Plover Season

Before I left home yesterday morning, I was as giddy as a child on Christmas morning. I get to go plovering! And it all begins right here on the beach at Sunset Point, Presque Isle State Park.

It was very warm--68 degrees, but overcast  and windy. The wind held a promise of the cold weather to come.

During my seasonal shorebird monitoring season, I am looking for this bird:

The endangered Great Lakes Piping Plover. Isn't it adorable?

I did not find one today. And probably won't tomorrow or the next day. Last season we only saw four piping plovers in a season that runs Mid-April through the end of June. Why do we monitor for them? Because in 1986 they were listed as federally endangered with only 17 nesting pairs known to us. Last season there were 66 known nesting pairs. Presque Isle is designated critical habitat by the US Fish & Wildlife Service and it mandates that the shoreline be monitored five days a week.  Plovers used to nest here at Presque Isle but we humans screwed that up by disturbing their habitat. Now, we are working to welcome them back.

Today, the only shorebirds we saw were killdeer. But that doesn't matter. Some things we did see were these: 

A dead loon. It was a hard winter.

A kite that had been left unattended, tied to a piece of driftwood, was still flying.

It finally came down. This is litter, folks. And piping plovers and other shore birds see a kite in the air as a predator.

Here's a feel for the weather conditions. For some reason, this video recorded without sound. The wind was coming about 25-30 mph from the south and it would be warm one moment and then icy cold the next.

We caught a brief glimpse of an American Kestral, a horned lark, the resident herring and ringed-bill gulls and the newly arrived Bonaparte gulls and Caspian terns.

The Caspian terns are some of my favorites; they're comical and should have their own Pixar movie.

Until then, here are a few highlights from last year:

A piping plover stretches its wings

A gorgeous (and well-fed) American Avocet

A Willet, in mid dance step

A Black-bellied Plover

A Semi-palmated Plover (left) with his cousin the Piping Plover (right)

A Baird's Sandpiper, a life-bird for me (this means it was the first time I had ever seen this species in person).

The big, bad, Peregrine Falcon, a predator to every bird on the beach.

I did not go out today; it's snowing and the temps have dropped into the 30s. But I will be back out there tomorrow morning when the temperatures promise to be biting cold. At least it won't be snowing. 

Soup, Scoters & Scaup

Winter has taken its toll on all of us here in northwestern PA. We're having what many old timers are calling an old-fashioned winter: lots of snow (and shoveling) and regular bouts of subzero temperatures. When Mother Nature has her way with us, we make soup. At least I do. When I want soup that sticks to everyone's ribs, I make my Busia Feyas' Beef Barley Vegetable. This is an almost all-day affair with steps where a few ingredients are added each time until a fragrant, thick stew is created.

The base is some soup bones and beef (I use stringy stew beef) cooked in water until almost tender (the meat, not the bones!). Then in go onions, carrots, celery and barley; out go the bones. Then the real work begins. Meet the rutabaga:

The rutabaga is a homely root vegetable, spotted and unappealingly waxed (on the right) when found in the produce section. Old-fashioned, just like the winter we're having. The young checkout clerk at the store asked what it was. "Rutabaga," I answered. "Have never heard of it," he said. "Like a round, yellow, sweet turnip," I replied. "That didn't help much," he said. Apparently turnips don't get much play, either.

After some energetic peeling, the soft yellow flesh emerges. Soft as in color, not texture. 

Rutabagas are hard, hard, hard. And tough to cut.

My knife was stuck in this one for awhile. I eventually got them cut in half and began the laborious process of dicing.

Why do I bother, you ask? Why not just do without? Because. Because the rutabaga brings an unparalleled sweetness to the soup you cannot duplicate. 

Potatoes get diced and added, too, but they are easy compared to the rutabaga. 

Tomatoes, corn and peas round out the ingredients.

You get this:

Which you then eat, with gratitude for its warming goodness, your hands cupped around the warm bowl. It always reminds me that my mother and busia lived through the Depression. This soup has a use-what-you-have-stretched-as-far-as-you-can quality about it.

On Saturday, Mike and I shared a bowl of it with a young birder friend of ours after a long, cold day. We had been at a Great Backyard Bird Count event hosted by Presque Isle Audubon (read more about GBBC here) followed by some cold, wind-swept birding on the South Pier, where a channel joins Erie Bay to Lake Erie. 

Hunched over our bowls in the kitchen, he asked how we got started in birding and we related our tales of dating and picnicking and finding great egrets and cedar waxwings. "Pretty soon we were taking our binoculars everywhere and buying a scope.....," I started.  To which he appended "And the next thing you know, you're freezing your a** off on the South Pier looking for waterfowl." 

Exactly.

But the waterfowl experience is similar to the rutabaga experience; hard work, but well worth the time. 

Highlights:

c. Michele Rundquist-Franz

I have a thing for scoters. Not sure why.  Maybe because the male surf scoter (front) has such an elaborately silly bill and the male white-winged scoter (back) looks a little bit like a masked marauder. Both are stunning birds and to, me, seem exotic, especially when they are only feet away. 

We got so close because, unfortunately, most of the water in Erie Bay is frozen and these birds were cheek and jowl in a tiny patch of open water at the end of the pier. Not a happy situation for them but a great opportunity to see them in detail. 

We also spent some time comparing Lesser and Greater Scaup, something hard to do at a distance. For the first time, I was able to clearly distinguish the field marks that delineate the two.

c. Cathy McCullum, The World of Birds

The Lesser Scaup (left) has "dirtier" flanks compared to the Greater Scaup (right). In addition, the head shape of the Lesser is much higher, almost peaked, while the Greater's is rounded. Not too visible here but on each bird there is a small area in the middle of the tip of the top mandible (beak) that is black. This is called a "nail." The Lesser's nail is narrow; the Greater's nail is wide or splayed out. 

You will not be quizzed on this later, so if I've bored you with bird-geek details, just ignore me.

Meanwhile, I will continue to work hard at both birds and soup.

Stay warm.

In Praise of Snow, Cold and (sometimes) Sunny

We've had quite a bit of snow and some really cold days up here in northwestern PA so far this winter. We're fairly used to that. Nothing earth-shattering or extremely health-risking. But when the temperature is -10 and the wind chill lower, one does pause when considering an outdoors excursion. There is beauty to be found in this cold, though, and I can never resist a quick trip through my backyard in search of a few prizes.

A warming sunrise through the icicles

Wind-blown drifts I can measure with a yardstick (24 inches, if you must know),

snow capped cone flower seed heads (echinacea purpurera),

and my pink heaths starting to bloom.

When the day is not great, I take a few gray bayberries in my hand and rub them between my fingers. Their delightful smell is all I need.

and no matter what, the winterberry (Ilex verticulata) shines this time of year.

And when the sun comes out, well,

a drift over on the roof become art against a crisp azure sky

and gulls become little white specks soaring high in an ethereal sea.

The sun warms without heat

I  enjoy the disheveled beauty of a magnolia pod

and the simple pleasure of watching a dry leaf blow across the frozen surface 

or finding these delicate bird tracks etched in the snow.

Winter is not always at home for me.

We've had trips to find snowy owls which have been popping up all over this winter much to everyone's delight.

This past weekend, Mike and I celebrated our anniversary in an Adirondack shelter in Oil Creek State Park. With tarps to close it in and a fireplace to warm us, it was a cozy night. The setting sun lit up the woods. Its glow held the promise of summer. 

It may be cold outside but, so far, the winter has been quite warm, really.