Earth Day (or is it Air Day?)


I get excited when I find a couple of delicate strands of silk*, but then Mary has to come along and gloat about all the birds she saw just yesterday:

American Crow, American Goldfinch, American Robin, Black-capped Chickadee, Blue Jay, Brown-headed Cowbird, Canada Goose, Cedar Waxwing, Chipping Sparrow, Collared Dove, Common Grackle, Common Pheasant, Common Starling, Downy Woodpecker, Eastern Phoebe, Great-tailed Grackle, Hairy Woodpecker, Hermit Thrush, House Finch, House Sparrow, Mallard, Mourning Dove, Northern Cardinal, Northern Flicker, Northern House Wren, Purple Finch, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Red-tailed Hawk, Red-winged Blackbird, Rock Dove, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Song Sparrow, White-breasted Nuthatch, White-throated Sparrow, Wood Duck, Yellow-rumped Warbler.

It’s no fair! She has set up this grand array of birdfeeders to draw in the local species.

There is ONE bird in all of that alluring food this morning.

Also unfair: stupid vertebrates. It takes a little longer for invertebrates to warm up. Give ’em time, they’ll outnumber the birds soon enough…probably already. They’re just not a bunch of show-offs.

Happy Earth Day!

* I’m also seeing silk in the compost bin, but the compost hasn’t thawed out yet. Soon!

Comments

  1. jimnb11 says

    I had an array of bird feeders and even managed to make them squirrel proof. Then the bear ambled through. Everything wrecked. Bummer.

  2. says

    Curious thing about spiders I remember from my youth (aged 22 or so). I worked in Spain as an aircraft mechanic, on a 707 freighter. When the airplane came back from a trip and taxied up to our spot, we’d immediately start doing a post-flight inspection (make sure nothing important had fallen off). Within what I swear was 15 minutes or so (my memory could be faulty on the time elapsed), I’d start seeing lines of spider webs strung all over the tops of the main gear tires, still warm from landing/braking. This was in the middle of a vast paved ramp area, hundreds of feet from any grass or vegetation.

    So there must have been spiders that were stowing away on the airplane, in the main gear wheel well? How would they survive at the altitudes we flew (often 42,000 feet) and the freezing cold? Perhaps the temperature wouldn’t soak to such a low level in the landing gear wheel well (humans have somehow survived this stowing away on aircraft) but what about the relative lack of oxygen and low atmospheric pressure (landing gear wells are not pressurized)?

    Amazing little critters!

  3. StevoR says

    I’m also seeing silk in the compost bin, but the compost hasn’t thawed out yet. Soon!

    So, wait, the silk is a sign of active spiders but the compost is still frozen solid?

  4. asclepias says

    I am going to be manning a booth this afternoon at the UUCC for the Wyoming chapter of Citizens Climate Lobby. A local activist has scheduled an Earth Day rally for next Saturday, so I’ll be there trying to drum up support (and I said I’d be a speaker, so also boring/confusing the audience with lots of dates, names, and numbers. I have decided to ride my bike to as many places as I can (yesterday I couldn’t–I had an appointment and when I left, the wind started gusting to 50 mph–there was no way I would have made it on time), mostly because of emissions, but also because with these tariffs that may or may not go into place, regular car maintenance is likely to get a lot more expensive. I’d challenge everyone to do the same if they can–I’m not talking 20 or 30 miles, but 2-3–but I know there are a lot of people who just can’t, like a friend who has rheumatoid arthritis and it hurts to do a lot of active stuff.

  5. raven says

    I had an array of bird feeders and even managed to make them squirrel proof. Then the bear ambled through.

    This is not at all uncommon.

    My friend who lives in the far suburbs had three different bird feeders.
    Until one night in late fall, a bear wrecked all three of them in one night.

  6. charley says

    I bow to Mary, Queen of Birds and wither before her magnificent list. I don’t see a quarter as many species at my feeder on any given day.

  7. submoron says

    Robert Westbrook @6. Spiders have been found ballooning at about 16,000 ft so if they can go that far solo maybe with help that can make it the rest of the way.

  8. zygoptera says

    The free app, Merlin Bird ID, is my friend. The app identifies so many birds. Watching the identified bird list change throughout the different seasons is so fun and the price is right!

    This year I’ve been putting out plant pot saucers with water and stones and am getting more visitors than expected. This morning visitors included a chickadee, house finch and squirrel.

  9. larpar says

    zygoptera@12
    My Merlin app is acting up. I’ll hit the listen button, it will record for about 5 seconds, then completely crash.

  10. cag says

    In the interest of fair trade and reciprocity, the American Crow, American Goldfinch and American Robin will henceforth be named Mexican Crow, Mexican Goldfinch and Mexican Robin.

  11. StevoR says

    Thinking Earth Day the BBC has this article noting :

    The “Blue Marble” was the first photograph of the whole Earth and the only one ever taken by a human. Fifty years on, new images of the planet reveal visible changes to the Earth’s surface.

    ….(Snip)…

    This time, a set of 12 images taken 15 minutes apart, reveal noticeable changes to our planet’s surface, the result of 50 years of global warming.

    In the 50 years that separates these two snapshots in time, one of the most striking differences is the visible reduction in the size of the Antarctic ice sheet. “

    Source : https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20250422-how-50-years-of-climate-change-has-changed-the-face-of-the-blue-marble

  12. imback says

    I love how awkwardly and ardently amorous grackles are in the spring. The rest of the year, if they’re around they’re so unobtrusive that I don’t notice them. And @larpar, I’ve had to reinstall Merlin when it acted weird, but hey, it’s a wonderful free app so I can’t complain.

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