Fiacré's spade: Stormy weather

It is only because of a rain day that I can do a blog post today, and what a relief it is to have the rain. It has been very hot (80’s), and Terry and I have been outside all day, every day trying to get our gardens in and the weeds out. We are sore and exhausted. A day of rest was in order.

We had some excitement on May 7. I got a weather alert on my phone at 2:30 that we were under a tornado warning. A few minutes later the wind blew hard enough to scare me. It was over quickly. I heard reports that a tornado had taken down a barn about a mile from our house. The news later changed that to strong winds. The barn was 200 years old, and when I saw the pictures, I was surprised it had stayed up as long as it had. The only fatalities were two sheep and two goats.

When I went out to get the paper the next morning, I saw this in the field across the road. I went in the house to get my camera.

A black something with white on the top

My suspicions were confirmed. It was a bald eagle! Any day you see an eagle is a good day, although this eagle was looking wet and grumpy. It stood still while I walked along the road, snapping pictures all the way in case the eagle got spooked a flew away. He or she was unconcerned, however. I got as close as I could get on the road and went no further. I couldn’t see any carcass anywhere that might have attracted its interest. Had it been injured in the storm?

Our national symbol, muddy, wet, and grumpy. Don't read too much into that.

As I turned to walk back to the house, I heard a tree come down somewhere by the creek. It sounded like it was south of us. Terry came out to look at the eagle while I put away my camera. When I returned, there were TWO eagles. By the time I retrieved my camera, they both flew off. No one was injured. Just wet and grumpy. The next day there were two vultures picking at a carcass near the road at about the same spot. I couldn’t tell what it had been during its life.

Terry told me later that a box elder had come down by the fire ring. I wondered if that was the tree I heard fall. I walked back later to take pictures. Here it is.

Big tree down by the creek

The tree had come up by its root ball. The root ball was surprisingly small for such a large tree. No wonder it tipped over.

Big tree, tiny root ball.

But wait! There was more. Another box elder had split and was leaning on its neighbor. Foresters call things like this “widow-makers” because of their tendency to fall on your head when you’re not looking.

Tree on the left is split and leaning on the right tree

A third tree had snapped off up high with the trunk landing on a chair.

Trunk in the foreground came from high up
on the tree just right of center in the background

Another widow-maker arched over the path to the creek. I ducked under quickly to go look at the water. You can’t be too careful. Terry started cutting up the fallen trees yesterday. The cleanup will take awhile.

The fourth box elder destroyed by the storm. They're crappy trees.

It is still hard to believe how many orioles we have this year.

It seems the orioles are always lined up at the jelly this year.

I got some good pictures of a male orchard oriole in its first summer.

Male orchard oriole in his first summer

They have a striking appearance, but wrong color for mating. Alas.

They can hardly look more different than the full-grown males. In fact, they look more like females except for the males’ dark feathers under the chin—transvestites with black beards. Compare the juvenile to the picture of the adult male I put in my last post.

Fully mature orchard oriole male

For whatever reason, there has been strong selection against first year males getting breeding plumage. Perhaps they are just not ready to settle down. I’m sure no self-respecting female will give them the time of day.

The spring flowers continue to march along. The air smells of lilacs now. I only had two shooting stars bloom this year. Some were too crowded by neighboring flowers (I have since weeded—weeding is my life!). Another was all set to bloom when a deer neatly ate the buds clean off. Swine!