A fun book....

I don't have much time today but did want to put up this book I just finished, "The Dirty Life" by Kristin Kimball.

The book tells the tale of the author's adventures as she moves from New York City to an upstate farm to follow love and some dreams. The book chronicles the first year of this very ambitious, hard working and interesting couple as they decide to offer food year round to their community. They learn how to take care of and "harvest" animals of many kinds, how to grow wheat and more vegetables than my grandmother could've shaken a stick at. It's a great story so if you're in the mood to read about how some people walk the walk as well as talk the talk in the organic farming CSA movement, this is one to look for.

I could never do this but I am always interested in the people who do. It is quite humbling and inspiring at the same time.

From way up high....

We live in an almost urban area and our plot of land is less than a fifth of an acre. We sit on a corner so have streets on two sides and also houses to the back and the other side as well as across the street. It is an old neighborhood so there are lots of trees and flowers and lots of wonderful neighbors. There is a surprising amount of wildlife.

Behind the house is a stand of 3 Norway spruces that are quite tall. The one on the left suffered a blow from Hurricane Bob years ago and lost its top half. As you can see, it is now taller than the other two. The middle tree is the one I'd like you to look at. See that spikey point way up top? It is the favorite singing spot of all the birds in my neighborhood each spring. There are robins, cardinals, orioles, grackles, crows, blue jays and others that take turns singing away from here as loudly as they can. This morning we had a great crested flycatcher up there raising a ruckus for about half an hour before he left to chase a competitor.

No worries. Mr. Cardinal took right over. Who knew such a humble perch would play such an important role in local bird dynamics? Do you have a spot in your yard that the birds use to declare their intentions?

And yes, that is fog you see....we've been having foggy days while the north side and west have been enjoying lots of sunshine...ah, the joys of living up the street from Nantucket Sound. That's okay, later in the season that same proximity will keep us cooler with daily afternoon sea breezes....

Have a great holiday weekend, everyone!

Sketching at the beach....

So what's the best thing to do when the sun finally comes out and you have an hour or so off for lunch? Take your lunch and sketchbook to the beach and hang out for a while with your bare feet in the warm sand. I chose a place where I knew I would be out of the beaten path--in fact I never saw another person on the beach though there were many on the beaches around me. There were terns flirting, ospreys calling and clear water changing tides. The air smelled clean, warm and salty, a true sign of spring on the Cape.

This was my walk down to a little quiet cove....

the first of the rosa rugosas, also called beach roses, are just now in bloom....

and as I sat quietly in the sand making notes of the birds and plants around me the fiddler crabs came out to play.

Fiddler crabs often retreat to their holes when they hear footsteps or see you coming but if you stand or sit quietly on the sand they will slowly emerge and begin to go about their business. In this case their business was waving their big claws in the air, which is both a challenge to other males in the area and a come on down gesture for any lady crabs in the area.

If you click on the pictures you will see them a little better and should be able to read my notes as well...

Tough way to spend a lunch break but someone had to do it....

There's something lovely...

about this time of year....

even with all the gray skies and the misty mornings there is hope growing on the ground...

New leaves are popping out all over giving everything a fresh limey feel...

with the most delicate lovely blossoms are promising delicious berries very soon...

It can't rain forever. In fact even now, the sun is trying to peek through the clouds...

Some Good and Not So Good Nature Books

The forecast calls for another dull gray and wet week so maybe it's a good time to sit back with some nice tea or coffee, a dog or cat nearby or on your lap and have a good read. I read all sorts of books, both fiction and non fiction but I love finding a good, well written, interesting and even fun nature book to read. Fortunately there are a lot of them out there and over the next couple of months I will highlight some of my favorites.

Of these three, if you can only choose one....please choose "The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating" by Elisabeth Tova Bailey. This is a small book and perhaps one of the best books I've read in years. It is so beautifully written, is so focused and lovely that it is unforgettable. It is also small enough to read in an afternoon or evening and I couldn't put it down. It's that good. And yes, it is in part about the sound of a wild snail eating and it is impossible to describe how profound and wonderful that turns out to be.

I am just now reading "Setttled in the Wild" by Susan Hand Shetterly and it is also an enjoyable read though not up to par with Bailey's book. It is always hard to read the next book after one that is so wonderful, don't you think?

As for the Wildbranch book....I found it basically unreadable but maybe that's just me. Way too self conscious and pedantic for my taste....and I was so hopeful when I found it. Wildbranch is a well known workshop for the best up and coming nature writers but if this is the best they can find...well, I'm not feeling very hopeful about it.

All three of these books I found at the wonderful Clarence Hay library at the Cape Cod Museum of Natural History here on the Cape.

Watercress

Did you know you can find watercress here on the Cape? Yes, it is the edible, well known watercress and no, I am not going to tell you exactly where to find it since the supply is limited and the ducks and other animals like it too....

but I will show you what it looks like....happy gathering!

and this will give you a clue as to what sort of place to look for...

