by waaytoomuchintothis » Sun Mar 23, 2014 6:04 pm
We were astonished at the birds when we retired here. Then Hurricane Irene hit us direct, and an amazing number of big raptors from the wilderness areas of Chespeake Bay starting showing up in the lower part of the property near the 150 year old barn, blown here by the storm. An eagle flew just barely above my head when I was mowing, an osprey, the only one I have ever seen, was perched in a tree where I got a perfect view of him from my upstairs bedroom window, and a large community of Peregrine Falcons live in special falcon hutches on top of buildings downtown and they hunt here a good 20 miles away. I always know when they are here, as the crows go bonkers when they are around. We have parades of wild turkeys that march around down at the edge of the woods, hundreds of doves, goldfinches visit my wood shop and snack on sunflowers. We have native hawks, the biggest I have ever seen, and huge turkey vultures that keep the road clean of road kill, but can be a nuisance when they decide to have a committee meeting in the middle of the road. They try to stare down cars rather than leave the tasty crushed animals. Every morning and evening, year round, huge V's of Canada Geese come honking by my bedroom windows headed for the pond just across my creek on a neighbor's place. At night, owls hoot, bats eat up mosquitoes, and tree frogs sing so loud you wish they'd shut up. I was really going wild with all the incredible life that surrounds us here, then I found something odd in the side yard... a state wildlife official identified it as a cougar's hairball. That took a few days to get over. EEEK! (I quote my wife verbatim... me too!)