A Backyard Visit from The Northern Flicker

 I always wonder why birds stay in the same place when they can fly anywhere on earth.  Then I ask myself the same question.  - Harun Yahya

I love birds. I love feeding them in our yard year round and my husband would probably say that doing so is a labor intensive and fairly costly hobby. But....he loves it too. Most of the birds that frequent our feeders are the usual, common backyard birds but every now and then we hit the lottery and one of our favorite, but less common visitors, chooses to hang around. Recently that lottery involved the majestic Flicker. His presence was rather brief, lasting only a week or two, but I savored every moment and captured plenty of photos. I thought I'd share them in a blog along with some interesting facts I learned.

• About the size of a robin, Flickers can be found throughout North America and even in some of the Caribbean Islands.  
• Males and females look similar with only a few differences. The only obvious difference is the male has a ‘mustache’ or whisker on either side of its beak. In the east this is black, while in the west it is red. Females do not have this facial marking.
• They eat more ants than any bird in North America. Some people call Northern Flickers the “anteaters of the sky.” Their slightly curved bill helps them hunt for ants on the ground and on the sides of trees.   
• Once a mated pair finds a suitable tree, they get to work pecking away at the soft wood. The pair doesn’t build a nest inside the cavity with twigs or grass like many songbirds. Only woodchips from their construction process line the bottom of the hole. Northern Flickers don’t build the typical ‘nest.’ The mated pair excavates out the inside of a rotting tree, building a hole with a single entrance. The tunnel goes down between 6 -18 inches and opens into a chamber where the female will lay her eggs. 
• Parents work together to incubate the nest and raise chicks.  Northern Flickers are dedicated parents. Both the male and female excavate the nest cavity, incubate the eggs, and bring back food for the chicks. They even have a schedule! Scientists discovered that female flickers incubate the eggs during the day, while males defend the nest. At night, the roles reverse.
• They are one of the only woodpeckers in North America that isn’t black and white.  Northern Flickers are considered the ‘black sheep’ of the woodpecker family because they have brown feathers and forage for food on the ground. Their plumage helps them blend into foliage and the dusky brown colors of the forest floor. Most other woodpeckers in North America have black and white stripped plumage, helping them to blend in with tree bark.  
• Northern Flickers’ tongue wraps around its skull like a football helmet.
• It’s easy to see where they’ve been!  Northern Flickers leave evidence of their search for food wherever they go. The dime-sized holes they leave behind in trees, branches, and even wooden siding are in straight lines and hard to miss.
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Are they not just gorgeous! Thank you to Bird Feeder Hub for all the information included in this post.  Photos are mine, but the great facts included are courtesy of them!

   https://birdfeederhub.com/facts-about-northern-flickers/

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We Can Either Go Kicking and Screaming or We Can Enjoy the Ride - Surviving Winter

 To appreciate the beauty of a snowflake, it is necessary to stand out in the cold. - Aristotle

He may have been born in 384 BC, but Aristotle's wisdom still rings true today, even in the simplest, most obvious statement.  Perhaps I might share a little everyday wisdom of my own, simple enough yet not always so obvious, especially for those who have not paused to make their own such discovery.

I was born and raised in the Northeast and can honestly say I love all four seasons here in Upstate NY.  I recognize that I'm able to love every season partly because I can escape summer's sweltering heat in the comfort of air conditioning, and retirement allows me to stay inside my warm house when the outdoors is so frigid it feels like your face will fall off.  Some might say that that's cheating and I'm not sure they're wrong. 

Winter can be a long and even depressing stretch of time for many.  Clouds seem to prevail most days and last winter wasn't the most beautiful I've seen, mostly lacking snow to brighten the muddy, bland landscape.  For someone like me, always searching for pretty images to capture, it was a long and at times difficult season.  I vowed that this winter I would focus on the joys of winter - both outside my window and indoors where being housebound provides extra time for long-overdue projects.  Hopefully, I'll get through in better spirits than last winter.

Well, December was exactly the sort of winter I long for - cold and snowy, a photo waiting to be captured everywhere I looked.  A few road trips to our favorite destinations resulted in hundreds of photos that I'd be able to share over the next several weeks as well as a lesson we could all benefit from.  Some of these photos were different from any I've ever taken - mostly because I hadn't been at the right place at the right time and ultimately because they could only be captured if I left my cozy, warm house.  Some days that simple task is more daunting than others but like so many winter enthusiasts know - there are rewards for braving the cold.  My parents and grandparents were hardy ice fishermen braving the cold on the frozen Saratoga Lake, Lake George and long before that, Lake Champlain.  My parents also snow shoed and snowmobiled.  As Elsa in Frozen, they would probably say, "the cold didn't bother me anyway".  I can't say I share their enthusiasm for winter sports, but from the cozy warmth of my heated passenger seat, the beauty of winter is mine for the asking and the rewards for that small effort were more than worth the effort.  

