Slow Fall Days

It's nearly a wrap on Elmira Pond. The migrators are going south now. Blue Heron still makes an appearance, but his show days are over. Birds flock through the pines, noisily at times. The osprey and hummingbirds are long gone. Yet the cat, bees and fall flowers linger as the wood pile grows and the dogs snuffle at gopher mounds in the tall blond grass.

Here's a look at these slow fall days on Elmira Pond. Joining up with Abracabadra for Wordless Wednesday. And, for once, I have few words as I savor these shots.

Looking for Lost Gophers

Train Logs & Dogs in Blond Grass

Dabblers Passing Through

Gathering at the Pond Log Before Flying South

An Occasional Visitor is Blue Heron in Fall

Cassin's Finch Passing Through

Nuthatch Seeking Pine Nuts for the Journey

Blackbirds Flocking in the Pines Before Leaving

Fall Leaves, No Apples, Stolen Autumn Dreams

Thieves, Deer & Moose Leave the Quinces for Me to Figure Out

Snapdragons Love Fall

Bootsy Loves Rolling in the Dirt Beneath Late Cosmos

Observations

Canada Goose Hiding Babies in the Grass

Ma & Pa Goose

One On Alert

Alarming Killdeer

Noisy Even When Eating

Natural Beauty of Northern Idaho

Lake Pend Oreille Deep Enough to Test Subs

Talache Beach

Monarch Mountains Rise Out of the Water

US Navy Test Derick Observing Sound

Back Home We Have New Visitors

A Trio of Northern Shovelers

Two Males & One Female

Lower Water Attracts Dabblers

We stand at the upstairs window, arguing. Again, over bird observations.

"See, there in the grass at the end of the second peninsula." Todd peers through a hunting scope like a wagon master scouting the prairie for danger.

"It's the babies!" A feel a surge of excitement. Since spotting the four yellow Canada geese babies, I've yet to see them. The parents have floated the old channels dug by peat miners decades ago, taking turns eating and watching.

That the adult geese remain alert gives me hope. The babies must be hiding.

Todd disagrees. "Too white."


Whitish...in the shadows...could be yellowish...still as garden ornaments...small...about the size of baby geese. But I don't see the adult geese anywhere.

In fact, I hadn't seen the adults in two days and last night five geese flew in to Elmira Pond causing a raucous. The pie-billed grebe swam out of the reeds to greet the gaggle. I watched as one dominate goose (had to be the male) flapped after the other three and kept a single goose away from them (likely his mate).

I observed the goose doing something I had never seen before. After flapping after the others, he lay his head low in the water and undulated his neck like a snake all the way back to the other goose. Then he arched his neck backwards as if to rub his own back with his head. It had to be a mating ritual.

Was this the same pair that's been on Elmira Pond since March? Geese often have second nests in a season. Or is this a new pair? Where did the babies go?

It's unsettling to think they've fallen prey to another bird's dinner -- the bald eagles, the golden eagle, the various hawks, even Blue Heron is suspect. Not to mention the footpads -- feral cats, foxes, coyotes, muskrats, mountain lions, wolverines, although bears are unlikely.

This reminds me of the screaming killdeer and the earthquakes I can't control. The killdeer have been LOUD these past few weeks. Its cries were so loud in the dark a few nights ago that I squirmed in my chair and tried to read. It sounded distressed.

We live in a beautiful area with mountain-cleaving fault lines. It lures people into to wanting to save it. Scientists collect data and apply calculated theories and ignorant souls eager to for the role of animal benefactor post head-shaking comments on community forums, pleading for "somone to rescue the ducks before they freeze to the pond."

Ice in northern Idaho doesn't develop instantly and ducks have figured out winter for thousands of years.

I'm something between a savior and a scientist. Often, my biggest observations lead to self-awareness or critical problem solving that can be flawed. I'm curious and caring, but unconstrained to interfere.

After two minor earthquakes, I wanted to see the near-by epicenters that occurred below the Monarch Mountains at the edge of Lake Pend Oreille. We drove over Telache (where part of Dante's Peak was filmed), to see the silent mountains.

