Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Compromise? There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. keep building.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

Hell hath no fury like a farmer bankrupted.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

Fight for a just cause, love your fellow man, live a good life.

The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

Innocent people don’t delay justice.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

‘Museums aren’t America’s attic for its racist shit.’

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you don’t.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

People are complicated. Love is not.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Trump should be leading, not lying.

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

Nothing says ‘pro-life’ like letting children go hungry.

You are here: Home / Nature & Respite / Birdwatching / Wednesday Afternoon Open Thread

Wednesday Afternoon Open Thread

by | 109 Comments

This post is in: ,

While trying to work this morning, I was distracted by the sound of a woodpecker hammering away at a nearby tree. I’d look up when I heard it but did not see the bird. I tried to stay on task, but the pecking was so loud, I figured it must be a big old Pileated Woodpecker. Sure enough, when I went outside to investigate, I spotted her on a cypress tree at the shoreline:

pileated woodpecker on a tree branch

 

Gorgeous redhead, huh? And damn near the size of a chicken! I also took a video of her breakfast efforts, which I’m sharing here via tweet:

These are the only type of pecker pics I enjoy. YMMV.

Open thread!

PS: Bonus Ruby-Throated Hummingbird video I got over the weekend:

Apologies to Twitter followers as the pics/vids are reruns…

Reader Interactions

109Comments

  1. 1.

    Old School

    Lovely photos.  I heard/glimpsed a woodpecker yesterday, but didn’t take any pictures.

  4. 4.

    dmsilev

    Nice pictures! I have Anna’s and Rufous hummingbirds perpetually fighting over who gets to drink at the feeder. Territorial little buggers.

  6. 6.

    Emma from FL

    Marvelous! I’ve looked at the hummingbird three times already. The flash of red is stunning.

  7. 7.

    evap

    Gorgeous!  I’ve seen plenty of red-bellied woodpeckers at my feeder, but I’ve never seen a pileated.   I saw a yellow-bellied sapsucker at the feeder a few days ago, the only one I’ve ever seen.   They are somewhat rare in these parts, I think, but it was unmistakable with its black polka-dot belly.   I tried to get a picture, but it was a total fail.

  8. 8.

    jonas

    After moving to NY from the west coast, I can remember seeing my first pileated woodpecker in the back yard and just kind of staring mouth agape for a couple of minutes. They’re quite spectacular birds. You can hear them jackhammering a tree from miles away.

  9. 9.

    CaseyL

    Wonderful photos!

    I love hummingbirds, but I also always feel so anxious for them. Driven by their insane metabolisms, having to constantly eat.

    We get some of them here in my townhouse complex – one of our past residents put feeders out for them. I don’t dare do so, because: cats. It’d be like opening a deli counter.

  11. 11.

    NotMax

    Can tell it is spring by the loud noise of ragga-fragga birds fighting over trying to build a nest in the eaves of the wind barrier which wraps around two sides of the front porch* from the top of the railing to the roof. It’s far too narrow a ledge up top for it so they only end up littering the floor of the porch with twiglets and the like. Every goshdarn year; they never learn.

    *Calling it a porch is an exaggeration as it’s really a stoop, the platform being only about 2½ × 2½ feet.

  13. 13.

    dww44

    I love all the woodpeckers here north of Florida. We get almost all of them. I’d have to say my least favorite is the red-bellied, mostly because it’s the most dominant at our feeders and is aggressive enough that they’ve driven the most beautiful of them all out of our woods. That would be the red headed which was far more common a few years ago. Don’t know if its the red-bellied (orange head is actually more descriptive), loss of habitat, or climate change. 2nd favorite is the Northern Flicker which we only ever get in winter, long about the mid February weekend when the GBBC is taking place.

  14. 14.

    Jharp

    The pileated woodpeckers are so cool. And big.

    I wonder how many it would take to bring down a human.

