Garlic Festival!

Did you know there is annual weekend festival in Saugerties NY to celebrate a vegetable that has been worshiped, reviled, celebrated, and cherished for qualities ranging from potent aphrodisiac to suppressing the growth of tumors? Hint: It is a member of the lily family, is native to Central Asia, dates back to 4000BC and was referred to in Old English as “spear leek.”
Garlic. There are hundreds of varieties and many of them were available for taste testing at the Garlic Festival. There were Softneck (these are the ones you see braided together) and Hardneck varieties, Spanish Rioja, Music, Inchelium Red, Siberian, Chesnok Red, Georgian Crystal, Carpathian, Red Toch. I had no idea.
You cannot go to this festival without trying some of the unusual cuisines: garlic cannolis, garlic ice cream, chocolate-covered garlic, garlic lollipops, along with the more traditional mushrooms sauteed in garlic, a plethora of sauces, vinaigrettes and oils. Samples were plentiful but you had better be quick about it.
There must be something about garlic that puts you in agood mood because as huge as the crowd was, most everyone was smiling. Since everyone was imbibing in garlic in some way, no one complained about bad breath.
Today (Sunday, Sept. 27), the second and last day of the Festival. Be sure to put it on your calendar for next year--it's worth the trip!

Wordless Wednesday

In the Right Place at the Right Time

Being in the right place at the right time is getting easier to do at the NJ Meadowlands. While peering over the boardwalk railing to look at a group of Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs (one of the Sanderlings), the birds suddenly spooked and scattered. I looked up to see the dark shape of a Peregrine Falcon arrowing through the flock. It missed its target but swooped around for another pass. From the opposite direction, a second Peregrine zoomed in to challenge the first and I found myself in the middle of the Falcon Wars! There was no time to grab the camera; I just stood there with my mouth hanging open and watched these miniature fighter jets battle over territory.

A few hours later, I had called it a day and was putting my gear away when Rob Fanning, famous in these here parts for his extraordinary birding skills, strode past my car and said, "There's a Wilson's Phalarope by the pavilion! I'm on my way back there now!"

There was nothing else to do but pull my gear out again, sling it over my shoulders and trot after Rob.

This bird (left of top photo) is in winter plumage but distinguishable from its companion yellowlegs (right side of top photo). It is about 7.5 inches long with a thin, straight bill much longer than its head. Breast and belly are snow white. Its distinctive hunting habit involves spinning in tight circles to draw food into the vortex. Fascinating to watch and amazing how the species evolved to figure this out (can the manipulation of water be considered using a tool)?

This bird's home is the prairie wetlands of the northern US or southern Canada. It is on its way to its winter quarters in southern South America so the mudflats that can be found in the NJ Meadowlands are crucial feeding stops to fuel its incredible journey. I wish them good hunting, and safe home. Watch out for hungry falcons.

Northern Wheatear at the NJ Meadowlands

After a tip from Jim Wright, author of the NJ Meadowlands Nature Blog, my friend, Suzanne and I made a mad dash down Route 17 to see the Northern Wheatear that had been reported there since Monday. Since, the normal distribution of this species is Europe, Asia, Africa, Canada or Greenland, this juvenile bird was far from home.

Jim guided us to the bird that was busy snatching crickets from between the sharp rocks along Tasco Trail. Be sure the visit Jim’s blog for incredible photographs of the event that had New Jersey birders on the move to a place once referred to as “the armpit of the country” but is now becoming a premiere birding destination.

The young Wheatear perched and cocked its head at the staring binoculars and stood for awhile as if to contemplate the situation. I wondered how a bird that had been hatched maybe as far away as Greenland (but more likely Canada) ended up on the rocks in New Jersey. Seeing a bird this rare is a monumental event for a birder but it has a dark side for the bird, as the chances of it returning to its route and living out its brief life long enough to find another with which to breed are pretty remote. It’s similar to a migration “fall out,” especially in spring, when suddenly dozens of birds land and birders enjoy a kind of avian Christmas. But the birds literally do “fall out” of the sky from exhaustion and near starvation. Many do not survive their migration at all. It is here that I question the wisdom of the evolution of migration. Wouldn’t it be more efficient to adapt to where you are, like some have figured out? But I guess this world and its creatures are still evolving, still figuring it out what it means to be in a corporeal body for an unknown amount of time. I know I am....

Wordless Wednesday-Red-tailed Hawk

Spirit Migration

September is half over. The stark rays of the sun bow to the approach of winter. The earth is spilling her birds southward, and they are going.
During my lunch break, I went outside to gaze into the infinity of sky and the vast lacework of clouds sliding overhead. Even though I could not see them, I knew the mighty raptors were spinning into the thermals on their journey south. I longed to launch into that same sky to rock and circle and glide over all the earth’s problems and disappear to some unseen shore.
I wonder if one of the lesser known reasons birders bolt for the blue on a day like this is not just to see and count and measure wingbeats, but to send ourselves aloft before our own winters set in; and perhaps one day to drop the heavy chains of our bodies and respond to the urge to go…just go.

It’s on days like this that I remember I am not a human being with a spirit, but a spirit in a human body, and that spirit does know what it is to fly.

