raccoon tracks

I spent quite a while today following a raccoon trail.  It was clearly a well-used trail - there were many tracks going in both directions.  There were also many side tracks.  I'm guessing the coons are living under my neighbor's deck, judging from where the tracks seemed to come from - I decided not to trespass and follow the tracks into their yard.  Then I followed the tracks out from the house line and through the woods for quite a ways.  One interesting thing I noticed was that whenever there was a downed tree lying in the general direction of the trail, the coons would walk on the tree trunk, instead of on the ground.  The tracks were very clear in some places because we had a dusting of snow the other night.  In other places I had to look carefully around where the snow had melted away to find where the trail picked up again.  I have no idea how many raccoons are out there, but there are a LOT of tracks.  They often stopped around dead trees, as if looking for snacks there.  I followed the tracks all the way down to a swamp where the trail led onto the ice.  I continued to follow it for a while, but then I started to see open water as I got closer to the stream that runs through the swampy area.  Not wanting to walk all the way home wet and muddy - it was pretty cold here today - I headed off the ice and back toward home.  As I came back to the (human) trail I found no people tracks, but more coon tracks!

 

coon tracks on ice

coon tracks up close

Another cool thing - my new phone has a GPS in it, so I tried it out today, and I could see where I was walking on a map!  I knew where I was the whole time because I was in an area near my home, but it was neat to think that if I were in some unfamiliar place, I could find my way out to a road - assuming there is a GPS signal of course, and that the battery isn't dead.
I'm not generally a techie, but some new things are just so cool!

winter view

This is a scene I saw on my afternoon walk yesterday.  It is a stream that runs into a swampy area where there are lots of red-wing blackbirds in the spring and summer.  Yesterday and today all is pretty monochromatic - that's February in New England.

 

winter swamp

This photo is from my new phone - not too bad, really.

hawk, sunset

In the middle of the day today I saw a biggish bird fly over our house from the front to the back.  I thought, by the color and size, that it was a mourning dove - we have lots of those.  But then my daughter called for me to look out the back window.  There was a hawk there in one of the trees, quite close to the house - and the birdfeeders, which I'm sure were the attraction of that perch.  It was, I believe, a juvenile sharp-shinned hawk.  It could, perhaps, have been a broad-winged hawk - I wish I were better at hawk ids.  Anyway - here is a through-the-window photo of the bird, just before it took off and flew out of sight.

 

sharpie (Accipiter striatus)

My afternoon walk was late today - after sunset, but before the light was all gone.  There were some lovely clouds colored by the last few rays of light.

  a few minutes before 5pm

a few minutes past 5pm

later that day...

The sun was out earlier, and now it is snowing lightly.  Here's that same witch hazel in the early afternoon.

What a difference a few hours can make!

just checking

Here are some photos of my witch hazel this morning.  It didn't look like much a couple of weeks ago, but look at it now.  I know that it can be explained by science, but it sure looks like magic.

Before you know it, we'll have flowers!

wintergreen

spotted wintergreen (Chimaphila maculata)

January thaw

Yesterday we had loads of rain.  NOAA says just over an inch, but it felt like more - I suppose because of all the snow melting along with the falling rain.  Temps reached the high 50's around here, and my stream is really rushing.  Today is still warm - in the 40's - and mostly sunny.
The other thing I noticed yesterday is that it was still not quite dark at 5pm, and on a rainy day!  That is inspiring.

icy

We had an icy snowstorm last Monday.  It was nasty to shovel, but made for some pretty scenes.

icy snow on everything

stream & tracks

blue jays

I've gotten interested in blue jays this winter, for no particular reason.  I've always liked their color scheme, and they are such brash birds that it is hard not to notice them.  I don't have any good photos of my own, but I'll bet that anyone who has spent much time east of the Rocky Mountains in the U.S. or southern Canada knows what a blue jay is.  They are pretty smart birds, and are cousins of crows.  And they certainly are pretty, in a showy kind of way. 
You know those eggshells that don't compost very well?  Blue jays will eat them in the wintertime.  Just cook them, to kill any possible salmonella virus, and crush them up and sprinkle them on the snow.  I stick them in the microwave for a minute or two (depending on how many shells I have), and hard-boiled egg shells are all ready to go.
In the Thornton Burgess books, Peter Rabbit thinks Sammy Jay looks like a little piece of sky that flew down to earth.  Good reading, by the way, and more educational than one might think at first glance.

red-wings

I had a small flock of red-wing blackbirds at my feeders this morning.  I've never seen that before.  I always think of spring as being on its way when I hear them calling in late winter, but here they are now.  And I can definitely tell the upswing of the light in the mornings now.  It's really winter, and spring will come in good time - enjoy the snow!

religion

I'm not very religious, in an organized-religion sort of way, but I do believe that great things are at work in our universe and I am interested in how stories and/or myths came to be.

Here is my version of God being made present in a "burning bush"

sunrise in a dead elm

robins

My yard is full of robins - a flock of them.  Yes, a flock of American robins (Turdus migratorius).  Their orange feathers show brightly on a gray wiinter day here.  Robins don't migrate around here - well, they might move to a different location, but it is not a true migration.  In the fall these birds join up in groups that are sometimes fairly large - safety in numbers, I suppose.  They spend the winter hanging out, keeping warm and looking for food together.  In the spring they'll pair off and start nesting.
That thing about the first robin of spring?  It's a holdover from Europe, where the robins they have there are a different species (Erithacus rubecula) that does migrate to warmer places for the winter.  To travellers far from a European home, their songs (Er vs. Ar) might seem vaguely similar, and they both have orange breast feathers.  The American robin, however, is much larger than the European.  Adding to the confusion, the European robin was once considered to be in the thrush family, but has now been re-categorized as an old-world flycatcher.
Nobody ever said classification was easy, and to my mind it is somewhat unnecessary.  It might make the world easier to understand - a place for everything and everything in its place - but it doesn't always make sense; there are too many variables.  And I highly doubt that any of the critters care what names we give them, as long as we give them space and respect.