  16. 16.

    dww44

    @CaseyL: don’t know the exact physical set-up you have, but I had a cat for 16 plus years and fed the hummingbirds for most of that time.  Could’ve been my cat, but she was never much interested in them.  Probably cause she’d never have been able to catch one.  Other birds yes, but not hummingbirds.

  17. 17.

    Ken

    Hey, bird people. On a recent walk, I saw a bird but couldn’t identify it. This is NE Illinois, DuPage county. I was in one of the forest preserves, a little before sunset. The bird was flying over and around a small lake and I got the impression it was catching insects – it had that swoopy swallow-like flight pattern. What caught my attention was that it was making a fairly loud, ratchet-like sound — TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT — as it flew. Any ideas?

  18. 18.

    germy

    First Dogs Beat. They’re back. Champ (12) and Major (3) have returned to the WH residence. Major did get a training refresher while in Delaware after a minor nip of a Secret Service agent’s hand a few weeks ago. (?WH & NBC) pic.twitter.com/jLiaGQRxuu

    — Kelly O'Donnell (@KellyO) March 24, 2021

  19. 19.

    SiubhanDuinne

    I can’t really think of a bird I don’t like* — and I have a number of favourites** — but the woodpecker/sapsucker/flicker guys never fail to cheer me. These are great photos, Betty C! Thanks!

    *Okay, I wouldn’t really want to hang out with, say, turkey vultures, although I acknowledge and appreciate their ecological function.

    **Like many people, I suppose, I love owls. And I have a great fondness for the spectacular “P” birds — penguins, puffins, pelicans, peacocks, parrots, etc.

  20. 20.

    Roger Moore

    @TaMara (HFG):

    Here in Southern California, we have the very odd Acorn Woodpecker.  Like most woodpeckers, they do eat insects, but that’s only a small part of their diet.  Their biggest food source is acorns (duh), which they harvest in the fall and store for the rest of the year.  Unlike squirrels, they store their acorns in holes they drill in trees.  In cities, they seem to love using telephone poles and palm trees, though they have been known to use wooden house siding.  After the harvest, they spend the rest of the year guarding their “granary” trees from other animals that try to eat them.

  21. 21.

    zhena gogolia

    My  husband will love these.

    It sounds as if you live in King Solomon’s Mines.

  25. 25.

    Betty Cracker

    @Ken: Could have been a kingfisher of some type, though they only eat fish rather than bugs (I think). Here’s a Belted Kingfisher I saw a while back. The do have swoopy flying motion and make a loud, ratchety sound while on the wing.  [Picture at comment #30]

  26. 26.

    JoyceH

    @germy: The First Dogs twitter account (not official, a fan account), reported: “We protec. We attac. Guess who is at the White House bacc. “

  27. 27.

    germy

    High Life Among the Birds

    Being terrified of birds myself, I have, naturally, a morbid interest in all their more horrendous activities. It is a form of masochism in which the patient suffering from “aviaphobia” actually seeks out bird-shocks, and asks people questions about the most revolting birds they have known.

    It was with considerable revulsion and consequent excitement, therefore, that I read in Mr. D. B. Wyndham Lewis’ column in the London Daily Mail of a recent bird debauch in England which must give pause to even the most sanguine of bird-lovers.

    (Mr. D. B. Wyndham Lewis, by the way, is one of the few remaining madmen of the bulldog breed, and is not, by even the most literate, to be confused with the other Wyndham Lewis, who, so far as I have ever been able to ascertain, has never had more than a sober thought in his head.)

    * * * * *

    “By an unfortunate oversight,” writes Mr. D. B. Wyndham Lewis, “a bird-lover of my acquaintance replenished the bird bath in his lawn the other evening from a jug of melted ice in which lingered a few cocktail dregs.”

    “The birds,” he said, “mopped it up avidly and swarmed around shouting for more; and at length there was great excitement and babbling in the trees, with bursts of sardonic laughter. My friend who has an ear for bird talk, overheard a truculent blackbird proposing to fly to Kensington and peck the stuffing out of Peter Pan, and a very noisy nightingale boasting at the top of its voice that ‘we microphone artists’ could lay an egg in Sir John Reith’s hat any old time, and nothing said.”