Winter can be long.  It can be brutal for those who have to navigate outside the confines of their warm homes.  It can be dreary and depressing; that is for darn sure. Ask anyone who struggles with the effects of Seasonal Affective Disorder.  But....if we try, there is something positive to be gotten from opening our eyes and minds to what these cold months have to offer.

So whether you get in your car once the roads clear and soak up the snow covered landscape, or just enjoy the local feathered lunch crowd....winter has something beautiful to offer if we just make an effort to notice.  These men seemed to be enjoying an afternoon of ice fishing on Mill Pond at Grafton Lakes State Park.  

And my grandparents....probably in the 1960's on Lake Champlain....

And that was me....way back in 1969 when I pretended to love winter to impress a cute boy with a snowmobile. Luckily I don't have to pretend I love the cold these days. Now I'll just admire winter and all it has to offer from inside where I can capture its beauty without shivering. I hope this edition of Life As I See It inspires you to take a moment to appreciate the season we're in because like everything in life, this won't last. It also won't end any sooner than usual, so unless you're a snowbird and can escape to warmer parts, you may as well just find a way to enjoy it.  Make a memory or capture a photo that will .... these two memorable moments... my dad, perhaps discovering skiing wasn't his forte and below my grandmother and me, seeming not be all that fazed by the depth of the snow surrounding us - back when weathermen didn't catastrophize over a 1"-3" snowfall.

Wishing this bluebird brings you abundant happiness this winter and beyond!

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Life Can Be Bittersweet But You Don't Have to Be

 Have you ever noticed that life can be ‘bittersweet'?  As I’ve gotten older, I’ve noticed that the holidays, which for most of my life have been pure joy from beginning to end, now have a bittersweet element to them.  This year despite the twinkling lights and festive atmosphere, I felt a melancholy heaviness.  I was distracted from the present as my mind kept wandering back to Christmases of long ago, the holidays surrounded by parents, grandparents, and relatives who have been gone for at least a decade.  Certainly, I’ve felt their absence other Christmases, but this year it was different.  Perhaps because now I’m the ‘old generation’, the generation that is savoring the moments because we’ve learned that what we’ll remember about the holiday years from now is not the number of gifts under the tree, but instead the people around the tree. We have seen that circle of loved ones get smaller and we realize that our time in that circle is growing shorter, so we pay a little closer attention to the moments, the joys, and the excitement in faces of our loved ones.  We’ll forget the meals but we’ll remember the moments.  It’s a bittersweet experience now. 

 "One of the most bittersweet feelings has to be when we realize how much you're going to miss a moment while you're still living it".

Recently on a ride through Easton, I noticed this tree.  Barren of leaves it stood out, brightly adorned with red that almost seemed as if it were intentionally decorated for the holiday by Mother Nature.  As I zoomed in with my camera, I realized it was completely covered as bittersweet vines wrapped it almost to the very top.  The result of that entanglement was a festive display of red berries that in the afternoon sun stood out like shiny ornaments on the Christmas tree.

I couldn’t help but be mesmerized by the sight.  My only experience with bittersweet was years ago when someone brought me a homemade wreath of bittersweet vine.  It had been harvested fresh, so the flower petals around the bittersweet berries were still in tact and together the berry-covered vine was colorful and attractive.  Much to my dismay, a few days later, all the petals fell off, making quite a mess, one that made it hard for me to appreciate what remained.  Curious to know more about bittersweet, I researched today and this is what I learned.

Asian Bittersweet is a perennial vine, one of the worst invasive plants on North American soil. It’s a highly aggressive climber that spreads quickly, rapidly overgrowing anything in its vicinity, and killing even large trees. It can easily reach up to 100 feet.  Oriental bittersweet produces an abundance of berries that the birds eat and thereby spread the invasive plant further through their droppings. The seeds remain in the bird's stomach for several weeks, which leads to the spreading of oriental bittersweet far away from its original location. On top of it, oriental bittersweet has a very high germination rate of 95%.  (https://www.thespruce.com/) Despite the beauty evident in these photos, bittersweet can be invasive and deadly.

