This was the first lake weekend that we had rain. Sometime during Saturday night, a nice gentle rain started and clearly luled me into a great sleep, as I awoke the next morning at 11:00 am. Mind you, I had been up all hours of the previous night, putting those bloody moths outside..
The rain quit just after noon on Sunday, and the silence was absolute. The humans were still huddled in their trailers, the birds not yet up and about, and there was not a breath of wind. I swear I could hear the cattails growing.
For weeks, I’d been hearing a bird call I couldn’t identify. Nor had I been able to find the bird. I had a vague impression it might be a small, brown sparrow-y type, so I decided to browse through my field guide to see if I could locate a matching description of the call. One of the written descriptions of a vocalization caught my eye – swee swee ti sidi see zidi zidi zew, and I burst out laughing. Who writes this stuff?! I have very good hearing, but I’m confident there is absolutely no way I could identify that call if I ever heard it. And I probably have heard it, as American Tree Sparrows are not that uncommon here.
I’ve always found the calls and songs written in the guides to be very subjective anyway. I’ve never heard a Black-capped Chickadee say fee-beeyee, for example. To me, they’re always saying whoo didit. Ooh, here’s another one – teew teew tew tew tewtestestetetetetititititi. Next time I see a Field Sparrow I’ll have to follow along with the book.
Obviously, I’m going to have to put in the legwork to identify my bird, which is what birdwatching is all about anyway. The problem is, the sounds are coming from inside here…
As I do every visit, I wandered over to check on our ant neighbors, and was a little surprised to see a small fish in the middle of the nest. I can only assume that little human fingers put it there. Either that, or the ants are already working on their world domination plans, and went down to the lake and caught it themselves. Either scenario is possible.
At the entrance to our campground is a sign that says no fireworks allowed. As the owner of a dog that goes squirrely at sudden, sharp noises, I was glad to see the sign. But for some reason, they had a fireworks display on Saturday night. After her intitial lift-off when the first firework exploded, our dog was thankfully quite calm about the whole thing, as she huddled in the trailer wrapped around my husband’s legs. I was standing outside trying to take pictures, and absolutely getting eaten alive by mosquitos. They defeated me in the end, and I ran for cover before the show was over.
We have clearly reached peak mosquito season here at the lake. Walking through the grass brings up clouds of them, the tiny ones that make you itch like mad when they get you. Sitting out by the fire in the evening is impossible, so our screen room has become a refuge. Even the dog is hiding from the bugs.
While the Tree Swallows appear to have gone for the year, there are still plenty of Barn and Bank Swallows around. I didn’t hear any Eastern Kingbirds, but the Western are still flying around, and the Eastern Phoebes are still here as well.
While walking the dog along the edge of the lake, my husband yelled at me to come quick. I grabbed the camera and set out, but was too late for the action. Apparently there were three Red-winged Blackbirds mobbing this beaver as he swam towards the reeds. Neither of us had ever seen that behaviour before, and I wish I had gotten a picture of it.
A few years ago, my usually clever husband asked me why we always ate the same things for supper. It was a gift! From that point on, he has been in charge of cooking on weekends. He actually enjoys it (although not as much as I do) and occasionally gets quite creative. Last weekend, he decided to do a pot roast over the fire. This was a new concept for us, but judging by how excellent the result was, he’ll definitely have to do this again!
There won’t be a Marsh Diaries post next week, as we’ll be staying home that weekend. So much time at the lake means my gardens haven’t had enough attention, and a week away will also give my million or so mossie bites time to stop itching. Then we can come out and start all over again…
In The Singing Life of Birds, Donald Kroodsma renders the Black-capped Chickadee call as “Hey Sweetie!” It may not be an accurate representation of the sounds but that’s the way I always think of it now, since it seems to capture what the bird is trying to communicate during the breeding season.
Wonderful post Pat! I would love to try that pot roast!
The mnemonics for Eastern Meadowlark and Chestnut-sided Warbler songs have never seemed right to me.
Great post – i can never make heads or tails of written descriptions of bird calls either
dan