In the distance we could also see the mid-lake derrick where the US Navy conducts underwater sonar and submarine testing.

Back home, I can understand the woman who wanted to save the ducks. While I yearn to save the killdeer, I would only interfere. Perhaps I misunderstand the calls. Instead I observe. What can I learn?

In the dark, I realize more than one killdeer is making high-pitched cries. In the evening, I see one settle into a clump of grass in the south pasture. As soon as she (not sure) sits on what might be a nest, the screaming commences. It hits me that this is a primitive alarm system or territorial marking. It's like turning on your car alarm before going to bed to ward off would-be-thieves.

The birds are not in danger; they are preventing it.

Yet, I hope the baby geese make it to adult hood, to get to crane their necks in mating ritual one day, maybe even here on Elmira Pond where they were born.

Todd leaves our observation window to take out the dogs. I eagerly watch, hoping to see alert parents stir their babies to wakefulness. Movement, and I have the binos trained on it. What bursts out of the reeds surprises me.

Northern shovelers! This is the first sighting of the distinctive ducks with their greenish-black heads, white and chestnut markings, and long wide bills that look like a spade. It's always a joy to identify new ducks, but I do take pause. The two males and one female are dabblers.

Elmira Pond takes in vast snow melt and huge spring rains. Yet we've had but trickles of what is normal to the inland Pacific Northwest. Warmer temperatures arrived a month early and the pond is at its late summer low level already, and it's barely spring.

I don't know how to save the west from drought. I don't doubt the scientists with their climate change models. Within reason, I do what I can to not harm the ecosystem.

I observe nature shifting balance. When the pond is deep, divers thrive. Yet this may be the year of the dabblers. It's different, but both speak life and that gives us all hope.

Peeps on the Pond

Wigeons Cluster in the Distant Pool

Wigeons Visit the Trenches

Powerful Dabblers

Flirty Male

Tails to the Morning Sun

Oops...I Don't Think She's Looking at His Display

Wigeons and Goose

Hungry for More Than Pond Plants

Standing still I cock my head like the dogs do to hear better.

Peep-peep-peep...it's the wigeons. Even before I read about the American wigeon on the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's website, I decided that this Elmira Pond visitor sounded like a squeaky toy. And that is exactly how the experts describe the whistle of a wigeon.

I like to think of them as my "peeps."

Wigeons are among the first to arrive on Elmira Pond following the ice melt. Northern Idaho is their most southern border for breeding grounds. Author, Randall St. Germain who lives further north in Canada, has impressive close-up shots of Ducks on Ice on his blog, including American wigeons.

With a white stripe and green head patch, male wigeons are also wooing their ladies with tail wags, water hops and wing flapping. Among the whistling peeps I see water dances and splashes from the western side of the pond.

More skittish than the bold little buffleheads, wigeons cluster in a group and stay far across the pond. Just a few mornings ago I watched the entire group flap into flight, circling like a small feathered whirlwind. What looks like six or eight wigeons on the pond materializes into twice that number in the air.

An eagle gliding low over the valley spooked them into flight. Eagles hunt ducks. Soon the danger passed and wigeons returned to flutter and dabble in their favorite far pool.

One amorous and hungry wigeon couple is swimming up an old peat trench. If you look carefully at Elmira Pond, you can see several squared swaths dug out of the east shoreline where peat miners harvested the bog matter to sell. I don't know much about the process but I do know that it takes hundreds, even thousands of years to build up peat in a bog.

That speaks volumes of Elmira Pond's age.

Mining seemed minimal in former years, yet the swaths remain as trenches favored by the Canada goose couple. Of course, that pair is fearless--former hockey players--so they don't mind swimming and dabbling so close to the house. But I'm surprised to see a wigeon couple.

Up close the male's green head patch glistens with iridescence, the color of a mallard's. They dabble powerfully, almost diving straight down as they tip, tails to the morning sun. They bounce like a bobber with a fish on the line, going after aquatic plants with gusto. The male flutters his wings in between feeding, letting the female know that's he's interested in more than food.

Such is spring on the pond with peeps.