One of the few good things about winter is my birthday. Being here to celebrate another year is very good, and getting books as gifts makes it even better.
Christmas books + birthday books = Wow! I have a wonderful book bank from which to make withdrawals at will. Priceless.
Zeno likes me to have lots of books because he gets to sit in my lap in our chair while I read.
Panda dad eats
Panda mom naps.
Lou and I went down to the National Zoo yesterday, one of the great perks of living in this metropolitan D.C. area. I really wanted to see the baby Giant Panda, who’s now four months old and beginning to explore her world. Because I’m a Friend of the National Zoo, we got to go into the panda house early to try to see her. The bad news was that the baby panda, Bao Bao, slept all day in an un-visible location as far as cameras were concerned (except the “panda-cam”). I did go back twice to see her; in the interim, she’d moved into another almost un-visible position. On tiptoe, I could see a little bit of her fur.
Panda cam headquarters.
The good news was that we got to see other animals along the Asia Trail we’d never been able to see before. Winter is an excellent time to go to the zoo.
Well, we had seen Red Pandas before, but today they were especially charming. We got to observe a lot of action.
They’re really beautiful animals, with their eager faces, pricked ears, and long thick stripy t
ails.
I’d forgotten that they eat bamboo just like their large black-and-white relatives.
I loved the little fellow up in the crotch of a tree, sleeping on his pillowed tail.
Here’s a report on the Asian Small-clawed Otters. There are eleven of them in the enclosure, two parents and nine offspring. Many of them were clustered close to the far corner of their open area, which happened to be near where we were walking. They were all there for a potty break! One by one, they took turns coming to the edge of a very muddy area, turning their rear ends toward the center of the gooey mud, and peeing and pooping. Then each would stamp as if saying “That’s that,” and run off to their big cave. I was stunned, open-mouthed, amazed. Okay, that was evidently the latrine, but that they all went together and then took turns “using the facilities” blew me away. I did not of course take photos of them, as I would not want pictures of me in a similar situation.
The beautiful Fishing Cat, an endangered wild cat, reminded me of my own dear Ellie-cat of blessed memory. The cat crouched in a cave that provided it a viewing station above a pool full of goldfish.The cat, looking a bit larger than a big domestic cat, hunkered and seemed to watch us and the bright fish with about the same level of indifference. Occasionally it even seemed to doze.
I was thrilled to see it because when we’ve been down the Asia Trail before, we never saw the cat. Winter is better.
Luck is the best thing to have and today we had it. We stood before the enclosure of the Clouded Leopard and watched her gnawing at a big bone. Then she went on alert, ears pricked and eyes intent. She jumped onto a tree branch at the front of her enclosure, evidently watching for something. She’d recognized a keeper’s voice, and knew full well a food treat was approaching. The young keeper’s long lance speared a fish that he held out to her.
The cat leaped onto the chain link fence, he poked the fish toward her between the links, and she grabbed it and pulled it off the lance. Wow. We saw her be fed three fish, feeling very very lucky to have been there at just the right time.
So even if I got the merest glance at the top two inches of Bao Bao’s fur as she slept, I think we had a great day at the zoo!
For me, the year’s four seasons are Spring, Summer, Fall, and I-Hate-Winter. This winter-averse attitude poses a problem even now, in November, because November means winter is just around the corner.
To avoid depression, I resolved a few years ago to play a seasonal adjustment game by looking for good things about fall and winter.
My favorite trees, the beeches, now look totally made of precious metal, with their golden leaves and silvery trunks. The young ones will keep their leaves during the winter, giving the wind some toast-colored playthings.
Here’s another good thing: the transient glory of our red maple. It is admittedly losing its chlorophyll and will soon be losing its leaves, but oh, it is beautiful now against the clear bright blue of the sky.
Another good thing that lasts longer is the samaras, or winged seeds, of the box elders. These maple-family trees are somewhat ungainly; they sprout suckers everywhere, branch awkwardly, and have little dignity. 
But when the leaves are gone and the pale fruits hang in their duos, the trees have a ghostly presence that seems to glow.
