nature photography – Page 61 – Roadkill Crossing

May is for the birds

By Bruce Stambaugh

May is for the birds. That’s good news for those of us who live in northern Ohio.

Year in and year out, May tends to be a very pleasant month here. The days grow longer and warmer.

Garden flowers splash welcomed colors against neatly trimmed, emerald lawns. Rainbows of wildflowers carpet forest floors, hiding the decaying leaf litter for six months. Mushrooms and May apples join them.

But what broadens the smiles in many folks from ages four to 94 are the returning birds. Not that people have been disappointed with the aviary species that frequented their backyard feeders in the dormant months.

The colorful songbirds, all decked out in their mating wardrobes, radiate new life into their human audiences. I’m certain the birds are unaware.

You don’t even have to be a serious birder to know that feeling. When the first Baltimore Oriole flashes its black and orange and whistles its distinctive call, it’s officially May.

Out come the store-bought and homemade feeders full of grape jelly. Stand back and let the gorging begin.

This year the birds seemed simply to fall out of the sky. Person after person reported the first of the year Baltimore Oriole, Orchard Oriole, and a Ruby-throated Hummingbird.

It’s amazing how those little hummers remember where the previous year’s feeders hung. If they beat you to the punch, they’re hovering outside your kitchen window waiting for lunch or supper, depending on when their flight landed in your yard.

This year I beat them to it. I had the feeder cleaned and filled with fresh sugar water long before April melded into May. But the birds got the last laugh. The first bird on the hummingbird feeder was a male Baltimore Oriole. Yes, they like a sweet sip now and then, too.

So, out went the oriole feeder. I hardly had stepped away when a male Baltimore Oriole swooped in for his feast. A male Orchard Oriole, a bird that I had never seen feed at the grape jelly station before, soon followed.

Friends near and far reported orioles galore. Their joy mimicked that of the infectious calls of the birds themselves.

male rose-breasted grosbeak — Male Rose-breasted Grosbeak.

Then came another wave of exuberance. Folks from all around called, emailed, and showed me photos of a bird they had seldom had at their feeders before. Rose-breasted Grosbeaks held their own fallout party. Some people reported eight or 10 at a time feeding. Not only are these handsome birds fun to watch, but their song also matches their beauty.

Of course, a few rare birds pass through on their way further north for the summer. American White Pelicans and stately Black-necked Stilts made appearances to the area.

But this time of year, it’s the colorful warblers that serious birders covet. Scores of birders from around the world converge on the Lake Erie shoreline to watch and listen for this annual splendor. They are seldom disappointed.

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The Biggest Week in American Birding is held annually from early to mid-May in northwest Ohio’s Magee Marsh Wildlife Area. Scores of migrating birds, warblers, shorebirds, and birds of prey among them, rest and forage in the adjoining marshes, wetlands, and woodlots before heading over the lake.

Even if you can’t make it there, the birds may still come to you. The key is to be on the watch.

You never know what bright and cheery surprise may come your way in May. But look quick, because just like May, some of them might be gone in a vivid flash.

Same walk, new results

Ohio's Amish country, Holmes Co. OH. — In my “hood.”

By Bruce Stambaugh

I love to walk outdoors. Treadmills don’t do it for me.

I guess I’m a multi-sensory walker. I need to exercise my listening, my observing, my sensing, my thinking as well as my muscles and my entire bony being.

Walking is an easy sport unless you’re a fair-weather walker. That’s me. I don’t do well in wet, windy, cold conditions.

My pickiness has its consequences, however. My body complains in multiple ways. My achy bones cry out in rebellion. My hamstrings tighten in protest. My soft tissue succumbs to gravity.

Other symptoms sneak up on you, tricking you into sullenness. Blood pressure is one of those conspirators.

All my life people would offer to buy my low blood pressure scores. I never fully appreciated the physicality of high blood pressure or the corrective medicinal ramifications. I do now.

Age apparently has caught up with me. At a routine check-up, my blood pressure was the highest it had ever been. Thinking it an anomaly, the nurse took it again. It went even higher.

I drove straight to the pharmacy and purchased a new digital wrist blood pressure cuff. My old manual one with the stethoscope had given up the ghost. I didn’t want to join it, so I began daily recordings of my blood pressure and pulse.

