USA 2012 : Day 8 - Sunday 3rd June 2012
There is something pleasing about being able to open one's eyes to a blue sky with a kestrel sat on the dead branch of a tree next door.
Today the weather improved and the temperature sneaked, briefly, into the very low 80s. We went off to Sugar Grove a small nature park that is trying to recreate the prairie as it used to be. It's in a place called Funks Grove - which has a chapel that offers paint balling and weddings. Apparently this is a popular combination in this part of the world and is considered an improvement to the shotguns and weddings that used to be popular. Even on the way there we saw two female deer, large and appearing to be uniform brown, cropping the grass of someone's front lawn as we went by on the interstate.
Arriving at Sugar Grove and while still parking the car we saw turkey buzzard (that number would grow to six or seven by the end of the visit) and a red tailed hawk gave us a lovely fly over. In the little visitors centre (I'm tempted to spell it center) they have one way glass onto a small area of feeding stations that produced quite an array of bird life. Not to mention that they had very comfortable sofas to settle into and just watch the non-stop antics of the birds. To help with the feeling of being in the action, the centre has rigged up microphones around the feeding area and pipe the sound inside. At one point one of the birds kept pecking away at the microphone.
Two ruby throated hummingbirds - just as about small a bird as you can have I suspect - long necked and manic. Diving out to the feeders, sucking in the sugar water and then diving back into the shelter of the bushes to rest from all that flying. Indigo buntings a bird very much living up to its name, house sparrows (with youngsters fluffed up and begging to be fed), brown headed cow birds in a social group, blue jays constantly puffing up their crests, mourning doves - one male kept puffing himself up for the ladies who were very much not interested, grackles, a pair of robins who knew that this was their patch and could not figure out why no one else could understand that.
There were male and female baltimore orioles and at least one youngster, American goldfinches - so much more delicate and smaller than the European ones (and very bright yellow - as I've been asked to mention). In the sky there were swifts and swallows. Also on the feeds were rose breasted grosbeaks, males and females. The males were the only ones living up to their names. Two types of woodpeckers, the red bellied - which naturally enough does not have a red belly and was the larger of the two, the smaller was a downy woodpecker.
There were chipmunks on the ground hoovering up the grain that the birds dropped and standing their ground against the jays and grackles. A white breasted nuthatch. The local cardinals suffered from flying into the windows one time too many in their efforts to chase themselves away. There was one black capped chickadee - which is the state bird of Maine. A couple of red wing blackbirds made a visit. A house finch turned up. They were, until recently, a bird limited to the west of the continent but after some were sold as cage birds in the New York area and then released, they have been making their way back to the west.
Eastern kingbird and eastern phoebe were out and about as we came back from our walk. We also swallows of several types -probably barn and cave. There were also what looked like swifts in the distance. Twice a heron went back and forth across the horizon, neck folded up and legs flopping behind. That was probably great blue heron.
There were butterflies of all sizes and colours. They ranged from tiny blue ones, to very large black and iridescent blue ones that looked a little in shape like swallowtails - which we think was a pipevine swallowtail. In the woods there were some more chipmunks that we got fairly close to. There was what we think was a wood thrush as well.
As we went back to the truck to make the journey back to Clinton and looking up into the sky, around the sub was a rainbow effect which started at the 2 O'clock position and went around to just short of the 9 O'clock position. Certainly the cloud was thin and very high. So we believe that it was a 22 degree halo.
It's raining again now that night has fallen. But the fireflies are out and about and as they go the air twinkles with little yellow flashes of magic as they signal to each other. Crickets provide a constant backdrop of noise against which the occasional roar of a passing car and motorbike can be heard.
On the back porch tonight I had a close encounter with a female racoon. A large, intelligent looking mammal which I got to within a foot off - due to a window being in the way. It was interesting watcher her wash her hands in water after feeding and she stood up to look around at things. She's a regular visitor to the porch and in fact at one point was stood next to one of the local cats who took all of this in her stride. So that's three new mammals to add to my list today.
All in all a rather good day for new wildlife.