Many people would say the best part of November is Thanksgiving, We celebrate the goodness of our lives and the bounty of the harvest with a feast. It’s the one day a year, as Art Buchwald used to say, when all Americans eat as well as the French do every day. A major contributor to the feast is this guy and his kin. Meet Jethro, a handsome dude whose photo I took to accompany an article in Maryland Magazine many years ago.
Thanks for all the pleasure you give us, Jethro! You showed me how beautiful turkeys are. I hope you are still strutting your stuff somewhere in Maryland.
In a household with three black cats, Halloween rules!
The first two are a brother and sister who came to us from a rescue organization when they were about 11 weeks old.
Lou chose the fluffy girl and named her Bastet, for the Egyptian cat-goddess. Her Fluffiness the Goddess Bastet walked into our house as if she owned it. She’s the most playful cat one could imagine–everything is a toy. She specially likes butterflies made from red pipe-cleaners, but will play with anything she finds. 
The boy was mine, a sleek and charming guy with big ears and a white tail-tip. I named him Dickens for my favorite writer, but because of that magic wand of a tail, his whole name is Mr. Harry Dickens. Dickens appointed himself the investigator of all cabinets, boxes, and anything with a cavity.
The third black cat found us. Apparently he could read the word “sucker” on my forehead. Anyway, he hung around the house for about a year and a half, being fed occasionally, until one day he was obviously sick. I took him to the vet, had him neutered, and stuffed antibiotics down his throat. We named him Xeno for “foreign kitty” but changed it to Zeno for the famous mathematician. The vet says he’s just a little older than Dickens and Bastet. He’s settled in fine, and is the most affectionate of the three cats.
Do you have favorite writers whose work makes you yearn to be writing something yourself? Do they inspire you to run to the computer or at least jot down some sudden new ideas? A few writers’ works do that to me, and I have no idea why it’s those writers, rather than Charles Dickens, my favorite novelist of all time, or E.B. White, one of my favorite non-fiction writers.
For me, it’s George Eliot, of all people, and Rosemary Sutcliff, and sometimes Rudyard Kipling and Lewis Thomas, and a few others who’ve written more recently. I pick up one of their books and get into it a little and suddenly I’m in the mood to write. It’s not to show off, nor to try to write like they do, nor to challenge their mastery with my own efforts. I just want to express something as well as I can. I won’t achieve their facility of expression (I’ll still be only me, not him or her). But maybe my writing is better when inspired this way, because more heart is in it.
Madeleine L’Engle said something similar in her candid journal-book, A Circle of Quiet. Here’s what she says:
“A great painting, or symphony, or play, doesn’t diminish us, but enlarges us, and we, too, want to make our own cry of affirmation to the power of creation behind the universe. This surge of creativity has nothing to do with competition, or degree of talent. … A great novel, rather than discouraging me, simply makes me want to write. This response on the part of any artist is the need to make incarnate the new awareness we have been granted through the genius of someone else. … It is beauty crying out for more beauty.”
Boardwalk on Matthew Henson Trail
Yesterday on the Matthew Henson Trail I had an amazing experience–a close encounter with a wild member of another species. Because I’m a birder and because our daughter-in-law Leah is a falconer, and because raptors are large and beautiful birds, it’s especially exciting for me to have even a brief meeting, up close and personal, with a hawk.
Red-tailed Hawk
As I was walking along the boardwalk that protects the wetlands near Bel Pre Creek, I saw a red-tailed hawk sitting high in a box elder tree across from the bio-retention pond.
I edged along the boardwalk, trying to take a picture of the bird without spooking it into flight. I had only my iPhone camera with me but finally got a decent light on the bird, zoomed a bit, and snapped it. Then I just stood and admired.
Hawk mantled over prey
Whoosh! In a flurry of feathers, the bird hurtled past me to pounce on something invisible in the stilt grass. It spread its wings to mantle over its prey. I crept forward, wincing at every betraying crunch of dry leaves under my feet. Luckily the red-tail was so involved with subduing its wriggling prey that I could glide closer without disturbing it.
