Woodpecker

I had thought I'd catalogued all the back yard birds around here - at least the ones that would sit still and pose for a photo - but it turns out I was wrong.  Not long ago I managed to capture this chap digging into a dead tree behind our house.

That's a pileated woodpecker (you can tell it's a male from the red moustache and forehead).  There's species of woodpeckers around and about, some of which I've blogged about before.  The pileated kind aren't the most colourful or even the most friendly they are the largest and probably best known species.  When casting agencies get asked for a woodpecker, these are the guys they send over.
I've seen a few of these over the years, but I'd come to assume they were quite timid.  It turns out I must have only spotted younger birds before: this one was huge by comparison - as big as a small chicken - and not timid at all.  I was able to creep (not very stealthily) up to the base of the tree he was pecking and he didn't even flinch.
Thinking about it now, I realise it's a good thing he didn't take exception to me - I wouldn't like to end up on the business end of his beak, now that I've seen how easily they chisel big chunks out of wood.  Perhaps I was lucky he didn't decide to have a go at chiselling big chunks out of me?  The risks I take for the perfect shot!

Oh deer!

It's a bit of a dull time of year for backyard wildlife in Pennsylvania.  There are the ever-present squirrels of course, and the sturdier birds like blue jays, titmice and wrens stay throughout the winter (so do the cardinals, usually, though they haven't been around as much recently - perhaps they were called to Rome) but groundhogs, chipmunks and most of the birds are mostly still slumbering or sunning themselves in more equatorial climes.

I understand of course.  I can slumber with the best of them in the winter and I was recently sunning myself in a more equatorial clime and it was most agreeable - more on that soon.  But it does make the backyard naturalist  pine for the summer months when you never know what exotic (at least to a Kiwi) creature is going to amble into your life.

So I was very excited this morning when a pair of deer ambled - or rather ran - across the yard.  It was pure chance that I spotted them out the back window: I wouldn't usually be looking out at that time and for all I know they wander through every day.  It's not the first time I've seen deer locally, or even in the backyard, but previous sightings from the house have all been during early evening and it was very striking to see them on our hill in full daylight.

It was a brief encounter, but I will be on the lookout for them again.  Along with changes to the weather they gave me hope that spring is really on the way.  Hopefully its not deer today and gone tomorrow.

Here be dragons

It's certainly been an odd season, weatherwise.  Mrs Walles and I were spared the devastation of Sandy thanks to our distance from the coast (though we battenned down the hatches just in case - our barbecue cover and compost bin are still tied down with bungee cords).

Since Sandy we've had extremely mild temperatures for the time of year and only one fall of snow which lit up the landscape for two or three days but didn't require me to even lift my shovel.  After last year's mild winter people have been assuming that this year we'll be hit hard, but so far Jack Frost hasn't really flexed his muscles.

But over at the Weather Channel they've found a way to spice things up by naming winter storm systems, like tropical storms are here and around the world.

Of course they claim there are numerous worthy reasons why naming storms is a good idea, which may be true, but you can't tell me that dramatic flair wasn't on their minds when they cooked up scheme.  As evidence of this I would like to present exhibits A, B and C: Athena, Brutus and Caesar, the names given to the first three storms of the season.  These didn't really live up to their billing, and I'm uneasy with the plotting which had Brutus come before Caesar...surely Caesar should appear first and then Brutus should develop and quickly usurp its power.

Now we have Draco (yes, really) sweeping across the country which finally is bringing actual winter weather to many places including here - though given the time of year it's not exactly unexpected.  Certainly not as unexpected as either a dragon or an Ancient Athenian leader would be.

But it certainly makes it sound exciting.  If you think you're having a tough time in the lead up to Christmas, just think of me, bravely resisting Draco's cold grip...mostly by staying inside in my slippers with a hot drink.

In fourteen hundred and ninety two...

Last Monday was Columbus Day, another one of those non-holiday holidays in that it's a public holiday if you happen to work for the government, but not if you happen to work for me.  To be honest, I would be inclined to go easier on myself when it comes to these extra public holidays, if it wasn't for the fact that Mrs Walles doesn't get them off either.

Anyway, Columbus Day marks the discovery of the Americas by an expedition led by an Italian and paid for by the Spanish government.  The significance of his discovery depends on your perspective.  The majority of Americans treat it as an absolutely pivotal moment in the foundation of their nation.  Native Americans are probably agreed on the pivotal nature but, one imagines, have rather mixed feelings about the outcome.  Europeans  decimated the indigenous population with their diseases even before they got stuck in with the swords and guns.

Meanwhile in Spain (and Italy, come to that) people must get a pang of nostalgia when they're reminded of times past when they could, you know, pay for things.

That's one European disease America has yet to succumb to, and hopefully it will stay that way.

The pulse of the nation

Recently the US Supreme Court upheld most of what's come to be known as "Obamacare" - a huge raft of changes to the way health care is regulated here in the United States.  Though the legislation has many provisions, the most controversial aspect must be the individual mandate that forces all Americans (and foreign hangers-on, including yours truly) to have health insurance - while at the same time ensuring that those who can't afford to buy their own will receive assistance to do so.  Coming from a country where health care is taken for granted, I can only see positives in making sure that everyone can go to the hospital if they are sick and not worry about being turfed out into the street or (more likely) bankrupted by the cost.