    “In a word,” he said, “it was just like any other cocktail party except that nobody fell down.”

    * * * * *

    If Mr. D. B. Wyndham Lewis had not brought the matter up in his succinct summary I should probably have kept my promise never to mention the occasion on which two guinea hens of my acquaintance made perfect fools of themselves through liquor. They apologized the next day, and I said to forget it. However, as I have since learned that the guinea hens in question ended up in an asylum, I have no compunctions now.

    It came about through a spilled keg of hard cider, but, so far as I know, that has never been an excuse. The guinea hens got drunk. We might as well face it. They were drunk.

    My fear of birds increases in direct proportion to their personality. Birds who mind their own business find me very tractable, but a bird who sets out to impress me soon learns that he has the police to deal with. I am incapable of handling the affair myself, but I know where to go for help.

    * * * * *

    These two guinea hens, once they realized their advantage, deliberately set out to hector me. They were like two drunken “townies” hanging around the drug store as unprotected girls go by. First, they annoyed me with remarks; then they actually set in motion after me and tried to trip me up. One of them even left the ground and struck me on the hip, while the other laughed coarsely.

    I am frank to admit that I ran into the barn and told on them. I said to the man in there: “Has it got so that a man of forty can’t walk through your barnyard without being attacked by drunks?” Then I went into the harness room until the scene was over.

    As I say, they apologized the next day, but I want Mr. D. B. Wyndham Lewis to know that we, in America, have our problems of drunkenness among birds, too. In England they seem to carry their liquor better, that’s all.

    (Robert Benchley)

  28. 28.

    Betty Cracker

    @WaterGirl: The hummer just looks big because he’s puffed out his feathers against the damp and chill. He’s really about the size of my thumb when smoothed out — maybe even as tiny as The Former Guy’s thumb! ;-)

  29. 29.

    Spanky

    @Ken: My guess would be Chimney Swift, but you’d benefit from downloading MERLIN and checking out the calls of all your local swallows and swifts.

    (Fat fingers edited out)

  30. 30.

    Betty Cracker

    Well shit, when I edited my comment at #25 to correct a typo, it deleted the photo. Here it is again:

    Wednesday Afternoon Open Thread 5

  31. 31.

    Roger Moore

    @CaseyL: ​
     
    Don’t be too worried about cats getting the hummingbirds. They’re so fast an maneuverable, the cats will have a lot of trouble catching them. Seriously, cats mostly catch birds that land on the ground, where they can stalk them and get close enough to catch them while they’re either on the ground or taking off and moving slowly. If you hang your hummingbird feeder higher than a cat can easily jump, they’re not going to be vulnerable.

  33. 33.

    frosty

    We had some birdwatching comments at the end of the schadenfreude thread yesterday. M4 was getting interested and bought binoculars and there was some talk about Merlin. I thought a post for new birders might be a good topic on a slow Sunday.

    I went full bore last year and have added >30 to my life list on our Road Trip this year, including a Pileated, finally. Missed seeing Red-Cockaded after trying at two locations, but pretty sure the woodpecker I saw at Palo Duro was a Golden-fronted. I think these are my favorite types and I’m looking forward to finding an Acorn when we get to California.

  34. 34.

    JoyceH

    @germy: Where IS that promised cat? By golly, I’m going to filibuster every one of Biden’s nominations until they follow through on the cat!

  35. 35.

    J R in WV

    @Jharp: ​
     

    I wonder how many it would take to bring down a human.

    Not too many, if they were convinced you were going to timber their woodlands.

    They are small flying Dinosaurs, for sure!!!

