Day 81

March 22, 2021

Happy Birthday Arthur Satz.  We miss you a lot.

A beautiful morning full of birds.  The maple was dancing with them this morning.  They came and went some too fast for me to see correctly.  But I did get a pair of house finch, and hermit thrush talking to each other in the branch right above my bedroom.  It is definitely the house finch that wakes me early.  Noisy little guys.

And at Highland Pond I saw chickadees, a pileated woodpecker, who was too fast for my camera, and nuthatch.

Made it up to the rookery around 4 and it was 64 degrees and still sunny and quite beautiful.  For the second day in a row I watched guys suck the sap out of the big vats to bring back to the sugar shacks.  All along the hills there were streams of smoke coming from the stacks.  Maple syrup is gold around here.  

This is a male, you can tell by the markings on his shoulders.  And I still think he's young, because he is not very big.  He probably was born here last year.  I messaged a friend who knows about ornithology to ask what moves a single heron to come north early. 

There is open water now and we are expected to have rain this week so there will be more.  I am interested in seeing how quickly the rest of the community arrives.  

Finally got dates for my vaccination.  Really glad, because I really want to drive to Connecticut and visit my parent's gravesite soon.  And then I'll swing over to Compo Beach and photograph the Sound.  It's just nice to dream about doing something different. 

Bird list of the day: house finch, hermit thrush, hawk, pigeons, sparrow, cardinal, red tailed, pileated woodpecker, chickadees, nuthatch, Great Blue Heron, robins, starlings and vultures.