Category: Nature

 

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Tuther day as I rounded the house to the backyard I encountered an opossum and oh, what a possum.  It was as big as a small dog and was headed for the heated birdbath we keep on the ground in the back.  The lack of moisture plus the cold temperatures that freeze any water available to birds and critters makes the ground-level bird bath very popular.

It was mid-morning so I don’t know why this gnarly old devil was out and about, possums being mostly nocturnal, unless it just got thirsty.  It was covered with scars but I didn’t see any open wounds.  Since possums usually move slow and have a pained expression, I couldn’t tell if it was or hurt.  Since it seemed apparent it just wanted a drink of water, I went on about my business and let it go about its.  It left after drinking some water but I was in the garage and didn’t see which way it went.

All winter we have had a hawk in the neighborhood.  It is smaller than a Coopers hawk which we see from time to time and bigger than a sparrow hawk.  Chris snapped this picture of the hawk perched on the garden gate  one late afternoon.  He said it had been harassing the chickens when he first saw it but I think that was just wishful thinking on its part.  Though I’ve glimpsed it many times over the last few months, I’ve never gotten a good look at it.  The Audubon bird field guide says Merlins like the treeline of foothills next to a prairie but will winter south of this normal range.  We’ve got the treeline next to the prairie so maybe that’s what it is.  A Merlin is also called a pigeon hawk.  We have plenty of doves around, which would work just as good as a pigeon, I’m sure, and every once in a while we’ll come across a pile of dove feathers.  Circumstantial evidence, I know, but something is dining on dove so we will pin it on this fellow.

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When I drove into the Bluff last week, this fellow was sitting on a bench by the driveway.  It seemed unconcerned even though I was only about fifteen feet from it.  Hawks are usually pretty shy and I was afraid there was something wrong with it.  As I parked I saw it fly from the bench and land on the ground by some bear grass about 50 feet away.  He then started chasing after the numerous grasshoppers around.  Again I thought there must be something wrong with it and it was sustaining itself by eating grasshoppers since it couldn’t do better for whatever reason.

Later I spoke to WCB director Victoria Saker who told me wildlife rehabber Stephanie Oravetz determined that there wasn’t anything wrong with it.  Rather, she speculated that it was a juvenile from a nest observed in the trees west of the Bluff.  It appears to be a Swainson’s hawk.  At least that’s the closest description I found in the field guide.

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As Kari was headed out Monday afternoon to pick up Rebecca from tennis camp she noticed something on the ground underneath the hackberry by the driveway and realized it must be a bird nest.  It was a hot and windy day but she had no time to stop then.  Later when she returned with Li’l r she remembered the nest and sent Rebecca to inspect it.  Rebecca found it was sure enough a nest and there were two mostly naked chicks on the ground not far from it.   They gathered the checks, put them back in the nest and showed Joyce who told Rebecca to find me, which she did.

My track record with baby birds is not good, especially for ones so young, but I had to do something.  I felt their best chance was to return the nest to the tree and hope the parents would take it from there.  So I got a step ladder and looked for a suitable place in the tree to put the nest.  Did I mention it was a windy day?  I found a spot where I could wedge the nest in among some small branches but I didn’t feel confident it would stay put in the wind.  It was late in the day and darkness was approaching so we didn’t stay around to see what happened.

The next morning the nest was still in the tree and I saw an adult robin perched on a limb at the top of the smallish tree.  That was encouraging but not definitive.  Later Joyce and Kari were standing beneath the tree speculating whether the chicks survived their time on the ground.  They didn’t think so in spite of the fact the adults seemed to have found the nest.  As they were considering the odds of the chicks surviving, two little punkin heads popped up from the nest to confirm the chicks had survived their big adventure.

The pictures above were taken the following Sunday evening.  I climbed a ladder to take the picture of the nest which was remarkably well made.  When I tried to hold the camera above the nest to get a shot of the chicks they got shrieked and made a run for it.  They had grown considerably in only a week.  Joyce and I corralled the chicks and returned them to the nest while the adults scolded us.  When Rebecca first brought me the nest with the chicks in it, I thought they were little mockingbirds or maybe bluejays because of their coloring.  Now they look like little robins.

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While digging some soil out of the dirt mound to build Joyce some melon mounds on the caliche, I unearthed a blind snake.  It could have been a New Mexico blind snake or a plains blind snake.  If a NM blind snake, it was pretty far east of their normal range and if a plains, then it was north of its usual territory according to my Texas snakes field guide.  I think it more closely resembled the picture of the NM blind snake in the guide, being rather pink.  It was a feisty fellow and did its best to slither away but being only 5-8 inches long it just couldn’t cover ground all that fast.  And then there was that whole white cane and dark glasses business to further impede.

Sometime in the last year or so, Rebecca found a carcass of what appeared to be a blind snake in their driveway.  It had been thoroughly rendered two dimensional by vehicles but was still recognizable as a snake and not a worm, which the species closely resembles.  Other than that I had never seen one before, which is not surprising sense they spend their lives underground.  I guess the one mashed in the driveway tried to buck the system.

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Joyce hollered for me to come a running shortly after breakfast this morning.  She was headed out the front door to plant some of the flowers she had yet to get into the various pots around the house and saw a big white bird in the pond.  We didn’t get very close to it so we didn’t get a real good look, but I think it fit the Audubon bird guide description and picture of a great or common egret.  It was considerably larger than a cattle egret so I think we can rule that out.

 

Later, or maybe earlier, Kari saw the egret strolling around the side of the house and Chris took this picture.  I was concerned it might have been dining on the gold fish in the lily pool but Joyce and Rebecca confirmed the fish were still there after the bird was gone.  It might have gobbled up a few frogs while wading in the pond but it was chilly this morning so maybe the frogs were sleeping in and escaped notice.