My good doctor tweaked my medication according to those results and my body’s physical reactions. I wasn’t ready for what followed. I hated the melancholy, lackadaisical feelings, the fuzziness and body fatigue, though I had done little physically.

I had a new appreciation for those with the same condition. I longed to return to my daily walks, but the weather was as uncooperative as my new pills. I brooded beneath the seemingly perpetual steel gray Ohio sky.

Then, a week after the last snow, spring broke through. Daffodils sprang back. Spring beauties and phlox carpeted woodlots and pastures. The season’s first tulip brightened our yard. It was time to walk again.

The warmth alone drew me outside. I was in heaven again once I got past the roadside dead deer decaying in a woodlot south of our house. When I turned onto the little township road, I hit my stride.

I crested the first knob, and my favorite valley opened before me. The gently undulating and curving road reflected the morning sun. The road resembled a silver ribbon as it ran through the vale beyond the comely farms and up and over the eastern hill that separates one watershed from the other.

red-bellied woodpecker — Male Red-bellied Woodpecker.

The birds rejoiced with me. A dozen species regaled and entertained me with song and their territorial acrobatics. I rejoiced in the many varieties of the spring birds that had returned to mingle with the year-round residents.

At the halfway mark, the stream gurgled its own refreshing tune, too, though it hadn’t rained for days. The artesian well ran strong into the roadside trough. The willow tree teased yellow with its drooping canopy of leafy buds.

When I reached the little rise at the first farm, a familiar fragrance freshened the morning air. An invigorating mix of soap and cotton wafted all the way to the road from a recently hung line of laundry.

A few more steps and purple martins greeted me with salient salutations and arching flyovers. In contrast, the one-room Amish school stood silent, scholars already having completed another year of studies.

I felt incredible, transformed. My blood pressure was thankful, too.

valley, Ohio's Amish country — Evening in my favorite valley.

Sunset Glory

The sunsets just keep getting better and better. Or possibly it’s the string of perpetually gray Ohio days that make the infrequent sunset all the more glorious. Either way, I greatly appreciate the beauty of the evening sky and the radiance that bids the day farewell.

“Sunset Glory” is my Photo of the Week.

April Sunset

sunset, Ohio's Amish country — April sunset.

April’s weather in northeast Ohio can be fickle, to say the least. After a tease of springtime in late March, April brings us all back to reality in short order. In the space of a week, it’s not unusual to experience bitter cold and snow, torrential rains, damaging winds, and a beautiful, still, sunny day.

Regardless of the day’s weather, we can often count on an inspiring sunset. Indeed, this week we had our pick.

“April Sunset” is my Photo of the Week.

Wandering my own secret garden

hooded mergansers, Egan's Creek Greenway — A lovely couple (Hooded Mergansers).

By Bruce Stambaugh

My guess is we all have at least one. You know. A place you can go to be alone with the world. You declare it as your personal retreat.

It could be your man cave or your sewing room. It could be a remote waterfall miles up a winding trail.

Your place of refuge might be a park bench or even a busy city street corner where hundreds of people pass by with no notice of you. Still, you’re at peace.

Others find solace sitting on the shore of a farm pond or pulling weeds in the family garden patch. It might be an art museum, or for that matter, even one particular painting that mesmerizes you.

I find my inspirational solitude in many venues. During the winter months, I recharge in a three-mile stretch of marshland called Egan’s Creek Greenway. The stream itself runs north through the middle of Amelia Island, Fla., where my wife and I migrate as snowbirds.

Though it’s a public domain, I claim Egan’s Creek Greenway as my private secret garden. The town’s parks and recreation department maintains this sacred place. Lots of folks, locals, tourists and snowbirds like myself, frequent this marvelous reserve.

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Their intrusions don’t bother me at all. In fact, part of the joy is meeting new friends who enjoy the same open space delights. The Greenway is a multiple-use resource.

When I go there, I wear my hiking shoes. I also don my birding vest to squirrel water, snacks, binoculars, a note pad and birding checklist. I also drape a camera around my neck. It’s my way of documenting each and every visit. Get the picture?

Palm fronds are brown from frost or wind damage. Deciduous trees stand bare. Grayish Spanish moss dangles from limbs high and low. A variety of bird species devour the deep blue berries of the cedar trees and the ruby red ones on sparkleberry bushes.

Subtle hints of spring appear even in February. Silver and red maple buds sprout crimson against the live oaks’ perpetual green. The dormant marsh grass stalks show mint green at their bases.