The Ones That Got Away

Today’s personal birding excursion was to Oil City Road in the Wallkill again for whatever shorebirds may be sifting through. The treat was watching an immature Peregrine Falcon chase a Greater Yellowlegs (“Greater Yellowlegs” is the name of a bird, believe it or not. There is also a “Lesser Yellowlegs” but we won’t go into that here) then arrowed across the fields and glided up to the telephone wires where the Rough-legged Hawks perched last winter.
A friendly photographer dressed in shorts and a camouflage shirt was already there with his super-whazooey Canon cannon lens. He could spot a sparrow on the far side of Ohio without binoculars. The tripod the camera was mounted on was outfitted with matching camouflage sleeves, sort of what you would put on your fox terrier in winter. The photographer, whose name I think was Herb, said the falcon had been there for a week. A Kestrel was hanging out on the other side of the road.

A young Cormorant fished in front of us and came up with a perch that Herb said was probably a big mistake. “Perch have sharp teeth, he admitted; “I know; they’ve bitten me a few times.”
The Cormorant flipped the fish to gulp it down head-first but partway on the trip down, the bird twisted its head and spat the fish out into the water, then quickly picked it up again before it could swim away.
“That perch just bit the corm in the throat,” Herb said. God, what it takes to get a meal.
The Cormorant was not giving up. It crushed the fish's head in its serrated bill, then tried to spin it down its throat and be done with it. Again, the bird choked it out of its mouth and tossed it away, then turned and dipped its head in the water to drink several times in succession.

“That fish bit that Cormorant for sure,” Herb pointed out. “Give it up already.”
The Cormorant dove. I half expected to see it come up with the still fighting perch. The bird either couldn’t find the fish or thought better of it. It glanced over at Herb ogling through the giant lens, then glided away.

A Number 10 Day and Birding at the NJ Meadowlands

I drove to the NJ Meadowlands again yesterday for a bird walk that I read about on the Meadowlands Blog. What I really wanted was to respond to an inner voice calling me back to something familiar but...distant. It would be easy to ignore and allow it to grow more distant with all that the world is going faster these days and there is always so much to do. But my passion for nature is reclaiming me and I say come and get me. So I went on the gently guided bird walk with people who also wanted to spend a brilliant Sunday morning wandering dirt trails and bouncing boardwalks, and stopping to listen and look and be.

Our leader, Jim Wright of the NJ Meadowlands Commission

It was one of those precious September days edging on melancholy, when the sun was warm and the humidity low. A cool breeze rustled the phragmites, making them sound like ocean waves hissing onto the sand. Fists of spent Queen Anne’s lace brandished the sky as they curled into the advancing season. My mother calls these “Number Ten days.”
The water level was high in this tidally flowed area. You could barely see the top of a Great Egret’s stick legs. We found four Black Ducks with heads tucked into the down of their backs, floating peacefully before a curtain of reeds, sound asleep, soaking up a few moments of rest before getting back to the business of surviving another day.

These small birding groups are attended by people with a sense of curiosity about everything: birds, bugs, binoculars, cameras. We exchanged and accepted information without the hard and sometimes jaded edge of some of the more experienced birders. Admiration and appreciation are not limited to birds but include flowers, bees, butterflies, less popular insects (I have yet to see anyone kill a spider. Mosquitoes are another story).

Hummingbird Clearwing Moth

Viceroy Butterfly

A Hummingbird Clearwing Moth graced the butterfly weed, as Viceroy butterflies bobbed among the blooms. This one had a torn wing, a sign of prior attack but also of age. I hate that when they reach this stage of life, they are called “rags” and consider it yet another sign of the denigration of age in our society. The chunk nipped from its wing is actually a sign of evolutionary survival. For Viceroy butterflies, imitation is not only a sign of flattery; its coloration is similar to the Monarch butterfly, which is poisoness to birds, so it is usually left alone.
Here is a stand of Black-eyed Susans backing up a troupe of flowers called “Obedient Plant,” which earned its name by its ability to bend any which way without breaking, a skill I have yet to refine.
It is now Monday morning, and a holiday. I hear that voice again.

See ya....

Birding & Being

When I go birding, it isn’t just about looking at birds, strange as that may sound. Everything on this earth intrigues me. I throw my awareness into sea and sky, fill my brain with the dazzle of goldenrod along the path, or pause in a search for spring warblers to observe a spider spinning her web, or a butterfly nectaring in the jewelweed. I drop the pretense of trying to remember species names or identifying patterns of behavior, preferring to slide into their universe if only for a little while. Once a thing has a name, judgments and assignations are sure to follow. All I want is to be in the moment as my fellow creatures go about their business of survival. When I go out Birding, I really go “Being” which is why being alone can be so satisfying, for it is only then that the gates of my own guarded boundaries can swing open. The inner door can be left ajar to the sensations that wash in and out like waves upon the shore.
Years ago, when hiking alone with my dog, I used to carry a sketchbook to draw what I saw and found myself entering a different dimension entirely. A serrated leaf pushed up against a fence post, the drift of beach grass, the shadow cast by a rock in a field, became part of my awareness as I recreated their images on paper. Being artistic had nothing to do with my drawings. They were merely a port of entry into the miracle of creation. Studying what was in front of me became a meditation; putting it on paper was the prayer.