Groundhog

I spied this groundhog walking along the shore of the Delaware River last fall. Groundhogs have a lot of common names, so you may know this animal as a woodchuck or a whistlepig or something else. Its scientific name is Marmota monax. I wonder if this one was starting to get the urge to hibernate. He looks well fattened and ready for a long winter's sleep. 

After having spent a few months in an underground burrow avoiding all the snow and storms we've been through, according to folk tradition, the groundhogs are expected to emerge this Friday, February 2nd, to predict how the rest of the season will go. They say if the groundhog sees its shadow it will run back into its burrow and we will get six more weeks of winter. But if it is not so startled, it will stay outside, signalling the end of winter.

There's an older holiday of February 2nd that also includes a weather prediction -- the Christian feast of Candlemas. A folk rhyme about it goes like this:

If Candlemas Day be fair and bright,
Winter will have another fight;
But if Candlemas Day be clouds and rain,
Winter is gone, and will not come again.

One thing we know for sure is that spring will come eventually and it is not too early to anticipate its arrival. 

Click to enlarge.

January Thaw

I love the morning fogs that come with January thaws. Do you recognize this landmark that looks like a bridge to nowhere and might give pause to Twilight Zone fans?

Moments later the lifting fog revealed one of the iconic towers of the Brooklyn Bridge over the East River in New York City. Click to enlarge.

By afternoon it is as if the fog had never happened. I bet the birds and animals are as happy as the humans with the pleasant warmer temperatures.

Here is Carl Sandburg's poem, The Fog: 

The fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

Cedar Waxwing

I forced myself outside to take a walk in the windy cold yesterday and I was rewarded with a cedar waxwing sighting. Look at that smooth sleek masked and crested beauty. There were two of them sitting in a tree that was covered with dry berries, which is what they eat in winter along with cedar berries from which they get part of their name.

The waxwing part of their name comes from their bright red wingtips. The red parts actually are wax, a bright red waxy secretion thought to play a role in mate attraction. Click to enlarge. I'm attracted.

Their yellow tail tips are lovely, too.

The sighting reminded me of this poem, WAXWINGS, by Robert Francis.

Four Tao philosophers as cedar waxwings
chat on a February berry bush
in sun, and I am one.

Such merriment and such sobriety--
the small wild fruit on the tall stalk--
was this not always my true style?

Above an elegance of snow, beneath
a silk-blue sky a brotherhood of four
birds. Can you mistake us?

To sun, to feast, and to converse
and all together--for this I have abandoned
all my other lives.

Wendy's Crows

Today I stood outside in the cold for a while watching this crow forage in the trash behind a Wendy's fast food restaurant. I like the way it is puffing up its feathers. Click to enlarge. 

Another one flew over and then both left when I got too close, making dramatic silhouettes as they went. They are so sharply contrasted against the light sky that they made me want to turn them into Photoshop brushes. (Click here to read how I do that.) 

And here they are! Wendy's crows.

Happy New Year!

The Creature of the Year award for 2017 goes to the Chincoteague wild ponies that were featured in the May Mother's Day blog. Congratulations to the ponies for outstanding cuteness! Click to enlarge. 

In the event that the ponies are unable to fulfill their duties, the runner up peacock fly from June 4's blog -- pictured here reacting to the announcement -- will step in. Happy New Year and good wishes to all for 2018.

Merry Christmas!

“I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a schoolboy. I am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to everybody! A happy New Year to all the world!” -- Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol.

Another Backyard Bird

The tufted titmouse, Baeolophus bicolor, is a frequent visitor to my seed feeder, summer and winter. Males and females look alike, so this one could be either. The crested head and big dark eyes make it adorable, right? Click to enlarge.

Tufted titmice hoard seeds against the uncertainties of finding food in winter. They are "scatter hoarders" that tuck seeds away in numerous small caches, an approach that gives some insurance against catastrophic pilferage by raiders. They hide seeds under bark and in tree crotches and similar places. I see them taking seed after seed, one at a time, flying away and then flying back for more.

Birds that hoard seeds like tufted titmice are famous for having well developed spatial memories that allow them to remember hundred to thousands of hiding places. Smart!

I'm a scatter hoarder, too.