    Just listen to their cry, the battle cry of a small Dinosaur. Now imagine if the Pileated woodpecker was 15 feet tall ~!!~

    Back when I regularly attended the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show the first weeks of February, I once came around the corner of one of the blocks of rooms at a hotel show, and beheld a fullsize replica skeleton of a 12 or 14 foot tall flying dinosaur perched on the lawn, unsure of the formal scientific name, but you could tell it could pluck your brain out with one plunge of its bill. Much like that sized pileated woodpecker could~!!~ But so NOT imaginary.

    Betty, so wonderful, I can’t pick a favorite, great video, steady, focused, so close to both birbs!!! Great, thanks so much for sharing!

  36. 36.

    germy

    @JoyceH:

    I’d settle for Ms. Psaki bringing the cat to press conferences.  The cat can stay in the Psaki household.  But I want a cat in this administration.

  37. 37.

    laura

    Betty it’s a wonder how you can sleep with all the racket. I love both videos. Birbs! FYI, my spotty cat did catch a hummingbird this last summer and I was able to gingerly pick it up in a tissue and move him to a safe quiet spot with some flowers and a sugar water soaked cotton ball. Half an hour later I checked and he had flown away. The cry he made when I rolled him onto the tissue was the saddest sound and would rend the hardest of hearts. I’ll never forget it.

  38. 38.

    schrodingers_cat

    Its Holi this Monday.

    This is one of my favorite Holi songs. From the 1958 musical, V. Shantaram’s Navrang *(Nine Colors).   Shantaram Vankudre is one of legends of Hindi cinema. It is a musical about a poet and his muse. The muse is his wife but she doesn’t know it, she thinks he is having an affair. It is a feast of song and dance.

    *Nine moods or colors signify all the emotional spectrum {hasya (joy), adbutha (wonder), shanti (peace), raudra (anger), veera (courage), shringara (love), karuna (distress), bhayanaka (fear), bheebatsa (disgust).}

  39. 39.

    JoyceH

    In other news, a couple days ago I went to the Y and went inside! (Yay, vaccinated me!) I was still a member but hadn’t stepped foot inside the Y for over a year. Man, things have changed! The plexiglass around the front desk, the guy checking your temperature, and all the procedures have changed.

    I used to go in on my own, not taking a class, but working out in the pool or the fitness center. Now you can’t just mosey in and work out, you have to go online or onto the app and reserve a time slot so they don’t go over their numbers. So I got the app and now I can look at the schedules and all that what-not – and come to find out they have classes on Zoom! I could have been taking fitness classes at the Y all through the pandemic. Well, not really because I’m not fit enough, but theoretically I could have.

    I have been working out on my own, walking and doing an exercise video for seniors, so maybe I’ll work my way up to being able to do the classes.

  40. 40.

    sab

    We have a pileated woodpecker that migrates through our metropark. I see it for maybe thirty seconds once a year. Those guys are shy. Betty must live in the uttermost boondocks to have been able to take this shot.

  41. 41.

    cope

    “Red Throat Guy” my wife calls out whenever one of those hummers is sucking up food at the feeder right outside the window behind her computer.  I love how the red throat comes and goes depending on the angle of the light hitting it and the bird’s posture.  However, lately, the feeder has become bee infested so I knocked back the amount of sugar I put in their food a small bit and that seems to help.

  44. 44.

    sab

    @SiubhanDuinne: If they aren’t cat people maybe they shouldn’t have a cat. Not fair to have a cat if they don’t want it.

    The Clintons gave Socks away! To his secretary, who loved him.

  46. 46.

    germy

    This incredible photo was taken 27 years ago today: "Socks the cat peers over the podium in the White House briefing room Saturday March 19, 1994. A White House groundskeeper was walking Socks when he stopped and lifted Socks to the podium." (Photo by Marcy Nighswander/AP) pic.twitter.com/0ZGxY1y5q2

    — Grace Panetta (@grace_panetta) March 19, 2021

  51. 51.

    sab

    My dad enticed away the neighbors’ cat. My mom sighed and said ” we’ll have him forever.” She was right. 8 years after her death, 3 years after dad went to nursing home, we still have the cat. He’s very old and completely blind (different reason for each eye) and very much loved. If my dad hadn’t enticed him away he would have died of neglect years ago.

