Cyclone Bomb Day

Remember when winter storms were called things like nor'easter or blizzard? Things were so much simpler back then. At any rate, today we were hit with a small blizzard which dumped about a foot of snow on Waterbury. The Governor asked everyone to stay off the highways, and almost everything was closed.

A flock of about 50 sparrows spent the day in my yard, gobbling up bird seed.

Winter Critters

So much for not having anything to blog about. The snow day must be inspiring me.

 The birds are all busy at the feeders. Same crowd as usual. Sparrows, chickadees, cardinals, nuthatches, woodpeckers, and juncos.

Then there are the cats. For some reason, we've been invaded by stray cats. First there was the Cute Black Cat (CBC).

He's adorable. Started showing up at the window when we called for the cat who is supposed to come when called. CBC didn't care that we weren't calling him, he wanted in on the action. Normally I don't feed stray cats, but this one was very persistent. After a couple days of food and water, he started looking better. He figured out how to get into the garage and has been sleeping on the soft top of my car.

CBC hasn't been on the front porch asking for food in several days. He has been replaced by Straggly Kitten. Straggly is a mess. He looks awful. He has trouble using his mouth for eating and drinking. He has a large bald spot on his tail. The first night he appeared, his belly looked unnaturally swollen. His fur was messy, sticking out in all different directions, and filthy. He looks better now.

He keeps trying to run inside the house, but I already have five indoor cats and I'm not going to allow an unneutered, potentially diseased cat inside (especially since one of my older cats is suffering with a bad tooth problem right now).

Luckily for Straggly K, there is a cat shelter on the front porch. I have lined the sides with blankets and made a cozy nest for him. He's been guzzling down all the warm water we bring him, and filling his stomach with food. I picked him up yesterday and realized he is nothing but skin and bones--his belly no longer looks distended, so it may have been just from starvation, not disease. The missing fur could be from flea-related over grooming.

I can't afford to take stray cats to a regular vet (can't afford to take my indoor cats to the regular vet!), but the H.O.P.E. Spay/Neuter Clinic has very affordable rates for neutering and vaccinating. Even better would be if one of my readers wants to adopt him (hint, hint).

Rising Water

I made another trip to the Freight Street bridge this morning to see what the Naugatuck River is doing. The water has risen higher and is moving very rapidly.

The river is overflowing its banks, but since it is channeled between high cement walls along this section, the flooding is contained.

I was reminded that if you visit a river early enough in the day, you get to see some of the wildlife, like the Great Blue Heron staring at me from the opposite side of the river.

I guess he didn't like my camera, because he flew away, up the river and out of sight.

A Little Bit of Excitement

I was (and am) sitting at my desk in my home office just now, researching the history of Chase Collegiate School, when I heard a noise at the window. The cat sleeping next to me heard the noise too, and boy did he wake up fast! The noise was being made by a White-Breasted Nuthatch, a regular visitor to my birdfeeder, but one of the more difficult birds for me to photograph. He moves quickly when he's at the feeder, and tends to stay on the far side of the feeder. But now, after months of trying to photograph him, here he is, posing sweetly for me.

He must be feeling extra brave today, because he stuck around for a full minute. Maybe he couldn't see well through the window. He seems completely indifferent to my cat, who was so excited to be this close to a bird.

Below us, I noticed the Mourning Dove hanging out in her usual spot on the branches. I've never seen a dove try to eat at the bird feeder, but there's almost always a dove hanging out while the smaller birds feed. There's a Blue Jay, also large, that swoops in, grabs a sunflower seed, then flies back to a tree branch to crack it open and eat it. I'm not sure what the doves do. Maybe pick up discarded seeds that fall on the ground?

After I photographed the dove, I realized there was someone on the ground also staring at her (not one of my cats).

I've been trying to buy one of those seed-shaped bells for my other birdfeeder, which I keep just outside the dining room window, but the stores don't seem to be carrying them. But I guess everyone is happy with the sunflower seed feeder!

A Walk in the Park

I'm under doctor's orders to get regular exercise, even if it's just walking. I'm not good at getting regular exercise. I don't cope well with the monotony. So I've decided to make it interesting by combining things I do enjoy: exploration, photography and blogging. On a regular day, I'll walk 30 minutes. Once or twice a week, I'll go on a long walk about Waterbury, exploring the city, finding photogenic scenes and then blogging about it later. Today I started with what turned out to be a two hour walk. After 45 minutes, I was feeling sore and sat down for a few minutes in Hamilton Park.