The big plants are skunk cabbage and no, you don't want to eat that stinky stuff....

Do you gather wild watercress or other wild edibles?

Painting birds and turtles...

are good rainy day activities when I can't get outside and this week I had plenty of opportunity to do some painting.

I painted this little chipping sparrow yesterday. I am working on a project that will involve a lot of detail and since that isn't my usual way of working I am practicing with little pieces like this one.

Today I painted these little diamondback terrapins from a photo I took a few years ago while working at Mass Audubon's Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary. They may look small and cute but this tiny painting took hours to do!

Both these little paintings are now for sale in my MaryRichmondDesign shop on Etsy.

Enjoying the fog and mist

is about the best you can do this week so here are some pictures from my travels down Cape yesterday.

The view from Fort Hill was softened in the fog until there was no ocean to see....

This old apple tree nearly blended into the phragmites and the marsh beyond like a soft impressionist painting...

Monet himself would have loved this red grass...

and he probably would have loved the fields of wild yellow mustard as well...

Sure it's nice to have a warm sunny day but there's something quite lovely about a misty foggy day as well. Good thing, since we have quite a few of them at this time of year!

Things to do on a rainy day....

why not get out your pencils and paints and paint some flowers? I cut these flowers in my yard and brought them inside to paint in the last rainy day session we had...

Just have some fun. Let the kids join in, too. Don't worry about the finished piece as much as the fun part of the process---painting it!

Turtle Time!

Saturday was a beautiful warm day here after days of gray skies and cold temperatures and the turtles were out in full force taking in the sun. Turtles are reptiles and actually need the vitamins from the sunshine to stay healthy. This is why people who keep lizards, snakes and turtles indoors need special lighting. And yes, being ectothermic (cold blooded) they also appreciate the warmth.

At first view this just looks like an idyllic pond scene. Click on the picture to enlarge it and you'll see there are dozens of painted turtles in this photo. Some are on the green boggy area while others are on the log in the background.

Here's a nice close up of a group of painted turtles, very alert as I took their picture. I used my zoom lens so as not to alarm them. Turtles can slip into the water faster than you can say boo.

This little guy was all by himself near the edge of the pond and was only about 2" long.

This sight really caught our attention. The yellow you see in the center is a painted turtle and a good sized painted turtle at that. So who is that big turtle behind it? A huge snapping turtle! This is an unusual picture for snapping turtles usually hang out in the water except when laying eggs. They sun themselves while floating at the surface of the water and can often be seen doing so by folks out in kayaks and canoes.

Here's a view from the backside. You can see that gnarly tail and hind legs just hanging out in the sun.

These are the most common turtles on the Cape but we have other turtles here as well....can you name them?

photos taken by me in Bourne on May 14

Strange nesting places....

Everyone probably has a funny bird nest story to share--after all, some birds are very resourceful and will nest in all sorts of places, including pockets in clothes on the clothesline, watering cans, flower baskets and window boxes. I've seen birds nesting up under awnings, in gutters and even in traffic lights. My favorite was the family of house finches that nested, not once, but 3 times, on a boat and fed the babies when the boat was in the harbor and waited for its return. Believe it or not, all 3 broods fledged and survived the transition to land....

Last fall we had to take down our beautiful old sugar maple. It had been sick a long time and finally died last summer. It hung over the street and had to come down according to the town. You can see the little wooden brace on the line that was put there by the power or cable company to protect the line from rubbing against the tree branches. When the tree came down, the little wooden brace remained.

It is a little over a foot and a half long and the hole is probably about 3" in diameter. We always knew birds nested in it but it was also covered up by branches and leaves which gave the baby birds some place to crawl about and exercise their new wings. As you can see, this is no longer true.

I heard the babies before I saw the dad arrive to feed them with a mouth stuffed full of bugs. The female left when he arrived and this is himself after I ran inside to get my camera. He has already fed the little ones and will soon be in search of more bugs.

These are English sparrows, also called house sparrows and as I wrote in yesterday's post on birdhouses, these non native birds are very aggressive, very successful nesters. This pair will probably be close to fledging 3 sets of young this year. It's a long fall down to the road and sidewalk but I know that the sparrows down the road have made it from the stop light in a busy intersection every year so I am betting these little guys will make it, or that most of them will.

And you'll be happy to know that they get most of their bugs from around my compost pile. I watch them go back and forth throughout the day. Sort of like a fast food restaurant....

Bird Houses...

Do you put them up? Lots of people do but its a good thing to think about before you do. What birds are you hoping to attract? Lots of people want bluebirds but you can't just put up a bird house in the backyard and expect the bluebirds to arrive unless your backyard is a nice open field or salt marsh...

This is the kind of space a bluebird loves....but you may also get tree swallows, wrens, titmice, chickadees or....house sparrows! House sparrows, also called English sparrows are innocuous looking sparrows that are actually very aggressive non native birds that will actually take over other bird's nests in bird houses to claim them as their own...they will actually kill baby birds as well as the parent bird if they can.