  52. 52.

    JoyceH

    @germy: ​
     

    LOL! I love how the cat just took up the whole screen and how nonchalantly the lady removed it and kept on about the subject at hand.

  53. 53.

    Ken

    @sab: Betty must live in the uttermost boondocks to have been able to take this shot.

    Maybe she’s one of those people birds naturally trust, like St. Francis of Assisi, or the “Feed the Birds” lady from Mary Poppins.  Who, IIRC, could fly in the book.

  54. 54.

    JoyceH

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: ​
     

    How do the online classes work? Is the whole screen the instructor? I think if I was just starting out, I wouldn’t want the whole class to see my pitiful efforts. Or my messy living room, now that I think of it.

  55. 55.

    Kristine

    @germy: I grew up in Florida in the 60s/70s, and remember the burrowing owls fondly. Little heads popping up in fields.

    Also bobwhites running across the road trailed by a line of chicks. You always waited after they crossed because there was always one straggler.

    Pileateds are around here–far NE Illinois–in the spring. I hear their calls as I walk through the state park.

  57. 57.

    JoyceH

    I’m finding all kinds of stuff today! Free knitting pattern books on Amazon for Kindle! We live in the future!

  59. 59.

    burnspbesq

    Opening night of European World Cup qualifying, and already a major surprise.

    Turkey 4, Netherlands 2.

  60. 60.

    CaseyL

    @dww44:  My cats are Mighty Hunters – well, Oscar still is.  I’ve tried exiling him inside to protect the local birds, but that only worked for a few days, as I’m no good against the Pitiably Heartbroken Cat.  Jeannie’s arthritis has made her mostly sedentary.

    @Roger Moore:   That’s a good tip, thanks!

  63. 63.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @JoyceH: Around here, the instructor is the only one on screen. I used to find it hard to exercise to tapes too. That was even worse. The perky lady on screen said the same thing every single time

  64. 64.

    Dan B

    @jonas: We had a red headed, white breastfed woodpecker near the top of the telephone pole at the corner of our property yesterday.  It was the first woodpecker I’d seen here in Seattle in years.  We were concerned the 12 year old pole had bugs.  No hammering though so it’s unlikely.

  69. 69.

    sab

    @Old School: Which shot did she get? I am so disappointed in Moderna. I love the immunity, but I did want that prehensile tail   Glad I missed the third eye ( Pfizer?).

    OT but I have been geting a lot of porn texts lately. As a 67 year old straight married woman I am not much interested in the latest hot young thing, but I am curious about how they got my number.

  71. 71.

    Jeffro

    I would gladly trade all these frogs and toads (and soon – cicada Brood IX or whatever!) for just one of Betty’s birds.

    Although frankly, the frogs and toads are going to take care of themselves at the rate they’re going.  The end-of-the-evening dog walk last night was just a horror show with all the run-over ribbits in the road.

  73. 73.

    Roger Moore

    @sab:

    As a 67 year old straight married woman I am not much interested in the latest hot young thing, but I am curious about how they got my number.

    The same way as the people calling you to help you renew your car’s warranty.

  75. 75.

    sab

    @Kristine: I was thinking the other day about what I miss and don’t miss from Florida.

    I miss the amazing sunrises and sunsets. I miss the anoles (chameleon lizards). I miss the water ( estuary river and the ocean.) I miss the non-poisonous snakes- our indigo guy/girl.I miss my friends. I miss porpoises and sea cows.

    I don’t miss poisonous snakes, alligators, giant spiders, inch long cockroaches, hurricanes,  rain every afternoon at 4, flat beyond flat landscape, wild boars and their families in the woods.

  76. 76.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @sab: Glad I missed the third eye ( Pfizer?)

     

    Hey there boys & girls are you just about to go out and you look in the mirror and see a zit in the middle of your forehead? Not one of those little things, one that looks like a third eye?

