What's that up in the tree?

Birding has been rather slow the past two weeks and I was wondering what I had done to scare the birds away from our feeders. Today I may have discovered the reason. As I turned to look out my view window a rather large bird flew into the tree in our back yard. Normally my camera is right here and all I have to do is grab it and turn it on. Not today, quickly I got up and hustled to the dining room to retrieve the camera and on my way back turned the camera on and stopped at the kitchen window to aim the camera at what we now believe to be a Cooper's Hawk. I took one quick shot and aimed to take another shot and he started into flight once again. The two picters are rather poor quality, but they do prove that our Normal Back Yard had a hawk visit.

Talking to Birds Unlimited later today we learned that indeed a Cooper's Hawk would cause fear in smaller birds and maybe even cause them to look elsewhere for food until they felt safer. I know that I have spotted a hawk in our yard at least twice before today. The first time was in late September as one landed on our fire place chimney and flew off before I could take his picture. Then last Saturday on flew into the same tree out back. That time I had the camera ready but when I turned to find the camera he flew off.

One of the members of the Central Illinois Birding Forum has a blog web site and she has neat pictures of Bald Eagles which nest near the Illinois river. Her blog can be found at: http://walkwithmepart2.blogspot.com/

Fare Well to Roger

I seldom see the local newspaper unless it is Saturday or Sunday as I am usually in too much of a hurry to read. Sometimes my wife will lay something out for me to read, but usually not very often. This weekend I noticed that a former acquaintance from years ago had died at the age of 61. The first thought in my mind was that he was a year younger than me. An then I begin thinking about how our lives crossed and then each of us went our own separate ways.

We first met at our church youth functions, both of us attended the Evangelical United Brethren church in Bloomington. Since then the church has changed names and many of the people I remember have transferred their membership to other local churches. It seems almost strange to say we met at a youth group as we are now older than our parents were when we met. Roger and I were never close friends, rather his younger brother and I actually spent more time together. One of his older sisters was in my class at school and two of his older brothers were were well know to me as Ed was a friend of my neighbor and Bill was often seen riding his bike all over Bloomington-Normal. I don't think Bill ever learned to drive so even as he neared 50 he would be seen on his bike.

Our youth group was very active and included guys and girls numbering anywhere from 25-50 at any event. It was from the youth group that we drew our friends as opposed to our school mates as we had a common interest. After high school we all went our separate ways and seldom have we seen each other since. I did become reacquainted with Roger about 10 years ago as he visited the church I was attending for a brief period of time and then he chose somewhere else to worship and we no longer had any contact.

It is a shame that in this fast paced world of which we live, we no longer take the time to stay in contact with those who have crossed our path as we are consumed with the present needs and desires. The truth is that even our closest friends and family do not hear from us as much as they deserve.

On another note, the Georgia Peach is getting new ear tubes which will hopefully help to keep her more healthy. Her daddy is now swamped in work as he now is the boss for his regional distribution center. The Christmas season is the peak time for his center. Congratulations Steve on your well deserved promotion!

Willow Wonders

In late October I took my wife back home to see her brother and aunt. While there we took numerous pictures of the farm and nearby everyday sights of the Village of Willow.

Willow, was originally named Dutch Hollow and rename Willow in 1818. Willow sits upon the Willow Road which runs parallel to the Muddy Plum River. Back in the late 1800's this was a thriving village which covered about a 1/2 mile strip. The family farm was on the East end of Willow with only a United Brethren Church, a US Post Office and a Wells Fargo Stagecoach facility be farther East. To the West of the family farm was a sorgaham mill, plow factory, blacksmith shop, Bishop Store, Willow United Methodist Church,furniture store, coffin maker, cheese factory and a one room school house(which back in the early 1950 was in use). Most of these are long gone now, but the United Methodist Church which was built in 1860 with its basement showing the logs used to support the structure not only still in existence but attended weekly by neighbors. The one room school house and cheese factory are now single family residences.

I have posted pictures of the family barn which was built around 1876 and is still being used as a dairy barn. This barn has been featured in Barn Again on public TV as the oldest Grade A Dairy Barn still in operation, featured in calendars, and has also served as a model for a series of barns by Ertyl Toy Company. Lowell Thomas was the artist that created this barn series and the family barn was featured as a Victorian Barn.

Close up of Barn



Front view of Barn



View from the East



Close up 1876 painted on window



Close up of the stone wall of barn

A New Day

The sun reappeared and "salted" the street with its rays and the ice is beginning to melt. The street is almost passable as more of the actual street is beginning to surface.

At least one squirrel has found the corn and devoured three of the ears and starting on the fourth, the other squirrels are simply feeding off of the spilled bird seed that is lying on the ground. Pictured is the industrious squirrel.



Here are a few more pictures of our Spring Fox debuts.