Even in cooler temperatures, people run, jog, bike, walk and bird along the greenway’s well-worn paths that parallel creeks and channels, and crisscross the marsh. On weekends and holidays, the place is abuzz with activity, human and otherwise.

Still, I stroll this paradise in search of whatever finds me. I frequent the Greenway alone, and with my wife, with friends, with family, with strangers. I don’t mind sharing this beautiful secret.

Each trek there unfolds anew with different characters. The results are the same.

Red-shouldered Hawk.

Suspicious.

Great Blue Heron.

Cedar Waxwing.

Lunch.

On any given day, I can hear Navy helicopters on test flights over the Atlantic. Train engine whistles echo from the town two miles away. None of this interferes with my enjoyment.

A river otter munches on plants in one of the rivulets. A red-shouldered hawk sits on a snag, its harsh call contrasting with its feathery beauty. Gangs of American robins madly chirp when disturbed by a bossy pileated woodpecker.

A plump rabbit and a skinny doe nibble grass only feet away. Alligators and painted turtles soak in the afternoon sun as neighbors.

Gray catbirds gobble the sparkleberries while cedar waxwings down their namesake’s fruit. Scores of yellow-rumped warblers dart in and out of the thickets, plucking insects. Eastern phoebes sit and bob their tails.

Me? I just smile inside and out, thankful for my secret, sacred sanctuary.

Egan's Creek Greenway — Walking the Greenway.

April Fools!

The palm frond saw its shadow. You know what that means? They’ll be 12 more weeks of spring.

“April Fools!” is my Photo of the Week.

The storm cometh

squall line, storm front — The Storm Cometh.

Severe weather grips me. As a volunteer severe weather spotter for the National Weather Service office in Cleveland, I pay close attention to the weather forecasts. When the potential for severe weather is a possibility, I go on a personal high alert.

I watch radars. I read online weather maps. And I scan the sky. I also take my camera with me.

When the season’s first strong thunderstorms approached Monday evening, I was ready. An active weather system had produced a tornado in southwestern Ohio. The cold front weakened a bit as it approached eastern Ohio. But that didn’t keep it from producing some impressive clouds, particularly in the front of the storm system.

The western sky turned dark. I went to the back porch to see what was coming, and this is what I saw looking north. The clouds looked fierce and angry. But fortunately, we only received torrential rains and a few strikes of lightning.

“The Storm Cometh” is my Photo of the Week.

The idiosyncrasies of Daylight Saving Time

By Bruce Stambaugh

As a kid, I loved when Daylight Saving Time (DST) arrived, mostly. At first, school days began in the dark. The upside was that we had more daylight time in the evening to play and do chores.

That seemed like a fair trade to me. Excuse the pun, but times have changed since the origin of DST. I’m not sure humanity has, however.

Believe it or not, DST originated in ancient times before clocks existed. Various civilizations adjusted their schedules, not their clocks, to the natural lengthening of warmer months.

Ben Franklin’s humor accidentally credited him with the suggestion of DST. When awakened by the sun at 6 a.m. in France in 1784, Franklin jokingly suggested in an essay that the French could save a lot of money by getting up earlier in the morning. That would result in fewer candles burned in the evening.

Folks in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada were the first to use DST in 1908. The idea didn’t catch on until the onslaught of World War I when Germany resorted to using DST to save fuel for the war effort. Great Britain soon followed suit.

The same thing happened when the United States entered World War II. To save fuel, DST ran from April 30 to Oct. 31. In one form or another, DST has been around ever since.

Today’s use of DST in the U.S. dates to the 1973 oil crisis in the Middle East. DST now runs from the second Sunday in March and ends the first Sunday in November. Altogether, 70 countries use some form of DST.

Despite its semi-annual adjustments, folks still get confused by the change of time. A simple rule is spring forward an hour in March and fall back an hour in November. Note the cheeky references to “spring” and “fall.”

Farmers often get the blame for initiating DST. In fact, the farmers I talk to hate it, especially if they milk cows.

Amish farmer, hay wagons — Late evening wagon train.

When I was an elementary school principal, I often made home visits. In some Amish homes, I noticed that the household clocks remained on standard time.

Others apparently used the art of compromise. Clocks were set back a half an hour. Perhaps these methods were mild forms of protest. Whatever the reasons, people always seemed to know what time it was regardless of what the clocks said.