    Why let the rest of the neighborhood call you Cyclops? Use Hickey-Off™ Zit Remover, from the makers of Brillo®!

    Hickey-Off doesn’t just take those zits off on the surface, it gets down deep and rips ’em out by the roots!

    And for those moon-size craters left on your face, use Hickey-Off™ Body Putty! Each jar of Hickey-Off Body Putty comes with a bottle of flesh-colored paint!

    (Couldn’t track a transcript down on the Net; from memory lo these decades ago…)

  77. 77.

    Pauline

    @Roger Moore: My dad had hung a hummingbird feeder at the edge of our porch roof and our cat figured out how to drive them into the sliding glass door that looked out on the porch. When they’d drop down on the ground, stunned, Blackie would pounce and make off with them. That cat could catch anything.

  78. 78.

    Quiltingfool

    @SiubhanDuinne: Re turkey vultures…Many years ago I worked at a state park.  Very early morning, was walking the spring trail, and saw a big group of turkey vultures milling around an open field.  Now I appreciated the value of vultures, but considered them to be dour “icky looking” birds; however, I watched in amazement as several of the birds seemed to be playing!  Chasing around each other, as if they were playing tag.  In reality, it probably wasn’t play, but a mating ritual, but they were cute and endearing nonetheless.

  79. 79.

    Kristine

    @sab:

    I was thinking the other day about what I miss and don’t miss from Florida.

    My lists are similar to yours. I remember going snook fishing with my dad on the Matlacha bridge–such a tasty fish. Even the bait shrimp were good eating. If we didn’t catch anything, we took the leftover shrimp home and Mom butterflied and breaded them. So, I miss the seafood.

    We lost a dog to an alligator. Almost lost one to a rattlesnake. One morning we woke up to find some insect–I think a type of grasshopper or locust–had eaten all the leaves on our crotons. I don’t miss the wildlife.

    Oh, and cheap cement block house construction. I remember the wind-driven rains from one hurricane seeping through the walls of my bedroom and running down the walls.

  80. 80.

    Ken

    @Jeffro: The end-of-the-evening dog walk last night was just a horror show with all the run-over ribbits in the road.

    Assuming humans and cars remain around long enough, evolution will take care of it.  We might end up with armored toads that can take the full weight of a tractor-trailer rig.  Or intelligent toads that look both ways before crossing the street.

  81. 81.

    A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)

    @Roger Moore: In the Oak meadows of Northern California we also have Acorn Woodpeckers.  They have a very complicated social system and the entire family is involved in protecting the granaries of the group. Fun fact: you need at least 3 types of oaks in your area to have Acorn Woodpeckers. They don’t want to put all their acorns in one type of tree’s basket, so to speak.

  82. 82.

    A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)

    @sab: Shy ha! I guess we live in the boondocks, too, because our Piliated Woodpeckers are not shy. They hang out on fenceposts surrounding our (very small) vineyard, loudly proclaiming their ownership (they love the grapes).  They also fly across the canyon, calling as they fly.  They usually take a shit (long white string coming out of their butt) while doing this flight.

  83. 83.

    Mokum

    @Ken: Belted Kingfisher? When I first heard it I thought it sounded like a WW1 era Fokker biplane. Not sure the hunt insects, certainly they dive spectacularly to catch fish. I see themin Central Illinois.

  85. 85.

    S. Cerevisiae

    Love all the bird love, I’ve been birding for many years but really got serious in the early ‘oughts when I was back in college taking field courses. Decent binoculars are definitely worth it and hold their value well, I have a pair of 8×42 Nikon Monarchs that have served me well for 20 years- almost as good as the super high end Swarovskis but a fifth of the price. I need 8 more on my life list to have 600 species, most of them thanks to courses in Costa Rica and Sonora Mexico.

  86. 86.

