The rest of August

 Tomatoes are so impatient. As soon as I got back from vacation, I was up to my eyeballs. I baked, juiced, and canned tomatoes, filling up both the freezer and the root cellar. It was a frantic race against rot and fruit flies.

Now that I can catch my breath, I’ll catch you up on the rest of August. Goldenrod is a bright yellow reminder that summer is having its last gasp. Soon New England aster will welcome the coming of autumn. 

Goldenrod

It’s a sad time of year for me. The fireflies are long gone. The last chicks have fledged. I saw Daddy Cardinal feeding his chick underneath the feeder. The chick was about the same size as the parent, but even more than the juvenile plumage, its behavior gave it away. It shook its wings and opened its mouth, trying to get Dad’s attention. I’ve seen this “FEED ME!” behavior in a lot of species.

A cardinal feeds his baby

On August 24, the sky opened up about 3:00 p.m. with the heaviest rain I’ve ever seen. It came down like a gigantic fire hose. I had just stepped out of the shower after mowing the lawn. The open-topped feeder was outside in the chicken run, but even if I had streaked out there naked, I would have been too late. Even worse, Terry was in the field on the big tractor and caught completely by surprise. The Gator was outside. I’d parked the riding mower outside the tractor shed for Terry to clean and put inside. Everything, including Terry, was drenched.

Heaviest rain I've ever seen

Over the next four hours, we got 5” of rain. It was unbelievable. We watched the field for signs of flooding, but we were lucky. The creek did not, as far as we could tell, overflow its banks. It didn’t even puddle up much in the low spots, probably because there were huge cracks in the ground from the summer-long drought.

Early the next morning, a doe and her twin fawns came to the oak to eat the acorns that had washed down in the storm.

One of the twins eating acorns

Much to my surprise, two bucks showed up. The doe took her fawns away.

Brief standoff between a buck and a fawn

We have two tom turkeys that do their rounds at about the same time every morning. They ate acorns with the bucks for a short time.

Turkeys and bucks breakfasting together

The bucks soon chased them off.

 A buck goes after one of the turkeys

One of the buck was not content to get his acorns from the ground.

Probably the acorns are better from the tree

The only place we had standing water was in the south field where Terry planted swamp white oak. For a few days, we had migrating shore birds in the middle of the prairie. What they were finding to eat is a mystery. My best guess was solitary sandpipers, which I’ve seen before during the fall migration. The markings were the same, but there were two distinct sizes. The same species or different? I showed my pictures to Nancy, who is a more serious birder than I. She thought they were all the same species, but the white eye ring did not seem consisted with the solitary sandpiper. We don’t know what they were. Birds are so annoying.

Similar shore birds in two sizes

Solitary sandpiper?

On August 28, we had another deluge, getting 3.6” over several hours. And where do you supposed the chicken feed was? That's right. I had to throw out drenched feed and clean the feeder for the second time in a week. Now we had some serious puddling in the west field, but still no apparent flooding of the creek. The turkeys and the doe with twins came back for more acorns.

Turkey, doe, and twin fawns. Note big ol' puddle of water in the back

Mom stands watch while her babies feed

Later that day, I saw a fawn resting under a tree. Does often leave their fawns in a safe place while they forage elsewhere.

Fawn under a tree

A great blue heron came by frequently over the next days, even after most of the water had dried up. As with the sandpipers, we had no idea what it found to eat.

Great blue heron strolling on the lawn

In any case, we had many opportunities to watch wildlife in the last weeks of August.