The circle of life

Remember the chipmunks?  These little guys.

We have had two different regular visitors, including the pesky little varmint that eats from our feeder.  In the last couple of weeks we also had a new regular, very small and pale coloured which we took to be a young one.  He's been very cute, coming up and exploring our deck and eating the occasional peanut (unlike the bigger chipmunks, he has to shell them before he can fit them in his mouth).

But this morning there was a cat.  A black cat that has been hanging around.  A few moments before I spotted the cat, I spotted the little chipmunk down by our basement doors.  I guess the cat spotted it too.  It hid in the hollow beneath our basement steps, but I guess it must have incautiously stuck its head out to see if the coast was clear and the cat was waiting and pounced.  Last I saw was a limp little chipmunk being carried away in the cat's jaws.

I feel guilty because I should have thrown something at the cat to scare it away when I saw it prowling.  I will in future.

Gray catbird

Time for the second bird of the week for this week, and this one is a multimedia extravaganza.  Not because it looks particularly exciting; like its name declares, it's pretty much grey.

No, the interesting bit is in the other part of its name, the reason it's called a catbird, and that is because the call it makes does sound remarkably like a cat meowing.  You can listen here.

They are around a lot in the spring, and a couple of weeks ago were just everywhere.  Now they've settled down a little, though we have one out front that we think is nesting.  We're happy for it to be there because they love to eat ants and we've been having problems with them (maybe that's why it's set up house there, it's like living above a restaurant).

Their call sounds like the cat's meow, but their song really is the cats pyjamas.  They're the jazz musicians of the avian world, apparently, improvising long songs on the spot from a variety of different sounds, occasionally throwing the meow in there as a bonus.  I think that mates may judge each other based on the variety of sounds in the songs, and there are a few species that do that.

So they may not be very colourful to look at, but they certainly are interesting to hear, and the keep the bugs at bay to boot!  Definitely worth having around.

In my cups

Just as I listen to British radio to quell pangs of homesickness for a country I have never visited, so I read the British papers and as I was reading this recently I came across a surprise.  Nothing serious, of the lawks-gawd-help-us variety, but the piece piqued my interest when it alluded in passing to the cup measure being an American thing.

A quick visit to my dictionary confirmed that, according to the people at the OED, the word "cup" as a baking measure is primarily a North American thing.  I can only assume that they haven't a typical Kiwi kitchen on baking day.

Now I was well aware that there was an American cup, and that it was slightly different to the metric cup that I grew up with.  The difference had lulled me into the misconception that the metric cup was therefore of English origin.  But it seems that the cup crept into New Zealand from America and was metricated (if that's the word I want) some time later.

Incidentally the American cup is half an American pint, which is quite a bit smaller than the old English pint.  It's actually very close to the metric cup, close enough that I have had no problem just using American cups where my recipes call for the metric kind.

The cup isn't the only American export that has been embraced by Kiwis but not Britons.  To name just one, in Britain pants are underwear, whereas in the US and New Zealand they are trousers.  And I'm sure there are plenty more where those two came from.

Delaware Water Gap

So last weekend Mrs Walles and I went to New York (the state, not the city...well, actually we did pass through the city...it's complicated and I'll get to that another day).  Our favourite spot to stop on the way is just on the other side of the border with New Jersey, at the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, or the DWG as we usually call it.

The Delaware river is an important landmark in the northeast US. It marks the borders of several states, including the one that shares its name.  It is a very old river, pre-dating the already old geological ructions that produced the stubby mountains known as the Appalachians (I'm happy to describe them as stubby, since they are compared to, say, the Rockies or the Southern Alps, but it's all relative - they wouldn't look so stubby if I had to walk up one).

Anyway, because the river is older than the mountains it cuts through them as it pleases, its channel having carved out a place for itself as the mountains rose around it.  This creates what is called a water gap in this part of the world, which is basically a river gorge cutting through a mountain range.  It's lucky for us, too, because it provides a convenient breach in the mountains which the interstate highway takes advantage of, along with the railroad.

