Robin Arnold Art

Shortly after I wrote my last blog entry, Keetie, my little guinea fowl buddy, and all but one of our chickens were killed. Here is a link to our August Lifestyles 2000 article which is a tribute to this very special bird. Scroll down to page 5 to view the article. http://lifestyles2000.net/pages/aug15/aug15.pdf We still only have the one remaining hen. Her name is Leica and she is currently sitting on an egg that the black silkie laid. I doubt that it hatches but it's worth a try.

April usually brings kinglets, yellow-rumped warblers and several other early migrating birds to our property but this year, because of northeast winds, the migration is a little behind schedule. I finally saw a pair of  yellow warblers two days ago near the back of the property. Male Yellow Warbler in dogwood We have several of these warblers nest on our 12 acres every year.  I found this nest in the following photo last year before the leaves of the dogwood had totally blocked it from view. Female Yellow Warbler sitting on her nest. The winter of 2013/2014 was so severe that for the first time in almost 30 years we didn't have any Canada geese goslings being raised on our property and it looked like this year was going to be a repeat of last. In the last week, however, we have had a pair hanging around in our marsh and we're hopeful they'll nest on top of this muskrat house. Our marsh is only about 5 years old so this will only be the second time we've h...

After talking about it for the last couple of years, we finally decided to order two wood duck nest boxes. Why didn't we do it sooner? These large nest boxes are no small feat to put up for anyone at any age but for two women, aged 59 and 65, it's a monumental task!  UPS delivered two wood duck nest boxes UPS delivered the nest boxes on April 17th, and that morning we got out the post hole digger, an 8 foot 4x4 post and went to work. This one was erected on the edge of our pond.Thank goodness our property is usually a soggy mess in the spring as it made the job of digging a hole much easier. Gena and Keetie digging the hole for a nest box We put the second box up the following morning on the edge of the marsh and I've spent the last week lathering myself with arthritis cream and popping Tylenol and Aleve for sore hands, neck, back, etc. Was it worth it? Well, a certain male house sparrow is ecstatic we went to all this work just for hi...

There is still a lot of snow on the ground but this week in northwest Ohio the temps are actually above normal. I'm hoping that by the end of the week sections of our marsh and pond will thaw and maybe, just maybe, a few ducks will fly in. In years past we've had gadwalls, northern shovelers, green-winged teal, redheads, lesser scaup and blue-winged teal fly in to our 12 acres and it's not uncommon for hooded mergansers and wood ducks to nest on our property. Two male lesser scaups pursuing a female scaup on our pond. Some harbingers of spring can only be heard, not seen. Two mornings ago the calls of sandhill cranes could be heard coming from a marsh east of us along with a killdeer that was in a marsh southwest of us. Add to that the cardinals, chickadees, nuthatches, Canada geese and one lone titmouse closer to our house and it's like nature's symphony enjoyed in surround sound. In the following video you can hear some of the sounds of spring while watchin...