A snake snack
The hawk’s head came up, pulling at a long white string. A tendon, say from a rabbit? When I finally got a look through my binoculars, I could see that it was the pale belly of a smallish snake. In this not-terrific picture, you can see the white strip of snake hanging like a straw from the hawk’s beak. The snake went down in three or four gulps.
Red-tailed Hawk on railing
The hawk sat still in the grass for about a minute, as if reflecting on that tasty snack. Then to my amazement, the bird flew awkwardly to the boardwalk railing. It scrabbled a bit with those big yellow feet, trying to get a taloned purchase on the hand-rail. Once balanced, it sat there, maybe 10 or 15 feet from me. I took more pictures, wondering why the hawk was willing to stay so close.
So unbelievably close!
Made bolder by the tameness of the majestic bird, I inched closer, my heart pounding. When I was about six feet away from it, I held out the iPhone and took this photograph. No need to zoom or to crop the picture.
The hawk sat calmly on the railing while I marveled, and then flew to another box elder between the bio-retention pond and the creek. Some people came by, walking their dogs, and I happily showed them the hawk perched in full view. Ten minutes later, as I walked past the area again, the hawk still sat on the same branch, looking down as if scanning the stilt grass for another snaky snack.
I feel so lucky to have been accepted, however peripherally, by a wild animal that was going about its own business. For just a few minutes, I could enter into another life.
On Friday, August 16, we went to the Montgomery County Agricultural Fair and had a great time. We arrived a little late for the Birds of Prey show.
The raptor guy, Jason Caldwell, was talking about a hawk he held, I think a mixed breed. But at the back of the crowd as we approached was another man holding a hawk. It was dark brown with chestnut shoulder patches. Its white-tipped tail had a broad black stripe but was a bit ratty-looking from molt or agitation. “That’s not a Harris’s hawk, is it?” I whispered to him. He turned and smiled. “Yes, it is a Harris’s hawk.” I felt pretty good, considering the last one I saw was in 1996 in Tucson with Lou. The man, Howard Caldwell (Jason’s father) and his Harris’s hawk, whose name was Magic, were next on the stage.
Jason Caldwell holds a Barn Owl.
Then followed a series of owls, as the two Caldwells explained plumages, behavior, and attributes. First was a lovely barn owl named Twilight, the only one I photographed as they were talking.
The barred owl, Anastasia, was just growing back some molted head feathers. I wished she would call–she has my favorite owl voice. “Who cooks for you?” she would ask.
Anastasia the Barred Owl
Smallest was Gabriel, a little male red-phase screech owl. Biggest was a powerful great horned owl, Artie, who sports a talon-closure pressure of 500 pounds per square inch.
The last bird they discussed was a red-tailed hawk, a grande dame of 22 years named Majesty.
Majesty, the Red-tailed Hawk
Later, we went by their booth and I tried to talk them into teaching Birds of Prey in the Natural History Field Studies program. Because they live in West Virginia and are already very busy with presentations like this one and in avian abatement programs, Jason had to say it was very unlikely.
Look out, starlings!
What’s avian abatement? For example, if you are having a problem with a huge flock of starlings that are eating all the supplementary feed you put out for your flock of sheep, you call the Caldwells. They come out with a hunting hawk, the bird flies around a bit, and the starlings go elsewhere. Pretty neat.
Funnel cake has no calories, right?
We had beef BBQ for lunch (pretty good!) and then went and watched a beekeeper for a while. Wandered around among animal barns and then shared a funnel cake–yum! First one in a couple of years.
After that, we strolled through some more barns, with pigs and piglets and sheep and sheeplets—oops, I mean lambs. That was fun.
Baby pigs snoozing with their siblings
Loved the pile of baby pigs all sound asleep with their mother snorting and grunting nearby.
Loved the teenaged Wilbur-pink pigs with their curly tails.
At the Arena, we watched some young equestrians put on a show of precision riding, and then their older cohorts in a real “drill team” presentation. That was fun, too.