Wow…who knew?  Beautiful but possibly deadly if allowed to spread.  That reminded me of the effect negativity and hate so often expressed today on social media can have on our mental health.  While there is definitely still goodness in the world – plenty of it – there seems to be a growing sense of freedom of expression that enables and even encourages some to spew negativity and criticism without regard to how their words impact people.  Social media, which began as a way to connect and stay informed has in the past five years become a sounding board for keyboard warriors to lash out, sometimes at the most innocent, well-meaning posts.  Online platforms which once provided socialization and entertainment are now often depressing and disheartening.

The same goes for our face-to-face conversations.  Have you ever noticed that some people just have a habit of dwelling on negativity, complaints, whining and doom?  And then there are other people who are just a constant ray of light, always positive and spreading joy regardless of their circumstances.  Spending too much time around negativity has a powerful impact on us, whether it’s getting too caught up with politics, watching too much news or just surrounding ourselves with negative people.  We need to protect ourselves from becoming entangled by bitterness and angst.  We need to guard ourselves from being dragged down by the weight of the state of the world we are living in, by the politics and economy, by the anger so many are spewing and do our best to focus on the good.  That’s not to say we should be ignorant, it just means we should do our best to ‘be the beauty and the light, and source of positivity’.  Let's not be like the birds who eat the berries and then scatter the seeds.  Be so bright that when people spend time with us, they don’t see the ugly brown vines, they see the beautiful red berries and that is what they take away.  

So as we step forward into a new year, my hope for you and for me is that we spend more time focused on the blessings in our life, more time remembering the people whose bright light keeps lighting our path, and more time spent with the intention of growing positivity instead of wallowing in the darkness of hate.  Wishing you faith, love, hope and light in the New Year!

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Paying Christmas Respects at the Gerald B. Solomon National Cemetery

 It's that time of year again.....a week before Christmas.  It's the time when most who celebrate are pre-occupied and stressed, focused on last minute preparations that will hopefully guarantee the perfect holiday.  The truth of the matter is that nothing can guarantee that - the perfect holiday.  No matter what we buy, how much or how little we spend, how decked out our homes might be, how hard we've strived to buy the perfect gift - at the end of the day, almost everyone has something weighing on them, something that casts just even a small shadow on 'the perfect holiday'.

John and I try to pay a visit to the Gerald B. Solomon National Cemetery in Schuylerville a handful of times each year.  Driving through this sacred resting place is sobering.  One might say that about any cemetery and we certainly spend a good deal of time in a few of our local favorites, but there's something about this cemetery that just hits differently.  It could be the uniform placement of identical gravestones, it could be the pristine landscape that provides a massive view as far as the eye can see, but for me, I think it's knowing that every person interred here (even a spouse of a service member) has sacrificed for our freedom...every....single....one of them. That sacrifice may have been a short stint or a life-long career, but the people laid to rest here share one common thing.  They each gave so we could live free.  

This year, Wreaths Across America collected donations in order to place 17,000 wreaths in this cemetery alone.  In addition to this cemetery, more than two million volunteers and supporters gather to remember, honor and lay wreaths at more than 5,200 participating locations in all 50 states, at sea and abroad. Donors could give for a specific grave or just make a general donation.  We've been donating for several years, some general wreath donations and for one specific grave - that of my great uncle George and great Aunt Harriet.  Last Saturday almost 1000 people gathered to volunteer their time to place wreaths on every grave at this one cemetery alone....such a beautiful way to pay tribute to these folks, yet such a small sacrifice compared to the one they've given for us.

This year, whether everything in your little corner of the world is perfect and plentiful or if, like most of us, you have things you're struggling with, or grieving over, or praying for resolution for, I hope you will stop for a moment to remember and thank all the service members who gave so much so we can enjoy life even under circumstances that are not so perfect.  I'm hopeful that taking a moment to appreciate those who have gone before us, those who fought for our freedom, some of whom paid the ultimate price, will for a moment help you feel a little more blessed and be a reminder that this holiday is not just for sparkling lights and perfectly wrapped presents.  Even the best of those things won't make your troubles disappear, your bank account feel bigger or your worries feel smaller.  But, when we take a moment to think of others, not just the heroes but those in our communities who are struggling with their own demons, we are reminded that we each have blessings we can be thankful for.  Today though, let's be thankful for this group of individuals and their families.  

For more information about Wreaths Across America: https://www.wreathsacrossamerica.org/

"There will always be challenges to overcome as individuals, communities and a country, but we must keep moving forward together. This year, we will share not only the Byers' story of resilience but also the stories of many others who continue to live with purpose every day and have chosen to keep moving forward."

- Karen Worcester, Executive Director, Wreaths Across America

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