There are plenty of photogenic scenes in Hamilton Park. Cameras can be deceptive. You'd never guess (unless you've been here) that the first photo (above) isn't in the middle of the countryside, that directly behind me is heavy traffic congestion and exhaust fumes. You can see a hint of the traffic in the next photo, of the cannon in front of the Liberty House.

Winter is almost here, but there are still a few roses in bloom.

Most of the trees in Hamilton Park are fairly generic Connecticut trees, but there are a few more distinctive ones.

The Liberty-Victory House:

A long view towards the cross at Holyland, with the new indoor sports complex a little closer up.

The Hamilton Park swimming pool. Shouldn't it be covered up for the season? Wouldn't a cover help protect it from vandalism?

Beautiful birch trees:

A great little detail on the fence, sadly neglected and allowed to rust.

The pond, with Seven Angels theater in the distance.

Many geese, but no one was feeding them. And they didn't seem to expect me to feed them. But they did pose for me.

A light game of soccer. I don't know why there's so much fence around the playing fields. Chain link doesn't keep out people, it's easy to climb. Maybe to keep out dogs?

I took a lot more photos of other places on my walk, but I'll save them for future blog posts.

Bird Feeder Bullies

I was trying to get some photos a couple weeks ago of the nuthatch that comes to my bird feeder, but he's very shy. So instead here are a couple shots of two of the sparrows who try to devour all the seeds.

Sparrows rely on strength in numbers. They do everything in groups of at least five, and they intimidate other birds in order to get what they want. What they want is all the seeds. Sometimes I deliberately leave the feeder empty for a week. When I finally refill it, the chickadees, nuthatches and rose finches get to eat for days before the sparrows figure out I refilled it. They descend upon it and can empty it out in two days, sometimes less if there are a lot of them.

If you look closely, you can see that some of the perches have been chewed off by squirrels. I bought an expensive bird feeder once. The squirrels destroyed it. Now I buy $5 feeders from Ocean State Job Lot and reinforce the handle with steel wire, then secure the handle to the hook with more steel wire. The squirrels have tried to chew through the wire, but it's too much for them. They've tried chewing the feed openings to make them bigger, but I guess that was also too much work for them.

New "Neighbors"

There have been some new birds at the feeder since I switched to inexpensive sunflower seeds. I don't know what kind of bird they are (anyone know?), but they usually show up in a group of three--one male, two females.



Unlike the chickadee, who is fearless, these birds are very skittish. The feeder is on the back porch, just outside the kitchen door. If they see me looking at them through the screen door, they fly away. If I'm not looking at them, but they see me move, they fly away. If I slowly raise the camera to my face, they fly away. Fortunately, if I hold the camera in front of my face and then move to where they can see me, they don't fly away. Silly birds.



I also had an unusual visit from a squirrel today, but I was on the phone and the camera was upstairs, so I didn't get any pictures. The squirrel appeared suddenly at the kitchen window, and then started trying to get the window screen to move or tear open. I had no idea what he was up to until I remembered that the open bag of bird seed is sitting at the window. The squirrel left shortly after the cats noticed he was there.

Spring Gardening

Spring is finally here. Gorgeous weather this weekend. I dusted off my bicycle, pumped up the flat tires, and went for a great ride on the Cheshire/Hamden Greenway. I also browsed the garden section of Walmart and wound up with $30 or $40 worth of bulbs to plant. I got a few in the ground yesterday; the rest will go in next weekend.

Meanwhile, here's the latest result of things I planted two years ago. Front yard:

(If only I could get the grass to grow!)


Back yard:


When I planted the fern two years ago, it was small, just that large clump you see in the middle of the photograph. All the other little bits of fern are new, off-shoots of the original planting.


I was so excited by the success of that fern, I bought three packages of fern roots at Walmart. Some of them had already started growing in their plastic packing.




While I was planting the ferns, I was chirped at by my new "friend", a brave little chickadee. Look closely and you can see him in the tree overhead, just at the roof line in the photo below.




Now I can't, of course, tell for certain that it's always the same chickadee being brave, but he's always alone and I can't imagine that all chickadees are so brave. How brave is he? Towards the end of winter, there was one day when he was so excited to see me refilling the bird feeder that he swooped down and perched on it the instant I took my hand off it. I was standing one foot away.




Whenever I refill the bird feeder, I can hear him (or another chickadee) call out loudly, apparently alerting all the other birds to the refilled feeder. They converge within minutes.




This particular chickadee must nest within sight of the feeder. He spends more time in my yard than any other birds. I'm tempted to see if I can get him to trust me enough to eat out of my hand.




I have also discovered a critter who is not as welcome. There is a bee (I hope only one!) who keeps flying in and out of this hole in the mortar. I'm definitely going to have to do something about that.