New Neighbors
In case you were wondering from the title of this post, no, the Tatelaar Shell station did not decide to relocate. Nor did any of our human neighbors decide they were fed up with those crazy Americans. And no, don’t worry, Vinny and Boots are just fine.
As are the chickens, though for a while there we saw very little of the white one, who was apparently laying eggs and thinking she was going to get them to hatch. Every few days or so Remio (one of the Shell station workers) would come over, pet the white one and take her egg away. We’re finally seeing more and more of her so I think she’s over that phase.
What I’m talking about are birds! Given we were gone for two months right in the middle of spring where we were seeing plenty of migrating birds before we left (and missed the blooming and harvesting of the tulips while we were gone), it shouldn’t come as a surprise that there was a whole flock of different birds around when we returned. (Like the pun?)
We weren’t back for more than a couple of days when, on the feeder right outside the dining room window we saw two amazing woodpeckers. I grabbed the only camera I had (my phone) and took a picture.
Over the next couple of days we saw the pair again, sometimes together, sometimes one at a time. That meant it was time to pull out the real camera and start photographing!
Now, as beautiful as the Great Spotted Woodpecker is, my favorite bird has become the Eurasian Green Woodpecker that also comes around.
And like the Great Spotted pair, the Eurasian Green Woodpeckers occasionally visit in a mating pair.
Well, you know us, once we get started on something we delve into it. And given that there was a new bunch of birds to discover, we started checking them out. To that end, our feeders really helped out, not only for discovering “new” birds, but also for enjoying the familiar ones that still come around.
Some of them are quite lovely when seen up close, like the Great Tit (I can hear your childish laughter from here),
others are much more common, but still interesting once you really get to see their coloration.
We’ve also added/relocated a couple of feeders, which allows for a variety of birds to come to the yard,
and not have to compete with the masses at the main feeder by our dining room.
It’s harder to see those other feeders, but we’ve got binoculars to help when we need them.
We’ve even gotten into figuring out bird songs, although with a bit of help. It winds up that the Beatle’s “Blackbird sining in the dead of night . . . .” isn’t just a random line. We have a blackbird that starts up at 4:30 like clockwork (ok, one morning I checked and it was at 4:31). He starts sining away, loud as can be right outside our kitchen windows. Thing is, he’s a bit schizophrenic in his singing. He goes from one short, 5-10 second song into another trying to pick up a mate. Imagine someone starting out with a pop song, switching over to opera, then heavy metal, then a swooner from the 1950’s, then to country and western and then to punk, only to start all over again. It is not what I’d call an elegant bird song. The guy must be desperate!
Ann has picked up a really neat app from the Cornell Ornithology Lab (Merlin) that helps us identify the various birds we’re seeing. One of the great things about the app is that it also has an audio-identify function. As you might imagine, our morning walks are often filled with bird songs, especially when we’re walking through wooded areas. So we wind up stopping occasionally to find out what we’re listening to. One morning Ann recorded 8 different birds in a single clip!
Another nice thing about our morning walks it that it gets us out into other environments to see other birds (like storks and herons). One morning, just as we were approaching the Tatelaarweg station, Ann noticed another bird that immediately took flight. “That one’s different than the others, it’s got a flappy thing on its head!” Fortunately, I saw that it flew up and landed in the now plowed-over tulip field. As we walked over there we could see the bird was different than the ones we’d seen before. We pulled out Merlin and figured out it was a Northern Lapwing.
Over the next couple of weeks we kept our eyes out, and sure enough, there are a pair of them (now with young ones) that we occasionally see in the fields. I think they live in the adjacent irrigation canal, but must love the bugs exposed by the tilled soil. Anyway, they are incredibly skittish and we’ve never gotten closer than 30 feet from them (when one is in the grasses by the Tatelaar station). When they’re in the field, they are far away.
On a couple of occasions I’ve run over to the house and pulled out the longest zoom lens we have and tried to make a good image. Even with the teleconverter on, I’ve had to crop the image tremendously to give you an idea of the bird. One hot day, I could see the heat rising from the dried soil as I made the exposure.
A couple of days later it was heavily overcast and I managed another shooting session. Let me tell you, wildlife photography, especially hand-held, is difficult.
When we first got back from our US trip we hit a hot, dry spell (not lately though - it’s been cool and wet unlike most of the US). Ann, bless her, got worried about the birds so she decided to cobble together some bird baths to cool down in. Which they appreciated.
Which to me was fine, because I enjoy watching the different types of behavior the birds exhibit.
One of those odd behaviors involves bathing and not in the bird bath sense. One hot afternoon we had a very heavy rainstorm. As it was pouring, Ann made a comment about how the pigeons must not be too bright, ‘cuz one was sitting on a fence-post getting drenched. I said, “Well, maybe it’s taking a bath!” Suddenly, the bird lifted up its wing to wash its . . . wing-pit? I couldn’t believe what I’d just seen so I called out to Ann and picked up her phone (which was on the dining room table) and started recording video. Sure enough, it did it again (you can hear Ann laughing in the video). Smart bird!
After that, I guess it shouldn’t have surprised me when, a couple of days later, I saw a pigeon in the yard extending its wings to dry.
Gotta keep those armpits clean!
The variety of birds we’ve seen has been a joy. And I’m sure that as the seasons change, so will the selection of birds that decide to visit the feeders.
Regardless of who decides to visit, it’s a pleasure to sit back and watch the diversity of neighbors we have.
And every once in a while, you get to see one of your favorites taking advantage of what our yard has to offer!
Sometimes it’s the simplest things that enrich your day!