A good bird house will probably need a reinforcement around the hole. Some birds like to have a perch but many do not need them.

This is what may happen to a bird house without reinforcement. Larger birds such as starlings, other non native and aggressive nesters, will enlarge the hole and many mammals such as mice and squirrels will also gnaw on them. Squirrels will also attack nesting birds and mice will move into the nest boxes in the fall and often remain there all winter. More than a few human nest checkers have been unpleasantly surprised to find a whole boxful of mice tumbling down when they open the box to clean it out....

It is hard to tell from this photo but this box is much larger and was put up next to this tree to hopefully attract a screech owl. These boxes really do attract screech owls but they also attract squirrels.

If you are going to put up a nest box, please consider the type of bird you want to attract, the time of year, the location and so on. Many suburban bird lovers end up attracting the very birds that are harming the native bird population so doing homework is very worthwhile. Also, even though those houses with multiple holes look attractive in the garden, they only attract house sparrows. Many people remember when purple martins were plentiful and hope to attract them, but again, do a little research to see if they are even in your area.

There's a lot of great bird house and nest box information out there. Have some fun with it--kids love watching birds feed their babies. And maybe consider planting some of the trees and bushes birds like to nest in and leave that big old tree with woodpecker holes in it as a natural nesting lure.

Blueberries....

are in bloom.....these are low bush blueberries but the high bush blueberries are also in bloom...

Blueberries are a favorite food group of so many birds and animals, including humans....do you pick wild blueberries?

Black capped chickadees and their nests

I spend a lot of time wandering around in the woods and at this time of year I always have my eye out for nesting activity and for nesting sites.

Many people have asked me how to find bird nests and the truth is, we walk by bird nests all the time. It is good to leave the birds alone while nesting but that doesn't mean we can't keep a stealthy eye on them. Our overt attention to a bird nest can cause more harm than good, by the way, and can also alert predators to the location of the nest so please be discreet if you go nest hunting.

Look at the scene above. There is an active nest there. Can you see it?

Chickadees are nesting in this hole and may even have eggs there. We watched as one came and went with food in its mouth and saw both at one point as one left and the other stuck its head out, leading me to believe there may be eggs. If you look at the larger picture this is the little branch poking out in the middle of the picture. Chickadees tend to nest in holes that are quite small and also fairly close to the ground. If they see you watching them they will pretend they have no interest in that hole so you sort of have to watch them on the sly. I have developed a good sideways glance and suggest you do, too, if you want to watch a nest....

Chipping sparrows....

are among my favorite spring arrivals. Small, even for a sparrow, they sport a very visible rusty cap and are quite noisy with en emphatic fast trill.

They are quite well camouflaged as they forage in low bushes and on the ground. This bird is picking up nesting materials which you can see better if you click on the image.

Here is another shot of the same chipping sparrow. We saw this little guy at the Skunknett River Wildlife Sanctuary early this morning.

Violets are in bloom

No matter where I look this week I am seeing violets everywhere. Known as the common violet this little lovely was once a wildflower. It has become so entrenched in our suburban landscape that few think of it as wild any more, however.

The purple ones are the most common...

but I'm especially fond of these pretty little white ones. I have pretty much let the violets have free run in my yard but I know people who spend a lot of time and energy pulling them out, cursing as they do so. As you might imagine, many of my neighbors now have violets all over their yards as well. Fortunately most of them don't mind.

And of course they make a great drawing and painting subject as well....

Red maples....

Also called swamp maples are among our earliest bloomers here on the Cape and are the trees that give our landscape that lovely pinkish glow early in the spring. 

These flowers have pretty much gone by already and you can see the little "helicopter" seeds beginning to form. Soon the ground will be covered with them.

Red maples are native to the Cape, unlike many of the other maples we now see here such as the ubiquitous Norway Maple. The red maples like to have their feet wet, as they say, so you often find them in damp swampy places, giving them their other common name, swamp maple.

If you used to climb a tree and sit on a big limb out over the water while reading a book, this was probably the tree you sat in. Every time I pass one of these big old trees overhanging a quiet pond I think of climbing up and just daydreaming the rest of the day away....

Of Frogs in bogs

Our local frogs spend most of the winter buried in the mud. In early spring they reappear in most of our freshwater areas but they especially like cranberry bogs, whether they be wild ones or cultivated ones. The ditches seem to offer lots of good hiding spaces, plenty of sun and a whole banquet of tasty flying insects that come in to nectar on the cranberry blossoms.

At this time of year they are still looking pretty dark. This coloration helps them blend in to the murky dark backgrounds much easier than if they were the bright green they will be later in the summer.

There is a different frog in each of the two pictures above. Do you see them?

Here is a closer look at one...

And the other. These both appear to be bullfrogs as they do not have the long lateral lines going down their sides. Both frogs were quite small and probably only completed their metamorphosis late last year. Bullfrogs are pretty cool and you can click on their name to get more information.