That’s more than others could say. This simple idea led to some chaotic timekeeping. In 1965, the state of Iowa had 23 different start and end dates for DST. Even the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Min. didn’t change time equally.

To bring order to all of the chaotic clocks, Congress passed the Energy Policy Act of 2005 making DST uniform. Well, mostly. Arizona and Hawaii still don’t use DST, along with several U.S. territories.

For good or for ill, the intent of this checkered history of playing with time was to save energy. Research has shown that concept is flawed.

I can see both sides. Earlier risers would just as soon avoid manipulating the clocks twice a year. Those who desire extra playtime after work or school are happy for the extended daylight.

That remains the justification for DST. It doesn’t save time. The tactic merely adjusts the clock to accommodate more daylight for more citizens.

My less than nimble fingers protest resetting the many digital devices that don’t self-correct. The child in my heart, however, still enjoys the adjusted daylight.

kids swimming, summertime — Summertime fun.

Lavender Geese

Canada Geese, Ohio sunrise — Lavender Geese.

This pair of Canada Geese was none too happy about my early morning intrusion on their quiet solitude. Their harsh honking wasn’t the only thing that caught my attention. I couldn’t believe the color of the predawn sky’s reflection on the farm pond. The lavender and mauve beautifully accented these noisy birds.

“Lavender Geese” is my Photo of the Week.

Renourished

sunrise, Atlantic Ocean — Sunrise with Sam.

By Bruce Stambaugh

I stood on the beach beside Sam enjoying another inspiring sunrise. Though I didn’t know it, the scene renourished me. I had never heard that word before.

Sam was a security guard for a beach restoration project that was ongoing on the barrier island where my wife and I have wintered for the last several years. He had just come on duty for his 12-hour shift.

hood mergansers, saltmarsh — Renourishment.

Sam couldn’t contain himself. In his strong southern drawl, he chatted while I snapped away with cameras to capture the unfolding beauty before us.

Sam said he had come to work early just to see the sunrise. He succinctly expressed the natural fringe benefits he received from just doing his job.

“I get to see sunrises, the full moon last night, the stars and planets, and a beautiful sunset over the island,” he said. I had found a kindred soul mate. Sam described in one sentence why my wife and I return year after year to this little paradise.

It’s not balmy by Miami standards, or even Sarasota for that matter. But we find the island’s winter weather much more agreeable than northeast Ohio.

From another glorious dawn to a spectacular sunset, this particular day served as a perfect example of how we recharge.

I couldn’t help but see the irony in
the beach reinvigoration.

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The massive renourishment project was an engineering marvel. Involved were large freighters, tugboats, survey boats, an enormous pumping station, hundreds of 40-ft. long steel pipes sections, and a variety of heavy-duty excavating equipment.

Huge ships dredged the river inlet to maintain shipping lanes. Pumps recycled the sand through a miles-long piping system. A slurry of sand and seawater spewed back out onto the beach.

Giant bulldozers plowed a path to channel the excess water back into the ocean. Shore birds and sea birds reaped the benefits by feasting on the crawling critters caught up in the pressurized flush of sand and water.

Renourishment came in more natural ways, too. The salty spray, the sanguine setting of having an ocean for a front yard, the wildlife, the nearby marine forest and accompanying saltmarsh, and the friendly folks encountered during our extended stay combined to enrich our lives.

Sam and I lingered a long time on the beach, side-by-side, silent, soaking in the radiance before us. When the colors muted, he returned to his station at the end of the orange iridescent construction fence and took a sip of water.

I retreated to our rented condo to the company of my hospitable wife and our latest of many visitors. They were just as thrilled with the sunrise as I was. That, too, served as nourishment for my soul.

To be honest, I’m not a beach person. I’d much rather be hiking in mountains than lazing along the shore. But it’s cold in the mountains in winter, and though it’s not even subtropical here, we had a lot in common with Sam and the beach project.

The word renourishment, in fact, applies specifically to restoring damaged beaches. Standing beside Sam enjoying the sunrise brought a wider meaning of the word for me.

Neva and I were exceedingly grateful to be renourished by the marvels all around, and by the good folks who came calling. I was especially pleased when Sam asked to have a sunrise photo sent to him.

Even beaches need to be renourished from time to time. How and where are you replenished?