We went exploring up there this morning, hoping to find zucchini to bring to potluck. No zucchini, but we did pick this large gourd that now provides a nice centerpiece for our table.

While walking in the field, we also noticed an abundance of butterflies and dragonflies. Tough to photograph, but here’s one I managed to catch.

Black Swallowtail butterfly

In the afternoon, we went for a snowshoe walk in the neighborhood woods and saw Wild Turkey tracks (pretty comical looking, really). And early this morning, Dori called to point out that mixed in with the Pine Siskins and American Goldfinches at her feeder are some Common Redpolls (despite the name, a not-so-common bird for me). Lots of wonderful winter bird activity! And spring is just around the corner….

This morning, I went for a long walk with Lila and Xan. We started up through the hayfield, went into the woods, then followed the perimeter of the Nubi property until we were near the top of the horse/llama pasture where we cut back down the hill to get home. Before we started, Lila resisted (she wanted to stay at the playground), but then had such a good time that when we got back, she drew the following picture:

Here’s how Lila describes her drawing: “Nubanusit Neighborhood and Farm with the whole world around it.”

You can see the hill we walked up (bordered by trees) near the center. If you study closely, you can see the river, pond, houses, even a digger and dump truck (we’re still under construction here, after all).

This one’s going up on our fridge.

Just past the pond, on the tractor path to the hayfield, at the brushy area for the power line cut, there’s a veritable bird party going on — more little flitting chipping creatures than a novice birder like myself can count. I saw and/or heard black-capped chickadee, common yellowthroat, black-and-white warbler, chestnut-sided warbler, black-throated green warbler, blue-headed vireo, a robin worming on the ground, catbirds mewing in the bushes, and blue jays squawking in the distance. In addition, there were certainly more types I wasn’t familiar with or didn’t see well enough to identify.

From there, I cut through the woods up to the hillside pasture, where — both mornings — I thought I heard a raven croaking in the distance, but couldn’t be sure. At the edge of the woods, I saw house wrens, female purple finches sunning themselves, a white-breasted nuthatch working a tree trunk, heard a woodpecker or two, saw multiple eastern phoebes flycatching, a turkey vulture soaring overhead.

Other birds of note from the past couple weeks include a belted kingfisher flying by the pond and a spotted sandpiper along its shore. Other folks here have told me of killdeer nesting in the veggie fields this spring and a bevy of wild turkey seen around and about numerous times.

I’m looking forward to the Saturday morning walk with a real birder who’ll help us find and identify even more.

They didn’t seem to notice me (or maybe just didn’t care), so I approached to within about 10 feet and followed them for a bit. At one point, the adult (presumably the mother) stopped and sort of sat back, lifting the front of her body up and looking around. The little one clambered up to her, pushed its nose into her belly and, much to my amazement, seemed to be nursing.

Prickly and tender at the same time. Awesome!