My friend Mr. Maple

We have this old maple tree that is one of many that line our drive.  When I say old we are talking century.  It is coming to the end of its life.  In fact we even had a tree cutter stop by and offer to remove the widow maker branches - for a price of course.  How can one part with such an dear friend that has been the home of so many of the birds that inhabit our farm.

 Just today as I was taking the groceries from the trunk I was greeting by our Baltimore Oriole, the first I have heard him this season.  He makes his nest in this tree and raises the babies we never see.  Robins, grackles, chickadees, phoebes, red-winged blackbirds, sparrows -- all make their home there or at least stop by for a rest and I can't imagine what it would be like to not hear their songs.  Right now, a phoebe is darting from branch to roof scarfing up the maple seeds that have fallen this week.

 I suppose I should mention the mammals we also need to contend with here who also, sigh, make their home in said tree - Mr. and Mrs. Squirrel.  Yes, they are pretty and their babies are cute but they are rodents after all.  We have other bothersome and pesky mammals who live here also - Mr. Deer who eats the water lilies and Mr. Woodchuck who eats everything else, Mr. Fisher who ate the neighbors fish and Mr. Fox who ate our chickens.

One song we have been blessed to hear lately is that of the woodcocks with their peenting.  When the development went in next door we didn't hear them for a few years but they have return and it is a nice sound to hear when I am outdoors at night. I like to think these are the snipes we all were sent looking for as young campers -- see, they do exist.

© Gerrit Vyn - Cornell 

 A shorebird that lives in forests, the American Woodcock is most frequently 

encountered at dusk when the male's chirping, peenting aerial displays attract 

attention. Otherwise the superbly camouflaged bird is difficult to discover on 

the forest floor where it probes for earthworms.

You have to admit -- they have a certain cuteness about them. 

Now if there was just some way to shut out the noise from the highway.