Oak Titmouse Visitors

About a year ago, we had a bit of an invasion in our yard. Rats, in ever growing numbers, were eating the birdseed from the feeders in our backyard (and also eating just about everything else they could find). So, to make the area less hospitable, we decided to take down the bird feeders and so remove the birdseed as a food source. Let me me tell you, I really missed having birds frequenting the yard to eat!

But it worked! We removed all the food sources we could find and trapped the rats like crazy for quite a while, and we have not seen a rat in a couple of months. So we, tentatively, refilled the bird feeders and rehung them in the yard.

Once the feeders were rehung, I was curious to see how long it would take for them to be rediscovered, and which species would be the first to notice and take advantage of this food source. For the first two days the feeders went ignored, but on the third day a flash of feathers dropped onto the pole that the feeders hang from.

It was an Oak Titmouse!

Oak Titmouse (Photo by Aaron N.K. Haiman)

The titmouse looked the feeders over from its perch on the top of the pole, and then flew off without dropping down to actually take a seed; its exit just and sudden and purposeful as its arrival. Just a few minutes later the flash of feathers appeared again, and once again there was an Oak Titmouse on the top of the pole. This time the titmouse did drop down to one of the feeders, grabbed a sunflower seed, and rapidly departed. A few minutes after that, the flash of feathers occurred once again, and again there was a titmouse on the pole. This time, it only paused there a moment before going for a seed, and while it did so, a different flash of feathers appeared! A second Oak Titmouse joined the first on the feeder, each bird took a sunflower seed, and both flew off. The two birds, very likely a mated pair, visited the feeder numerous more times that afternoon and evening.

Watching these birds appear to drop out of nowhere so suddenly is such fun! They are so filled with character and curiosity that watching them investigate the bird feeders and the rest of the surroundings is a constant source of entertainment, and they fly in so fast and with so little warning, and then leave so abruptly, that each flight coming or going is a surprise and gives me a thrill of excitement.

The Oak Titmouse pair has continued to be frequent visitors to the feeders. They have been joined, so far, by a handful of House Finches, a California Scrub-Jay, a pair of Mourning Doves, and a pair of Lesser Goldfinches.

It is hard to put into word just how happy I am to have birds back in the yard! I just hope the rats stay away.

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The Sense of Wonder by Rachel Carson

I just discovered a gem (well, actually my wife did).

Cover of the audiobook version of “The Sense of Wonder” by Rachel Carson. Image courtesy of Goodreads.com.

My family and I have an Audible account that we all use extensively. One of the fun things that Audible does is to offer a rotating spattering of books for free to account holders. The books offered this way are always a bit of a random assortment, and since they change frequently checking that list is always a bit of a gamble. My wife checked that list about a month ago and spotted a book she thought I would be interested in. The book was called “The Sense of Wonder” by Rachel Carson, and wow was my wife right about it!

Rachel Carson, in case you have somehow never heard of her, was a marine biologist, conservation ecologist, science communicator, and author (to name just a few). She is most famous for her book “Silent Spring” in which she discusses the negative impacts that insecticides have on the natural world and on human health. This book is widely viewed as having a dramatic impact on the efforts to ban many harmful pesticides and launching the environmental movement in the USA.

In “The Sense of Wonder” Carson talks about sharing a love of nature and the world with kids. How magnificent it can be to spend time with a child asking questions regardless of if you or anyone else knows the answers. How wonderous it can be to stand together on the edge of the ocean and have the waves “through great handfuls of froth” at you. How awe inspiring it can be to walk in the company of child through a deep forest after a storm and see every pine needle and ever spray of lichen trimmed with water droplets.

Carson also discusses how important it is to share these experiences and emotional responses to nature with children, and not teach them about nature. It is the sharing that is important. It is the sharing of one’s own passion that will spread that passion to others. The knowledge will come, almost on its own, if the love and passion are there, but the reverse is so common.

I am so delighted that this book exists. I want to share it with my daughter. I want to take it out into the woods and read it so that I can share Carson’s words and thoughts, myself. This book exemplifies the value of the written word in that the ideas that someone has can be shared with others long after that person is gone (Carson died in 1964 at the age of 57).

This is certainly a book that I heartily recommend and that I will be re-reading often. I will probably even go out and find a hardcopy version that I can physically carry with me to the seashore or forest or riverbank or desert.

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Disclaimer: I have no sponsorship type relation to Audible, Rachel Carson, or the publishing company that produces this book.

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Camping and Birding at Silver Fork

Sometimes three nights spent in the woods are more restorative and satisfying than even I expect them to be.

And that is exactly the experience I had camping at the Silver Fork Campground on the banks of the Silver Fork of the American River in the El Dorado National Forest. I have camped in this area before, but never at this specific campground, and it was lovely. The campground was quiet and clean. The river was close and beautiful. The forest was impressive. And the birds were thrilling!

And the river itself was wonderful as well. The water was the perfect temperature for wading and swimming which was so refreshing in the heat of the afternoon. Not only were there dippers and the merganser to watch, but there were lots of different butterfly species coming down to drink and get some salts from the sandy shore, and also a huge variety of macroinvertebrates in the water. There were so many stonefly larva crawling around on the bottom with their carefully constructed tiny hard tubes made from tiny sticks and stones.

With the beauty of the forests, the amazing wildlife to see, cooking over the fire, and sharing the whole experience with family and friends, this was a wonderful trip. I was aware that I really missed camping in 2020, but in a lot of ways I am fully realizing just how much I missed it now that I am camping once again! Being in the woods, getting to see and smell and hear the natural world around me, and getting to share it with you both here and on my YouTube channel (there will be a couple of videos coming out in the next few weeks) made me happier and more tranquil and excited than I have been for a while! I can’t wait until my next trip!

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List of Bird Species Observed:

Common Merganser

Common Nighthawk

Anna’s Hummingbird

Turkey Vulture

Belted Kingfisher

White-headed Woodpecker

Pileated Woodpecker

Northern Flicker

Pacific-slope Flycatcher

Black Phoebe

Steller’s Jay

Common Raven

Mountain Chickadee

Golden-crowned Kinglet

Red-breasted Nutchatch

Brown Creeper

American Dipper

Townsend’s Solitaire

American Robin

American Goldfinch

Dark-eyed Junco

Spotted Towhee

Yellow-rumped Warbler

Hermit Warbler

Wilson’s Warbler

Western Tanager

List of Other Species Observed (incomplete):

Western Tiger Swallowtail

Pale Tiger Swallowtail

Blue Copper

Lorquin’s Admeral

Sierra Nevada Checkerspot

Stonefly

Cadis Fly

Yellowjacket

Pacific Clubtail

Kibramoa madrona

Western Fence Lizard

Rainbow Trout

Douglas’s Squirrel

California Groundsquirrel

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