Mosaic Monday #23: Anticipation

When we moved into our new house on April 14, 2018, I began taking notes about wildlife we saw around the acreage, including information such as date and location.  And, of course, digital photography is a superb record-keeper since it embeds the date the photo is taken.  My blog is another source of historic information about the last 12 months.

So, as the anniversary of our move-in date approached, the idea of a retrospective on flora and fauna deeply excited me, and mainly as a reminder about what we can expect as spring continues to unfold.  I plan to maintain my journal, and in the years ahead I can envision a running dialogue such as "the bluebirds are late this year" or "flowers will be delayed because this winter slammed us with 5 more feet of snow than normal".  Won't that be interesting?

For now, let's focus on what we can anticipate in the next 90 days.  Maybe in a future post I can tell you if it happened or not!!!

APRIL

As the saying goes, April showers bring May flowers, so this month delivers more in the way of fauna than flora.  Last year, April meant turkeys passing through our yard, but we have yet to spot any this year.  The chipmunks, on the other hand, emerged from hibernation at the end of March and have been scampering around ever since.

Birds that have been absent for the winter have begun to appear.  Both the Mountain Bluebird and Sandhill Crane have arrived at Hodge Lake, earlier than last year.  I find it particularly interesting that I observe a mating pair of bluebirds in almost the same location as last year.  I read some material that suggests these birds bond more to a nest site than to each other.

Sandhill Crane

Last year at this time, the bluebirds and swallows were considering our bird houses.  This year, as I mentioned in my last post, we have already noticed the bluebirds examining the nesting quarters, but the swallows are still in absentia.

April also witnessed the return of the Red-Winged Blackbirds at our bird feeders.  This year, the first one showed up on March 14, and now my feeders are mobbed by males and females alike on a daily basis.  The sunflower seeds have also attracted an occasional house finch, a new visitor.  On Friday, I almost fell over myself when a Red-Naped Sapsucker perched for just a few moments on our porch railing.  (I knew it was a woodpecker, but I had never seen it before and had to look it up in my Montana field guide.  SOOOO exciting!!!)

Other new sightings have included two otters.  On April 7, in the early evening, Spousal Unit spotted something dark on the remaining ice of the lake, and he examined it through the binoculars while I deployed the spotting scope.  Over the next few minutes, we watched one and then two otters slide in and out of the water onto the ice.  At one point, they shared a fish that one of them had pulled out onto the ice.  How cool is that?

On April 10, Spousal Unit (yes, he has sharp eyes) detected movement on the far side of the lake, and we soon determined that it was four wolves.  We must have observed their activity for 20 minutes; they ran up and down along the edge of the lake, and at times acted almost like puppies in the way that they gamboled together.  Of course, I have reported wolves before, but this is the first occasion that we have seen them in real time.

That same evening, I noticed something white moving around in the tall grass near the lake.  On closer examination, it turned out to be a bald eagle eating something on the ground.  Being this close to Hodge Lake is certainly a boon for wildlife!

MAY

May 2018 was a thrilling month since we witnessed the moose down at the lake, and the beaver pair moved into the neighborhood, building a dam and lodge lickety-split.  After those initial sightings of the moose, it disappeared for parts unknown.  We continued to see beaver activity in terms of changes to the dam, tree cutting and the occasional tail slap, but over the winter they have been entrenched in the lodge.  Hopefully they will be more visible once the ice clears out.

The flowers surged last year during this month, and here are some of the beauties we can anticipate emerging first.

Lower left: Glacier Lily; Center: Blue Violet; Lower right: Aspen

Upper right: Kinnikinnick

Upper left: Serviceberry; Upper Center: Heartleaf Arnica; Upper right: Wild Strawberry

Lower left: Oregon grape; Lower Center: Not sure; Lower right: Lodgepole pine

On May 28, my trail cam documented the Columbian Ground Squirrels, but I am fairly certain they were scrambling about earlier.  Just as I was wondering when they would leave hibernation, I spotted one yesterday on the slope just below the kitchen window.  He was frantically eating the short grass; we shouldn't be surprised since he has been underground since mid-August!

May 29 brought a coyote loping through our leach field around 9.30 pm.  At the time, it was a novelty that had me jumping up and down.  Twelve months on, I have become accustomed to a sighting (at a distance) while I am running, and I have certainly captured plenty of them on my trail cam.  Don't get me wrong, I am still mesmerized, but they are not as rare as I first imagined.

At the end of the month, we planted our flower pots.  While this does not relate directly to my chronicles of native flora and fauna, I can use the reference as a safety net - generally, I don't have to worry about these plants suffering a snow storm or ravaging frost if I wait for the final days of May to set them out.

JUNE

 Middle left: Narrowleaf Collomia

Middle right: Rose

Lower left: Starry Wild Lily of the Valley

Reproduction systems kick into high gear in this month.  Fawns begin to appear, and as many as six elk with a baby in tow wandered the edges of Hodge Lake.  A painted turtle crawled up the logging road and seemed to be digging a hole for eggs.  This occurred twice that I witnessed.  Each time, I placed rocks on either side of the area to enable monitoring (incubation is 72 days).  Nothing came of it as far as I could tell.

Not to be outdone, the swallows were nesting in both bird boxes.  (But by mid-June, the gnawing squirrels had kicked them to the curb.)  I also glimpsed the occasional Western Tanager high in the pine treetops, and male and female crossbills chose our rock steps below the kitchen as a favorite hang-out.  I still have not determined what drew them to that spot - something in the soil?  Microscopic bugs that I could not see?

Of course, not all wildlife is welcome.  This month also brought the carpenter ant infestation, which we were able to fend off quickly.  That was a relief, and now I am constantly vigilant for bugs attempting to make a warm nest out of our house.

Abundant wildflowers danced in the meadows and nodded under the shrubs.

Upper left: Cinquefoil; Upper Middle: Blue Violet;

Upper Right: Butter and Eggs

Lower left: reflection in lake; Lower right: Shooting Star

Left: Yarrow; Upper middle: Pink Wintergreen; Upper right: Blue-eyed Grass

Lower middle: Self-heal; Lower right: Bog Orchid

I would be hard-pressed to choose the highlights from June, but the black bear on the logging road (captured by trail cam) and the badgers I observed would land at the top of the list.

JULY

Early July brought much of the same with an occasional surprise, such as the afternoon I glimpsed a small black bear on our driveway as I returned home from a run.  Or the weasel that caught my eye from the window of our master bathroom.

As I sit here now, looking at barren tree branches and muddy ground, my mind struggles to grasp the life that is waiting just below every surface.  I am dreaming about the wild grass and wildflowers that we sowed in the fall, immediately before the snow took over.  Will it sprout?  What kind of wildflowers will we see?  Can we defend the new growth from the deer and the bunnies?  Of course I am also keen to observe our formal landscaping.  Does it come back?  How much self-seeding occurred?  Will our apple trees bloom and cross-pollinate?  And then we have the pines and aspens we transplanted at the end of the summer.  Did they survive the process?  When can we expect the aspens to leaf out?  So much anticipation.  All I have to do is wait.

Mosaic Monday

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