    Roger Moore

    @Pauline:

    I would not be so sure it was your cat who did the chasing.  Hummingbirds will try to chase each other away from the feeder all the time.  My cat, Jake, caught a few hummingbirds that were chased inside by other birds and got lost trying to find their way out.

  88. 88.

    Kattails

    All winter I’ve had red-bellied, downy, and hairy woodpeckers at the feeders, but I do keep suet out all the time.  The pileateds usually show up around spring and I think I heard a call the other day but haven’t seen it yet. A couple of years ago one decided that my dining room window trim was just the spot for it to drill; I will literally have to replace the trim one of these years, it took out half-by-four inch splinters FFS. Could not get a decent shot of it, and I finally had to hang bird netting in front of the whole window area. Putting a ladder in front of the window just gave it a handy perch.  Sounded like someone was pounding on the door.

    I also glanced outside my kitchen window a couple of days ago, did a double take when movement caught my eye and a good sized bobcat strolled out from behind my wood shed and up the slope into the woods above the house.

    We’ve had a sudden excessive warmth in NH, the sap is flowing, I spent last night in my friends’ sugar house watching sap boil, chatting, drinking a beer. Sap flows from a large tank on the slope above, regulated, into a huge flat pan with baffles, into a smaller pan, through more baffles as the syrup condenses and finally gets poured into jugs maybe three gallons at a time of finished syrup.  The air is thick with sugary steam that drips off the rafters onto anything below (your hair for example). The wood fire is fed at the finishing end, double doors clang open and long chunks of pine and hemlock are shoved in.  There’s a long open vent that runs underneath the incoming pan, so this whole 10′ long contraption of stainless steel is bubbling away like crazy.  Fun to watch and I always get a quart for my birthday, which was earlier in the month.  Visitors also get a cup of freshly poured syrup to just drink.

  89. 89.

    sab

    @sab: We grew up going to Marineland. My dad had wanted to be a marine biologist, but WWII happened. So my dad went to med school.

  90. 90.

    Betty Cracker

    @sab: I remember getting chased by a boar through the woods when I was a kid. I hadn’t knowingly done anything to provoke it — I guess I just startled it. It scared me half to death! I see one now and then on my morning walks, but they haven’t seemed interested in menacing me. I blame Hernando DeSoto for them. :-)

    @Kristine: Matlacha! I bet you even pronounce it correctly too!

    @S. Cerevisiae: Wow, that’s an amazing life list!

  91. 91.

    Kristine

    @sab: Far NE Illinois, near the WI border. Lived here since ’87. Never thought I’d stay in one place this long

    I lived in Columbus OH for a few years in the 80s. I remember some of those lovely old neighborhoods. Of course, the area exploded *after* I left.

  92. 92.

    S. Cerevisiae

    @Betty Cracker:  My degree was in Ecology so I was able to get to places from the Monteverde cloud forest to seabirds on the Sea of Cortez, I got 80% of that list in those three years.

  93. 93.

    Kristine

    @Betty Cracker:

    Matlacha! I bet you even pronounce it correctly too!

    Do you know, I just ran a search and there are actual pronunciation sites that state it’s pronounced “mat-latch-a!” Heresy!

    Funny how local name pronunciations trip up the newbies and visitors. When I first moved to Columbus, I mispronounced Olentangy–it’s a soft ‘g’ and I said it with a hard ‘g’–and the person I was speaking with said “You’re not from around here, are you?”

  94. 94.

    Betty Cracker

    @S. Cerevisiae: Fantastic! I don’t have a formal life list, though I’ve been meaning to put one together using photos and bird journal entries I’ve collected over the past several years.

    This year, I started keeping a “first of year” list. I got close to 40 in just a few days! But it has been slow going since then because I don’t actually go anywhere lately. I have to wait for the birds to come to me. :)

    @Kristine: Lord, I’d have no idea how to pronounce “Olentangy” and would have immediately outed myself as not from around there too! Up here in the northern half of the FL peninsula, people get tripped up on “Ocala.” Also Lafayette County, which locals pronounce as “Luh-FAY-it.”

