Frosting on the Windowpane II

                            There's frosting on the windowpane …

                                                 John Denver: Goodbye Again

It’s winter, not the winter of old when we had frequent days below 0°F and we had a day or two each winter when the temperature was below -10° here at the house. I miss those low temperatures and the beauty those clear cold days brought. As the climate changes there are fewer and fewer cold days.

At 2°F this was one of the coldest mornings of the winter and it brought some of winter’s beauty. On the inside of the storm window of one of our spare rooms frost had formed ferns, feathers and trees –

As the sun rises and the day warms the sculptures formed by the frost melt; with luck the cold temperature will return with the night and new frost will form on the windowpane.

I feel sorry for those of you who live in places where there is never frosting on the windowpane. By the same token as the worldwide climate continues to warm those of us who live in areas where we have proper winters can expect fewer mornings when frost can form on our windowpanes.

Quilt Blocks

As we drive around northcentral Pennsylvania it’s not unusual to see decorations on barns. Sometimes one side of a barn has been painted to advertise chewing tobacco, sometimes a sign promoting a particular brand of tractors, gasoline or chainsaws has been nailed to the siding. Those are ads, intended to encourage the viewer to purchase a product.

Then there are the quilt blocks painted on plywood and nailed to barns or outbuildings. The quilt blocks are purely aesthetic, not intended to sell anything to anyone.

Here’s a selection of the quilt blocks we’ve seen on barns over the last few years –

Some of these quilt blocks have been up for years, exposed to sun and rain they’re fading. Others are fairly new, still bright for now. Will anyone repaint the fading quilt blocks? As the old barns deteriorate and gradually disappear many quilt blocks will go too, but for now they add a pleasant bit of color to the rural landscape.

Red-heads

A few miles from home there’s a small area of woodland, part of which was once cleared that became a stand of white ash, now dead from the feeding of the introduced emerald ash borer. The rest of the woodland is comprised of very large, very tall red oak and sugar maple with hardly any understory of shrubs and small trees. A small stream runs through the woodland adding another habitat type to the area.

One mild winter day when the ice and snow had almost completely melted, I returned to the woodland where we had spent many pleasant days. As I walked a path among the impressively large trees, there was a flash of white from a medium-sized bird in flight. Most birds that size don’t show much white as they fly, especially large areas of white. So I slowly and quietly walked toward the spot where it landed and saw a woodpecker on the trunk of a small shagbark hickory tree – a red-headed woodpecker.

In recent years the only red-headed woodpeckers I’ve seen have been in and near the Gettysburg battlefield about two and a half hour drive to the south. So it was a treat to see this bird so much closer to home. This called for a slow and careful approach: I wanted more photos of the red-head. The woodpecker flew to the ground and then back to the tree –

The brownish face on the bird indicated it was a juvenile red-headed woodpecker.

After spending a few minutes on the tree the bird flew to parts unknown –

With the bird gone, I kept walking. Surprise! There was another flash of white as a second red-headed woodpecker flew from one tree to another. The bird inspected some of the numerous holes in several of the large trees –

This bird was an adult red-headed woodpecker, indicated by its solid red head. It flew to another tree –

And then flew off and out of sight. With that I too left – but I’ll be back.

Harrier in the Morning

There’s an extensive grassland in northcentral Pennsylvania that probably had its origin in Native American agriculture. The first European settlers would have found those clearings convenient places to begin farming. Farming continued on the area until it passed into public ownership and was planted to grasses and forbs native to North America.

Adjacent to the grassland is a wetland: partially open water, partially a cattail marsh. It has a few scattered trees, some water-filled potholes and a languid stream. The entire area, grassland and wetland, is superb wildlife habitat and so it’s a place I visit often.

One morning, as I walked the border between wetland and grassland, a flock of small birds flushed from the cattails in the wetland; they came right past me as they fled whatever flushed them.

It was only a moment until the answer presented itself – a female northern harrier –

The harrier landed on a nest box erected for kestrels and stayed there for a while as it searched for prey –

When the harrier took off she too flew past me to land on a limb that had fallen from an old black willow –

After spending some time on the fallen limb surveying the area for a meal, she again took flight and flew less than 100 yards to land on the stub of a fallen willow –

The harrier spent time on that perch slowly surveying her surroundings. Because she was relaxed and seemed comfortable with my presence, I slowly moved closer and then even closer, taking a photo every few steps. Still she looked for prey –

Eventually she took off to fly across the grassland and I lost sight of her against the distant woodland –

What a morning! The closest I’ve ever been to a harrier and a cooperative one at that.