Most Americans don't, in fact, buy their own health insurance.  Through a strange historical quirk most people receive insurance as a benefit from their employer - not just for themselves but for their families, too.

This all works fine in principle, but there are numerous cracks which people can fall down and end up without coverage.  Obviously if you don't work for someone else you either have to pay out of your own pocket or go without which is a very risky proposition.  There are also rather grey areas when people change jobs or when grown children leave the nest.  The majority of Americans are covered, one way or another, by a patchwork of insurance schemes but the patchwork is straining at the seams and people are dropping into the gaping holes that are opening up.

I should make it clear that the American people are not so heartless that they would see sick people dying in the street next to a hospital.  If you come to an emergency room gushing blood you will be treated.  But you still have to pay - and if you can't then someone has to make up the difference, generally the taxpayer.  The point of the individual mandate, as I understand it, is that everyone should have health insurance even if society has to pay for it - on the assumption that society would have to pay anyway somewhere down the line, when the unpaid medical bills start piling up.  In some ways its just a way of nudging costs from one line to another in the national budget.

Unfortunately many Americans do not see it that way.  After President Obama guided these changes into law early in his term, opponents challenged their legitimacy in the Supreme Court.  Now that the court has ruled in Obama's favour the only option is repeal, and as long as Obama is in the White House that isn't going to happen.  So healthcare reform is threatening to become a major theme of this year's election.  Not for any reason to do with the care of the sick; as with so many other apparently everyday things in the US this has become a kind of constitutional crisis.  But that's a theme for another day.

The pitter-patter of tiny, tiny feet

In one corner of our front garden (which is coming along quite well, thank you) there used to live a very elusive creature.  I say "used to" because I'm pretty sure he has moved on, either to the hereafter or to somewhere where I'm not constantly weeding and digging and generally caving in the ceiling of his house.  I still take care to wear gloves when I'm doing that though, for reasons that will become obvious.

I first spotted him late last year. I happened to be standing on the front steps admiring the quiet when the quiet was broken by the sound of something scuffling around in the garden bed.  On closer examination, and with the help of a book, I  discovered that it was a shrew.

It's the little grey blur in the centre of the photo above.  Shrews are tiny, fast and look like little moles (which, oddly enough, I still haven't seen in person).  They like to nest under things, and this one had a hole leading to a nest which I presume was under our front steps.  He would then run along from his home to the conifer at the other end of the flower bed where the pickings were apparently rich for a shrew.  Sometimes he would run along a kind of half-open tunnel he had made beside the stones lining the bed.  Other times he would run just beneath the surface of the soil in the bed, making a little moving ripple of dirt and leaves like something out of a sci-fi movie.

Shrews are fairly common but not often seen, from what I understand.  They stay under the surface of the soil most of the time, and lead very fast-paced and short lives.  It was sheer good fortune that I spotted this one and was able to get even one photo of him.

I continued to see him until the late spring, a month or two ago, including a few times when I was working out in the garden.  One time he surprised me by poking his head out of his hole as if to ask what the heck was going on.  He certainly wasn't timid about challenging me.  Which brings me to the gloves.  Cute and furry as he is, it turns out that saliva of these shrews is mildly poisonous. Not enough to make you keel over but certainly enough to make it a bad day if you get bitten.  That threat, along with all the other unfamiliar creatures I might unexpectedly disturb while planting out my annuals, is quite enough to ensure that I always wear gloves when working outside.

Bachelor pad

Back in January I posted a picture of a Myrtle the squirrel collecting leaves to pad her winter nest with.  As the weather is warming up the squirrels have been moving from their nests inside hollow trees to their summer digs, big leafy affairs high in the canopy.  Usually you can't even see these until the autumn when the leaves drop and reveal the locations of the dreys, as they are officially called.

This year, though, it happened that three squirrels decided to build one in a tree behind our house that fortuitously happened to be in direct line of sight from our back door.  At least I assume it is fortuitous.  Maybe they planned it that way, but from their point of view the back door is in direct line of sight of the drey and they can see whether we've put any nuts out for them just by poking a head out of the nest!

It's still a little hard to see, but the drey is the bundle of green leaves around the fork in the tree near the centre of the picture above.  Here's a closer look.

I happened to notice the construction project going on early one Friday morning and as I checked throughout the day I could see at least three different squirrels cutting leaves and bringing them back to stuff inside the nest and pad it out.  There is one in the photo above, in fact, off to the left of the nest.

They all seemed to be males, from a group Mrs Walles and I have been calling the interlopers since they only turned up on our patch this year.  Mixed-sex nesting is not unknown among squirrels, apparently, but as the spring comes on the females like to have nests to themselves to bring up their young.  I suspect that the interlopers, finding themselves homeless, banded together to build themselves a bachelor pad.  It's still there, shaded by the trees, no doubt a very pleasant summer home for the crew who built it.