Young equestrians
On our way back from that, I said, “I want to see those longhorns up close,” so we went into the barn for the Texas longhorns. Wow. Majorly impressive. A very new little calf was being nuzzled and licked by her mama, and watched by the family’s teenaged owner. The calf was born that morning and was only about six hours old.
Mama Longhorn and her new calf
Farther down the barn, another teenaged boy was grooming a big brindled longhorn bull, who seemed to be enjoying it immensely. The boy would stop and hug the huge animal from time to time. To the boy’s mother, who was watching fondly, I commented, “He seems pretty proud of that big guy—he’s getting every hair to line up just so.” “Yes,” she said, “I wish he’d put some of that energy into cleaning his room.”
More desultory looking around. Admired the award-winning photos, drawings, and crafts; mourned the flower arrangements, now sadly disheveled and droopy, not to say dead; and bought some alfalfa honey to take home.
The Montgomery County Agricultural Fair at sunset.
We had another snack while we waited for the bluegrass concert, but when the time came, we found it had been canceled, so “Let’s go home,” said Lou. So we walked down the hill through the bustling, noisy, colorful carnival area to the exit gate and said goodbye to the Fair for this year.
Hurray for a great annual tradition, and hurray for no longer feeling obligated to ride on any carnival rides more stomach-churning than a merry-go-round!
Can you find four goldfinches in this barrel of catnip?
To please our three spoiled cats, we grow catnip in a barrel on our patio.
Female Goldfinch
An unexpected benefit is that when the catnip blooms and sets seeds, American goldfinches arrive to partake, bobbing among the blossoms. For us, it’s a two-fer.
Male Goldfinch
Most important is that we get to enjoy watching the beautiful little goldfinches as they eat their fill. But I rejoice also in fewer seeds that will sprout in places where the invasive catnip is not desirable.
Few pleasures are more enjoyable for a writer than seeing one’s words in paid-for print. My article, “The Way to See a Life Bird,” came out this month in my favorite birding magazine, Bird Watcher’s Digest. It’s so lovely to look at the magazine rack at Barnes & Noble or at my local library and see the magazine there with my article in it!
My article discusses the decisions one makes about whether a bird seen for the first time qualifies to go onto the Life List, a topic that birders can debate hotly. A birder’s list is a personal thing, however. I wrote about my own rules, how I broke one once with a barely seen Varied Thrush, and how I redeemed myself with a glorious sighting of a Varied Thrush in full sun, singing his heart out.That’s the way to s
ee a life bird!
This is the fourth piece of mine BWD has published and each time it’s been a treat. They choose good photos to accompany the article and seldom make changes to my writing, so I have a lot to be thankful for. The magazine is still published by the family that founded it, all birders themselves, so over the years I’ve enjoyed reading about growing kids and family successes. Now I just have to come up with a topic for article five….
Northern watersnake in sunny grass.
June is a glorious month: the gateway to summer. On warm sunny days, the northern watersnakes come from their dens to bask. I love pointing them out to people who are walking along the Henson Trail. Most people are interested, especially since the snakes are on the big rocks below the bridge, a safe distance away! Northern watersnakes are not poisonous, I assure them.
One sunny June morning when I was in the woods, two barred owls called. I’d been practicing that outrageous sound in my car. (Privacy, you know.) Could I do a good enough call to get an owl to answer me? I looked around; no one was in sight. I flung back my head and hooted a loud “Who-cooks-for-you-awwww!” No response. The whole singing, rustling, breathing world sank into surprised silence. I tried it again. “Hooo-awwww!” Nothing. Oh well. For my next trick….
Choreographing fish.
Did you know that you can choreograph fish? By mid-June, there are many tiny fish in our local creek. As I crossed the bridge one afternoon, my shadow fell on the water and panickedthe fish—they fled in all directions. Suddenness threatened them. After all, I could be a heron!
When they returned to their sunny shallows, I crept up onto the bridge again and shamelessly experimented. I found that my arm’s long thin shadow could sweep the fish to stage-left or stage-right; two arms in a pincer movement could direct the fish into a relatively straight line. My piscine ballet needed only Handel’s “Water Music.”
Cecily Nabors 