard over and over again,

    My father used to live-capture them, spray paint the tails florescent yellow, and let them go on the other side of a long reservoir. We never saw a returnee with a yellow tail.
    My grandfather, a few times at least, drilled a vertical hole through a walnut and nailed it to a porch railing, and laughed. The squirrels never managed to deal with it, and it distracted at least briefly them from seed-eating.
    My folks also hung a feeder on a wire attached to a limb about 20 feet up. There was one kamikaze squirrel that would slide down the wire head first, knock some seed to the ground then feast on seed on the ground.

  49. 49.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    @Gin & Tonic: Yankee Flippers do work, as do the feeders that close up when anything too heavy climbs on it. Well, so long as you’re careful about not giving them a perch where they can reach the seed without getting on the weight trap.

    https://birdwatchinghq.com/squirrel-proof-bird-feeders/

    Honestly, our best weapons in the battle against the squirrels was to buy primarily safflower seed, which they don’t like to eat, and stir hot pepper powder into the black oil seeds before filling the feeders.

  50. 50.

    LuciaMia

    Those two little limpkins look like they’re saying “Mo-om, we’ re cold. Can we go home now?”

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