10 Years Ago

 

Friday, September 25, 2015

A Cream Cat and Weekly Woodpecker Report

Design - "Gracie"

Designer - The Goode Huswife

Fabric - 35 count R &R Daily Grand

Fibers - GAST - 1 thread over 2 strands - also one thread over 1 strand

Started - 27 August 1999

Completed - 6 September 1999

Framed - October 2014

Back to the Cross Stitch Archives we go!

This week it has just been the Regulars.

It is no longer a Big Thing to have two Hairy Woodpeckers at the feeders.

Two males.

A female and a male.

We like peanuts.

And mixed nuts.

Several Sapsuckers working close by.

They make the most usual sounds when agitated.

I can't get enough of their bright red head.

The red and yellow breast is pretty too.

Female Flickers are not nearly so flashy!

But that's okay, quiet colors in complementary patterns are lovely too.  

The Acorn Woodpeckers are busy, busy, busy caching acorns.  

The stop for grief refills at the peanut feeder.

A male.

A female.

I'll have a better sense of how many there are come winter. 

The young female Pileated Woodpecker has been semi-regular too.  I hear the bird most mornings and see her two or three times a week.

Wednesday's Walk

It is officially autumn - let's take a walk and see what there is to be seen.

We were blessed with a bit more rain last week.

Some plants, like this blackberry, don't know when to quit!  There is no way that these blooms will ever see mature fruit. 

Thistles also never say die!

I am enjoying the sweet yellow blossoms of Linaria vulgaris - Butter and Eggs.

The very edges of the oak leaves are starting to turn color.

The dogwood leaves turn a lovely crimson.  Can you see the small orange honeysuckle berries twining up the leaves?

Poison oak is another autumn beauty - don't touch!

Sweet little pale purple flowers of our native Douglas aster. 

The wild cherries make a statement come autumn

And the day ends with a lovely sunset! 

Ten Years Ago - A Special Day

One Cat and Thousands of Birds

Design - "The Cat Sampler"

Designer - The Goode Huswife

Fabric -32 count Muffin linen

Fibers - DMC - strands over 2 threads

Started - 17 May 1998

Completed - 20 May 1998

I like to think that Tom-Cat would approve of me featuring this Tiger Cat cross stitch finish!

He also would have enjoyed birding watching with me Monday morning!

From about 8:30am-10:00am the skies were filled with skein after skein after skein of geese from horizon to horizon. 

The sight and the sound was amazing.  It reminded me of a scene that Laura Ingalls Wilder might have experience. Certainly Lewis and Clark observed massive fall migrations on their westward exploration.

I had both my mother and father come out to take a look.

Originally I thought the birds were Canada Geese, but after looking at some birding sites on Facebook and the Oregon Bird Forum, I learned otherwise. 

These are Greater White-fronted Geese. 

They summer in the far north from Siberia, Alaska, the Yukon and Northwest Territories and over to Greenland. They then fly south and spend the winter along the west coast of the U.S. as well as the Gulf Coast and Mexican coast-lines.   

Usually the migration is a 'process' and the birds leave over a several days

 period.  This year, however, nearly all the birds left en masse. My understanding (and I'm a novice birdwatcher) is that this was unusual in that it was a fast condensed migration with all the birds migrating at the same time. The theory is that they stayed longer up in Alaska and northern Canada due to very nice September weather, and then a sudden change in the weather (strong storms moving in) drove them out all at the same time. 

In the Willamette Valley, we were at the edge of the mass migration - it was much heavier along the coast with folks reporting birds non-stop the night of the 20th through the morning of the 21st - possibly hundreds of thousands of birds. If you enlarge this photo you can faintly see the white around the beak and the lighter white feathers from the feet back to the tail. 

Photo courtesy of Andreas Trepte at Wikicommons.
You can view his work at http://www.photo-natur.de/ 

And so you have an idea of what you've been looking at in shade of gray, here's a full color photo of the bird.

I was pretty stoked to have been at the right place at the right time to see even a small part (I estimated 2,500 birds) of this amazing migration.

 

Five Years Ago

Tuesday, September 22, 2020

Fruit and Birds

 

Design - "Fruit Sampler"

Designer- unknown

Chart - "Prizewinning Mini Samplers" 034819

Better Homes and Gardens

Fabric - 28 count Khaki Jobelin

Floss - DMC

Started - 5 March 1997

Completed - 8 March 1997

My cross stitch selection is an older stitch - 23 years old now, wow!  Have you been stitching long enough to remember buying cross stitch magazine and the charts featured in them?

I am most thankful for blue skies and clean air.

The Steller's Jays and California Scrub Jays are too.

Lots of California Quail out and about.  Most are sticking close to the brush as there is an active Cooper's Hawk in the area.

Monday I was pleased to see the FOS (first of the season) Golden-crowned Sparrow. 

The bird had flown down from the north (Alaska, the Yukon and British Columbia)to spend the winter here.

The changes from five years ago: no longer have any California Quail, and though Merlin says there are Golden-crowned Sparrows in the area, I have yet to see one.

The bird had flown down from the north (Alaska, the Yukon and British Columbia)to spend the winter here. 

Sunday's Hummers

Anna's all the time.

(I think the Rufous are gone for the year.) 

Young male?

Tongue out Sunday!