Good Bye Old Friend

One of my best friends went home to be with the Lord this week. Dick Warren was a remarkable man. and inspiration to me and others - I took this photo of him on a spring 08 visit to Shenk's ferry. It spoke to me then but I did not want to hear what it said.

KESTRAL

Sat 11/7/09 - I got as close to a Kestrel as I ever have today - I noticed it perched on a wire near our church school on Seighrist Rd. (West Hempfield Twp -Lancaster County, PA) As normal these sighting happen when I am WC (without camera). What was not normal is that after I fetched the camera and Florence (about 15 min later) he was still there.

Kestrels are amazing birds, the smallest of the falcon family, the are beautifully marked and fascinating flyers. They can hover in one place like a hummer and often will do this over an open field looking for the movement of a small rodent, their major food source. They will eat insects also.

I have seen them many times in the past but they are very leery of man. They will often fly from a perch as you approach and then perch again 20 or 30 yards away and will keep repeating this untill they get tired of you following them - then they fly out of sight. They often return to the same hunting grounds if they are successful.

This guy allowed me to get close enough for a good picture. (see above) Come to think of it I did get closer to a Kestrel once. I was between tours and taking a nap in the car waiting on the second bus - I awoke to discover a Kestrel perched on a fence post about 20 feet from me and of course I had no camera. I did enjoy the experience.

A beautiful visitor

A painted lady landed on our "picture window" today. The window is almost always warm with sunshine but it is Nov 6 an the temps have been below 30 at night but there she was - a bit slow but as beautiful as spring. On October 9th we released the last of our "butterfly heard" after our last butterfly program of the season - there were two painted ladies in that group and I am assuming that she is one of them. still to find her 28 days latter is special. She looked in very good condition no matter where she came from. Folks who know us know that we consider butterflies a gift and messenger from God so you may appreciate just how excited we were.

Last week the James Stricker family called to report the emergence of a butterfly from it's chrysalis. I hurried to their play and found a beautifully pristine black swallowtail - got lots of pics (see above) They had found the cats on there dill plants and brought them inside. Had they been left outside the black swallowtails would have wintered in the chrysalis emerging in the spring.

In the above pics the young man with the hat and the butterfly on his finger is Peter Strickler and the young man with the butterfly on his face is a guest of the Strickler's named Ben.

HAPPY NATURING !!!!!!

Where has the time gone?

It has been 10 months since our last blog - in that time we have built the web site (http://sites.google.com/site/creationappreciation/ ) and worked on allot of other projects. We designed the web site to replace the blogs but have missed writing about our nature adventures on a regular basis so we are back - I know that those who were reading this gave up on it as I was not posting new stuff but here we go again we will try to use this blog and the web site to keep you updated eventually the other two blogs (below) will disappear
[GODDIDITALL.BLOGSPOT.COM] & [CREATIONAPPRECIATION.BLOGSPOT,COM]

NEW WEB SITE

Dear friends we are opening a new web site which will make it easier for folks to read about us rather than scrolling through blogs - go see it and make your comments - the address will be easier and shorter soon but for now it is

http://sites.google.com/site/creationappreciation/

SAW WHET OWLS

Sunday Oct 12, 2008 was a great day for naturing. (but, what day isn't?) We met John Lascowski (the Mothman)at the Carsonville Hotel for a great meal and fun conversation as always. At 6:30 pm we traveled over to the Small Valley Girl Scout Camp to meet with the volunteer owl banding crew from the Ned Smith Center. Mothman brought a supply of ripe pawpaws to share with everyone, they were wonderful. I learned that the pawpaw is a close relative of the papaya, news to me.

A neat surprise was seeing an old friend - Tony (? her last name now) was an employee of mine when I managed White Rose Patient Transfer of 32 years ago. She came to our wedding and we haven't seen each other since. A very nice experience for Flo and I.

The research on the saw whet owl is fascinating - you can read more about it by googleing or on the Ned Smith web site. They use nets and a sound recording as a lure to the nets. The bander thought it was too light and too warm so he expected nothing - we checked the nets every hour from 7 to 12 (We left at 11:30) - at 9 and 11 we caught one - both were previously banded but not in this area the numbers were not familiar to locals - Scott W. will look them up in the national registry to discover their history - they say that to get a previously banded "foreign" owl is the best for research as it has a history to compare with your data - growth distance covered age etc. I hate the word cute for the fact that it is so overused but these little owls are just cute. I am including some of the pics I took there.

The Mothman and his pawpaws

















Owl's wing under black light - color helps determine age

















our friend Tony holding the first owl just before release


















Our first visitor - a female

















the tools to collect and record data


















our second visitor also a female with band # displayed

DELAWARE BIRDING

Hello Friends - Flo and I just returned from two days in DE. It was our 31st anniversary so we splurged a little. Sine we found gas for $2.95 a gallon in DE in made the trip even sweeter.

Here are my notes
/for each bird - X means around 10 - c means about 100 and so on - ) means by ear only"

Wednesday Oct 8, 2008 - Bombay Hook NWR

Snowy Egret /////
Bald Eagle /
Belted King Fisher /
Mallard Duck XX
Canada Goose XX
Goshawk ///
Kestrel /
Killdeer /)
Gulls XXX
Lesser Yellow Legs X
Comorant /
Black and Turkey Vulture ///
Great Blue Heron //

Prime Hook

Gulls XXX
Great Egret X//
Snowy Egret //
Bald Eagle /
Sharp Shin Hawk /
Red Tail Hawk /)
Belted King Fisher //
Balk & Turkey Vulture ???
Osprey /

Thursday October 9, 2008

Prime Hook

Turkey & Black Vulture ///
Snow Geese CC+
Canada Geese CC
Mallards X
Mocking Bird )/ - //
Cardinal /
gulls C (surprise)
Snowy Egret X
Great Egret XX
Great Blue Heron //
Belted King Fisher //

Bombay Hook

Killdeer //
Belted Kingfisher /
Great Egret X
Canada Goose XX
Mallard X
Snow Goose C
Great Blue Heron //
Cormorant ///
Gulls XXX (again what a surprise?)
Snowy Egret //
Tree Swallows XX
Lesser Yellow Legs X
Goshawk /

Not a bad couple of days - but not as many birds as we expected - a ranger at Prime Hook told us that a storm pushed some salt water in to their fresh water impoundments which killed some food supply and numbers may be low this year. Two highlights were a very large Bald Eagle perched above nest (Osprey platform) and a 2 hour nap with the windows open on the beach bathed in Sunshine as the surf rolled.

We also saw several Monarchs, one dark swallowtail (? who) and lots of sulfurs both white and yellow - and just like the child that I am I brought home 2 hermit crabs.

Will have some pics up by Monday, I hope
We hope to be in Northern Dauphin County, with the Mothman) to witness the Saw Whet Owl banding on Sunday Night

Blessings to all.