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Monthly Archives: March 2019

Worm moon and the vernal equinox

2019/03/21
American Robin, Great-horned owl, Red-winged Blackbird, Seasons
3 Comments

I started my walk down the road an hour and 15 minutes after the solstice. An eighth of a mile along the moon was high enough to see. It was as big as I remember seeing a moon (it’s supposed to be 15% bigger). It’s intense glow (it’s supposed to be 30% brighter) made it seem even bigger. A Great horned owl might have spotted it too; unless he was just calling from the tree with the Osprey nest because it was dusk. In fact, lots of birds were calling with their final messages of the day and maybe their bellies full of worms.

This has been a super year for viewing super moons right from my stoop. I reported here on the super moon eclipse in January that took a path that conveniently allowed me to follow it from the mud room landing. I managed only to notice how white the meadow was in February so awash with moon light that I had to go to go outside to make sure it had not snowed. Tonight’s moon followed me up and down the road as it climbed, lost some of it’s yellow and, ironically, both filled out to its fullest and shrank.

My photos will show you that you had to be here to fully experience this and that I don’t know how to take photographs of glowing objects in low light.

Not surprisingly, the National Geographic has better photos than mine — though they aren’t of this Worm moon — and a clear explanation of the moon’s orbit. Two facts about this moon struck me. First, the moon is only 223,309 miles away. I have easily flown that many miles just as an adult. Maybe people are not crazy to think that soon we’ll be invading. Second, the next time a super moon will rise this close to the equinox, 19 years from now, I might not be around to see it just as I hope not to be around for non-astronauts landing on the moon.

The full moon of March apparently is called the Worm moon because the sun has warmed the earth enough for worms to begin moving around, feeding birds including American robins, who dutifully have begun to return. The Farmer’s Almanac says that native Americans called the March full moon the Crow moon. They were on the something: the crows came back about a week ago along with the FOY Red-winged black birds, a New Englander’s real harbinger of spring.

The crocuses and the daffodils also attest to the warming earth and the longer day. These popped out of the ground earlier this month. The skunk cabbage appeared on the 1st. Who needs iCal. Certainly not our orb or the flora and fauna.

 

 

 

 

Animal tracks

2019/03/17
Animal tracks, Bluebirds, White-tailed deer
1 Comment

Since I can’t manage to mount a little hunting camera I bought over a year ago, I have to use fresh snow to record traffic through the yard at night. It works pretty well when the tracks clearly resemble the mud prints in the Animal Tracks of New England book I use, and when I apply Occam’s razor.

We nearly got through the winter without snow, but on 13 February, we had enough to find tracks.

Raccoon tracks

Deer tracks

See the clear tracks of a raccoon and deer in the photos.

The raccoon tracks appeared around the house before heading into the field; the deer tracks were down at the bottom of the field near the blueberry bushes.

Deer tracks, of course, are unmistakable, but I was also catching sightings of a family of three deer nearer the house and even in daylight. They would hang out grazing in the early morning beyond the guest house and around the compost pile before cutting across the field.

I got a photo of each of them but only post two. Not wanting the area around the guest house to become part of their regular route, I sprayed there with Deer Out. That seems to have worked well. I have not seen them there or anywhere of late.

 

Parent deer

Baby deer

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On 28 February we had more snow. Before I could get out to check for new tracks, I saw what looked like a fisher cat or maybe a mink. He came out of the woods by the pond at the bottom of the field. I grabbed my bins for a closer look and, after a safe interval of time, my boots and camera. This snow was very wet and I did not get a good impression. I also could not match the footprint to either fisher or mink. For one thing, the impression this animal left was smaller.

Fisher really Oscar

Fisher in mud from Animal Tracks

Mid afternoon today, 17 March, I looked out the kitchen window and saw what I realized was the same animal. But this was Oscar, the neighbor’s cat. He not been around for months maybe because his master and mistress have put their house on the market and even, I thought, moved away. Certainly Oscar had retreated from my concerns. Yet today there was no denying that Oscar was back. I could see his white paws even if I could not see his white bib. And yes, he must have been my fisher or mink. Think horses, not zebras.

Just this afternoon I caught a glimpse of an Eastern bluebird and his mate. When they are here in March, there is a chance that they have chosen one of my bird houses as a nesting spot. But they were in the part of the field that Oscar had just been prowling. Please find a buyer for Oscar’s house! The bluebirds join me in this fervent hope.