Slip Sliding Away

The lesser used streets in our fair Town are pathetic at best since the winterly storm hit us. Our street in particular is covered with ice and ruts making driving treacherous. Yesterday our furnace repairman came to check our new furnace. Before he even arrived his van got stuck in the middle of the street and couldn't move. Along came another motorist upon the scene and slid into the repair man's van. Only minor damage, but after flagging down other motorists for help they freed the stuck van in time to see another motorists sailing down the street in a precarious fashion. The repair man ask the driver which way she was originally going only to learn it was the opposite direction of which her vehicle was facing.

This morning my wife started gazing out the window, so being curious, I asked her what was going on outside. Well another vehicle was over the curb in the neighbors front yard with the tail end still in the street. Once again we had a stuck vehicle, but traffic just kept coming and they would fishtail but get by somehow until a nice brown ban spun completely around coming to rest against a legally parked car opposite of the stuck vehicle. It was time to call the police department as my wife had already called the street department and got no answer, oh well it was before 8:30am.

It was interesting that the command center did not ask if anybody was hurt, but they did want to know if our car had been struck. No, our vehicles are in the driveway, hopefully safe from the street traffic. I wonder if it had been our vehicle if we would have been instructed to exchange information and then come into the station.

The driver of the van went up to the neighbors house to see if they owned the car, then left a note on the parked car which had been bumped and then she got into her van and went off to school or home with her children. In the mean time other vehicles were slowly passing the commotion until a male driver got out and helped the original stuck vehicle off of the curb.

Fifteen minutes after my wife's phone call, and after everything had been cleared the police arrived. The officer did get out and look at the struck vehicle and noted the note attached to the windshield. I had finally gotten dressed and was headed to work and stopped to relay what I had seen, not sure it was of any worth as no questions were asked of me by the officer.

Later this morning my wife called to say a salt truck had been down the street. I went home for lunch and after sliding all the way from Fell to my house asked my wife if the salt truck had spread any salt, she replied, well I didn't see any coming out.

Well, my Normal Back Yard is a safe haven for the squirrels and birds, wouldn't want them out front! Too Dangerous!

Still Fall

Our Downey Woodpecker braving the cold.



A Northern Cardinal in a very icy tree.



Woodpecker feeding on the plugged suet feeder.



Ice covered tree in back yard.



Woodpecker and squirrel feeding side by side.



I looked at my calendar this morning and realized that Winter will not be here until December 22! Wonder if mother nature knows that? The ice from Thursday night is still hanging on the trees and it is a wonder that more limbs aren't falling. Maybe the wind hasn't been as strong the last few days.

We have a house in our neighborhood that is rental property and in the past has been rented to athletes at ISU. They had a fire several years ago and since I haven't seen much activity. I know the owner had repairs done including taking out the front basement wall and replacing it. Well, he has another chore as a hugh tree limb is lying across his roof. I suspect that he might have a hole in the roof although you can not see an actual hole from the street. I need to get a picture as it is quite unusual. My wife called the NPD as we do not actually know the owner's name but she had little confidence that the owner would be notified based upon the questions she had to answer. No it isn't a hazard and no electrical wires are down, just thought you might have access to the owners name so he could be notified.

My friend "Thedecrepidoldfool" sent me a cartoon about this loading up his car with bird feed, I wonder if he had seen my car with the bag of bird seed in the back seat? The last time I was at Wild Birds Unlimited I had a free bag coming so I ended up with two bags. The pests, either squirrels, possums or raccoons get into the seed if left in the garage and my wife will only allow so much in the house so I left one of the bags in the car.

The birds have been feeding in our back yard this week end. Our Downey Woodpecker sure likes the suet we put out and the Starlings love to try and get to the suet. We have a suet feeder that has the suet underneath and the Downey can easily get there and hold on, but the Starlings really have to work at it as they can not hold on like the Downey. It is fun to watch the Starlings try to imitate a Humming Bird as they hover underneath the suet feeder and dart up and down until they tire.

This year we only have a couple of squirrels, and they don't seem to smart. Placed the corn out Friday and they still haven't found it. My wife thinks that they are just to lazy as they would rather gather the dropped seed on the ground then have to climb the post and lean over and grab the corn.

Certainly Winter!

Well, I usually doubt the weather projections, and this was no exception, but I was wrong. I have been out to the cars twice this morning and still can't get the doors open. The back yard was next, as I had to knock the ice off of both bird feeders and the corn wheel. Feeders are now functioning and squirrels have corn.

Here are a few pictures from this morning. One gives a better view of the milk jugs keeping the squirrels out of the bird feeder. Our visitors this morning were Starlings a plenty, a White Breasted Nuthatch, our friendly Downey Woodpecker, several sparrows, doves, plenty of Cardinals and the snow birds (Darked eyed Juncos).