  96. 96.

    S. Cerevisiae

    @Betty Cracker:  a long time ago I found a world taxonomic bird list as an Excel file, I just added another column and entered 1 for each bird I had seen then just set up a sum at the bottom of the column and now when I get a new one I just enter a 1.

  97. 97.

    SFAW

    @evap: 

    I saw a yellow-bellied sapsucker at the feeder a few days ago, the only one I’ve ever seen.

    I’ve seen yellow-bellied peckerwoods, sometimes on Meet the Press (et al.). Interestingly, they bear a striking resemblance to Rand Paul and Ted Cruz.

  101. 101.

    TriassicSands

    Thanks for the wonderful pileated woodpecker photo and video. Too bad it isn’t a photo/video of the slightly rarer ivory-billed woodpecker. Now, that would have been truly exciting since apparent extinction makes the appearance of an IBWP highly unlikely.

  102. 102.

    Betsy

    @evap: ID check, maybe? The Northern Flicker is the woodpecker I know of with bold polka dots underneath.  Sapsucker has kind of a dull mottled belly at best.

  103. 103.

    Betsy

    Fantastic videos. I thought I heard what I think of as a cardinal’s nest-alarm call rather loudly in the first video. Were you somewhere near a known or hidden cardinal nest while filming?  They make that noise in my yard when the yard snake is noodling around in the trees looking for bird nests. I only have the heart to beat the snake out of the tree with the soft end of a broom. I would never hurt it. The blacksnake is great frenemies with my tuxedo cat. They have dramatic staring standoffs in which nothing happens for moments on end. I haven’t seen my beautiful blacksnake in a long time and I’m afraid someone else may have found him who is unenlightened as to blacksnakes.

  104. 104.

    Betsy

    Fantastic videos. I thought I heard what I think of as a cardinal’s nest-alarm call rather loudly in the first video. Were you somewhere near a known or hidden cardinal nest while filming?  They make that noise in my yard when the yard snake is noodling around in the trees looking for bird nests. I only have the heart to beat the snake out of the tree with the soft end of a broom. I would never hurt it. The blacksnake is great frenemies with my tuxedo cat. They have dramatic staring standoffs in which nothing happens for moments on end. I haven’t seen my beautiful blacksnake in a long time and I’m afraid someone else may have found him who is unenlightened as to blacksnakes.

    @TriassicSands: Oh, they are good and dead.  I wanted to believe a few years ago, but that whole The King is Alive episode evidently is regarded as a thoroughly false call, sad to say.

    Sorry, I’m full of bad stuff tonight.

  105. 105.

    Betsy

    @Betty Cracker: Fantastic kingfisher photo!!!!

     

    @Ken: Kingfishers make a loud rattling call as they swoop.  They catch frogs and fish and crawdads, but often swoop around and that could resemble the flight of a swift or swallow.   The calls of swifts and swallows that I know of are rather muted or at least not loud and ratchety. But a kingfisher’s call very much matches your description.

  106. 106.

    Betsy

    @Betty Cracker: Oh ugh, I’m reading the comments backwards and commenting as I go, in my late-night, late-to-the-party way.

    Which is why I unwittingly just bigfooted your response to Ken, kind of like a guy piling on to a woman’s idea in a meeting.

  107. 107.

    Betsy

    @dww44: Just spitballing here, but could be fairly minor habitat changes.  Red-headed are cavity nesters and seem to love dead and decaying trees and large branches. Something as simple as a neighbor taking down a dying tree that was excellent habitat could cause them to move on.

    RHWP are my favorite woodpecker, too.  To me they look like they are wearing a graphic design, like the flag of some country that you have never heard of.

  108. 108.

    Betsy

    1. @dww44: I have a lot of back story in N Fla.  Miss the birds and nature and history.  Can’t visit there at all though, for the painful changes and the too many daggone people. The scent of decaying live-oak leaves in a damp spot on a brick street will always bring me back in absentia …

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