A beautiful spring-like day; sunny and 53 degrees! With the "official" start of spring only a week away, I've been SO anxious to see green instead of white. However, there are signs of spring all over the place. Daylight savings time started at 2:00 this morning, meaning we'll have an hour more of daylight in the evening. And with the warmer temperatures this past week, we are seeing bare ground for the first time since last November.
This morning as I stepped out of the house, I was greeted by the sound of the finches singing at full throttle. They've been hinting at it for a few weeks now, but have finally committed to their territorial claims. I went for a much needed walk along the trail, and it felt SO good to be out in the sunshine and fresh air! Although there is still ice on the banks of the creek, the main channel is once again flowing free. A single muskrat swam across the creek as I approached; it's cheeks full of dried grass, apparently getting a jump start on remodeling it's lodge for the summer. As I approached the meadow near the cottonwoods, I noticed seven White-tail Deer, including two young bucks with tiny nubs of velvet-covered antlers. As I walked through the meadow a Western Bluebird landed on the rail fence and began singing! I stayed out for a few hours, happy to be outside again, before reluctantly returning home.
The Osprey should be returning soon, as they have around the last couple of weeks of March for the past several years. The old nest along the bridge on Kona Ranch Road was abandoned a few years ago. I remember watching a pair of Osprey build that nest in 1987, and at it's height it had to have been six or seven feet across and a couple of feet deep. I'd sure like to know how much it weighed... Osprey live about 20 years, and it was about that long when the pair that built the nest stopped returning. They were very successful and raised many broods of chicks in that nest, a few of which (I believe), have returned to take their parents' places. The reason I think that is because there are currently three nests in very close proximity - within only a couple hundred yards from each other. Siblings? Possibly, because while Osprey usually prefer to have their nests isolated from one another, these three are all sharing a territory. Either that, or there are so many fish in the river that they really are not competing for food.
I watched one of these beautiful birds "fishing" one day a few years ago. It flew quite high and hovered for a few minutes, then dropped down to about 100 feet above the water. Suddenly it folded it's wings back, stretched out it's talons and dove, feet first, into the chilly water. It splashed on the surface for a minute, then came up with a fish close to half it's own length. It took the bird a minute or so to get airborne, and I imagine that fish weighed almost as much as the Osprey! When it finally flew off, it positioned the fish in it's talons face forward, making it more aerodynamic and using less energy to fly. While flying with a fish, the bird's feet are actually positioned one behind the other, instead of side by side. It was fascinating to watch, and even though I had my camera, I was so enthralled by this display that I never took a single photo! I'll have to try and be more diligent this summer.
This morning as I stepped out of the house, I was greeted by the sound of the finches singing at full throttle. They've been hinting at it for a few weeks now, but have finally committed to their territorial claims. I went for a much needed walk along the trail, and it felt SO good to be out in the sunshine and fresh air! Although there is still ice on the banks of the creek, the main channel is once again flowing free. A single muskrat swam across the creek as I approached; it's cheeks full of dried grass, apparently getting a jump start on remodeling it's lodge for the summer. As I approached the meadow near the cottonwoods, I noticed seven White-tail Deer, including two young bucks with tiny nubs of velvet-covered antlers. As I walked through the meadow a Western Bluebird landed on the rail fence and began singing! I stayed out for a few hours, happy to be outside again, before reluctantly returning home.
The Osprey should be returning soon, as they have around the last couple of weeks of March for the past several years. The old nest along the bridge on Kona Ranch Road was abandoned a few years ago. I remember watching a pair of Osprey build that nest in 1987, and at it's height it had to have been six or seven feet across and a couple of feet deep. I'd sure like to know how much it weighed... Osprey live about 20 years, and it was about that long when the pair that built the nest stopped returning. They were very successful and raised many broods of chicks in that nest, a few of which (I believe), have returned to take their parents' places. The reason I think that is because there are currently three nests in very close proximity - within only a couple hundred yards from each other. Siblings? Possibly, because while Osprey usually prefer to have their nests isolated from one another, these three are all sharing a territory. Either that, or there are so many fish in the river that they really are not competing for food.
I watched one of these beautiful birds "fishing" one day a few years ago. It flew quite high and hovered for a few minutes, then dropped down to about 100 feet above the water. Suddenly it folded it's wings back, stretched out it's talons and dove, feet first, into the chilly water. It splashed on the surface for a minute, then came up with a fish close to half it's own length. It took the bird a minute or so to get airborne, and I imagine that fish weighed almost as much as the Osprey! When it finally flew off, it positioned the fish in it's talons face forward, making it more aerodynamic and using less energy to fly. While flying with a fish, the bird's feet are actually positioned one behind the other, instead of side by side. It was fascinating to watch, and even though I had my camera, I was so enthralled by this display that I never took a single photo! I'll have to try and be more diligent this summer.