Apart from the convenience the DWG is spectacularly beautiful, and I highly recommend a visit.  Although the Delaware is an important river it is still relatively small at this point (and relative to other American rivers it is also small, similar in flow to the Waikato River).

At the DWG the river cuts through a ridge, called Blue Mountain on the Pennsylvania side and Kittatinny Mountain on the New Jersey side, and the walls are almost vertical, yet still heavily wooded, like the whole region.  Here's Kittatinny, seen from Turtle Beach, a little sandy spot beside the river.

The river bends to the right once it reaches Kittatinny, so that's the side of Blue Mountain to the right of the frame, with an equally spectacular vertical wall facing Kittatinny across the river.  I only managed to get a snap of the face of Blue Mountain from the road a couple of days later, on the way back towards Pennsylvania.

Incidentally, since the river forms the border, all of these photos show two states, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

My favourite of the photos we took (which required a return visit to the car to swap cameras after mine ran down - but it was worth it) is of Kittatinny framed by the lush vegetation at the side of the river.

Doesn't it make you want to go there?  It makes me want to go back.

Female northern cardinal

This bird of the week entry is unusual in two ways.  First, because I didn't get a chance to post one last week, this will be the first of two birds this week.  Second, it's actually a bird we've seen before, the northern cardinal, but this time it is the dramatically different female.

Completely different colours, apart from the beak, from the male.

The scarlet male is much more flashy than the female.  Alas it is usually the way in the bird world.  Still, the beak does make the female cardinal stand out.  If it is facing you there is no mistaking what kind it is.

Both of these cardinals (plus another male) have been constant visitors to our deck since the late winter.  They are delightful to watch, because part of their courtship routine involves the male taking the female little pieces of food and putting them in her beak, which makes them look very much like they are kissing.  They were at it this afternoon, the female sitting on our bird feeder pecking away and the male scratching in the ground underneath, every so often flitting up to give her some tasty morsel he had found.  Meanwhile in the trees the other male was lurking ominously...love is never simple, eh?

Damned immigrants

Mrs Walles and I have been travelling again, and I haven't had time to update the blog much.  Fortunately, though, all this gadding about has given me plenty of material for future posts.  Today just a brief entry, but one that packs quite a punch if you ask me.

In many US states, including Pennsylvania, only the back of a car carries a number plate, leaving the front free for something else like an affiliation or a humorous bumper-sticker style message.  Like this one which we spotted recently.

"WELCOME TO AMERICA NOW EITHER SPEAK ENGLISH OR LEAVE".  How pleasant.

Good thing I speak something that passes for English here.  Although the kind of person who puts that on the front of their car for all to see may have more stringent standards of English than the average American.  I'd better watch who I talk to...

The Amish are here!

I had just got out of the shower when I thought I heard voices emanating from below (outside, I mean, I haven't lost my marbles).  And indeed the Amish contractors have arrived to fix our back deck, complete with straw hats, braces and all.  I can already hear industrious sounds accompanying the voices (which is amazing, given that the humidity is near 100% and the temperature is rapidly climbing to another lofty high.

Looking out the front window I see that there is a closed trailer, kind of like a horse float, in which they have all their equipment and supplies, and that's been dropped off in the driveway.  That partly explains something Mrs Walles and I had been pondering - how do they get here?  It's well known that the Amish don't drive cars, but it's not so well known that they can accept rides if someone else is driving.  I guess the  same applies to their tools.  Or perhaps these blokes are from one of the less stringent sects (there are quite a few) that are more liberal about things like horseless carriages.

I think I can hear power tools (I can't quite see them from where I'm writing this) but that doesn't clinch it: even the rigorous Amish sects are allowed to use electricity and other mod cons in businesses, apparently.

Anyway, I'll keep you posted on their progress - they can't be planning to take long, since there's a big storm coming this afternoon. Although I suppose they might not know that...after all, I only know because I saw it on TV...