Taxes, Birdies and Byes

The Cardinal that came to breakfast

Today is hand over the $$ day, or Tax Day. It's also the last day of volunteering at the Blue Ridge Assembly YMCA for Ila and myself. HURRAH! On the flip side, I'll miss sitting at the cabin window, watching those southern tweeties come and go. I'm really going to miss the Carolina Chickadees, my resident Black & White Warbler & Eastern Phoebe, not to mention the boisterous & LOUD Tufted Titmouses - "PETER! PETER! PETER!" 

Oh, and will miss the magical, mystical floating Down Woodpecker. How does it defy gravity?

This afternoon during my five hour break, Ila drove us out to the North Carolina Arboretum. On the way there we got good and proper lost, but with directions of a great gal from the Arboretum on the phone & seat-of-my-pants directions, we got there eventually.

One of numerous beautiful buildings on the Arboretum grounds

Wow, this is what I had hoped for yesterday & didn't get at the Asheville Nature Center; a massive grounds teeming with North Carolina horticulture and birds. There were deep rose blossoms on a huge magnolia, thick groupings of tulips and ranunculus in shallow clay saucers and row after row of imaginative plant placement.

There were a a couple of new birds for my North Carolina birding list - a Blue-gray Gnatcatcher a White-breasted and Brown-headed Nuthatches. Alas - I think it's too early in the season for many of the birds that visit the Arboretum this early in the Spring. Or perhaps they were avoiding little ole' me?

Ila getting info suggestions for hiking at the Arboretum

Ila and I enjoyed the grounds each in our own way, Ila admiring the settings and statues, me... yes, I chased birds around with my long lens camera.

Loads of Black-throated Green Warblers singing in the Arboretum gardens

Too soon we had to head back to the Y for my final two hour shift at the Eureka Cafe.

Lemon Cress Pie

It was fun tonight. I worked my shift with a North Virginian girl from Shenandoah. I told Ila I thought the girl had the coolest accent I ever heard anywhere. Ila informed me, the girl's interesting dialect was... well, it was a speech impediment. Ooops. 

During my shift Miss Vickie, a supervisor dropped by and she was darn near loopy with exhaustion for her long, long work hours. She giggled like a kid, which as a aspect of her personality I found refreshing. We three chatted about southern baking - Caramel Pound Cake, Oatmeal Pie and Lemon Cress Pie which Ila and I got to sample at dinner one evening - interesting!

It was a great last shift, to end my fortnight at the Y. Tomorrow it's time to hit the road.

Palling Around with Red Wolves

Skulker in the hillside shrubbery

This week, we are getting the room & room at the YMCA, which we weren't getting as the Blue Ridge Assembly YMCA was still gearing up for the summer season. So this morning we treked down to breakfast in the giant dining hall. We dined with three sisters from Alabama who are a hoot. They are long time volunteers here. After a breakfast of French toast, eggs & grits - yes you heard me... grits! When in Rome, you know? I skipped off to my stint as Barista at the Eureka Cafe (Proudly Serving Starbucks).  After my shift it was back up to the cabin. 

There was a sudden burst of song, that was so loud it seemed to come from the kitchen. Ran outside to spy a little Carolina Wren in the shrubbery a bit uphill. I played one calling on my iPhone and the wren responded a bit. Then, when I gave up and went back inside, the little devil flew into the Rhododendron just out side the front door and sang up a storm.

♪Oh, dem golden slippers...!♪

Wish I'd recorded that little guy on a camcorder. I heard more birds this morning than I saw, because the day is a bit overcast and the birds seem more secretive, though I don't know if the weather is the cause of it. After my first day or so, it dawned on me the chickadees here are kind of dinky. Just a bit tinier than the Black-capped Chickadees of northern states I'm more familiar with. That means I'm definitely seeing a species I've only seen once before - drum roll please - Carolina Chickadees.

A wee CAROLINA Chickadee!

At noon, we went to lunch in the cafeteria. Afterwards Ila worked her first shift this afternoon, I went for a slow drive around the campus, starting at the very tippy top of the hill behind the Younts Hall.

Diving Broad-winged Hawk

I heard and saw all the usual birds I see from the cabin, including a soaring Broad-winged Hawk.












Though I had my ears set on 'Warbler' mode, I only heard Black-throated Green Warblers calling. Exploring one corner of the Y grounds I found an acre pond, on which floated one drake Blue-winged Teal, a Mallard Drake & a couple of Canada Geese. That adds one new bird - the Teal - to my North Carolina state bird list.

Blue-winged Teal Drake

After Ila worked her shift, I picked her up and we had five hours before her next shift. I pushed for us to visit the Nature Center in Ashville. I took my binocs and big lens camera so I could stroll the grounds and bird.

Ila headed for the Asheville Nature Center entrance

When we got there, it turned out I was, um... mistaken about the 'nature' of the Nature Center'. It is not a botanical gardens of native trees and walkways where Northern Cardinals sing and Magnolias bloom - it is a tiny, zoo. I haven't been to any zoo in about a decade and wouldn't have gone to the Nature Center, had I know its true identity.

cute walkway on the way to the animal exhibits

Eventually I decided to stop whining about the dearth of birdies and go to see the rare Red Wolves on display. I saw the rangy, not-as-red-as-one-might-think beasts. I thought back to when I got to traverse the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge a couple of years ago, where I hoped to spot  wild Red Wolves, but of course, no dice; that is one rare beastie.

One of several Red Wolves on display

Gray/Timber Wolf in another exhibit

There were also nice Gray Wolves, Red and Gray Foxes to admire. Particularly loved the Red Fox - always loved those little buggers - used to draw red foxes exclusively in kindergarten, and my teacher complained to my mother about it; thought I ought to be drawing boring things like humans, houses and trees. Ha!

 

There were many Appalachian reptiles & amphibians on display at the center. I thought this one, an Eastern Mud Turtle was particularly creepy looking. Can't get past the fleshy chin whiskers.

Eastern Mud Turtle

After our short visit to the Nature Center we headed back to the Y. You know we only have one more day left of volunteering here before we'll  be off north for two mystery stops before we return to California. Neither Ila nor myself can wait to be on the road again.

Some Interesting Southern Juju

As I dug into my breakfast yesterday I had my eyes on patio bird feeder and trees. I spotted something huge flying and got excited - a HAWK!  As the bird flew over my cabin, and I snatched up my camera and raced outside. The bird had a broad white band on its tail & it landed in a tree just behind the cabin. Yay! A Broad-winged Hawk!

Looking grumpy from being harassed by the small fry

It sat in a tree, and moved a few times because every annoying little bird on Black Mountain came out to harass it. I got a couple of shots of it in the tree, but almost immediately it took off, bless its pinfeathers, it landed in front the cabin, in a great position for me to get a shot or two. When it flew off it had a long branch in its bill. I imagine it is into nest building, so it can have lots of lovely babies and will feed them with lots and lots of annoying little birdies. Revenge is sweet.

My neighbor, the Eastern Phoebe

Looking around I then saw a little female Purple Finch. The little Eastern Phoebe that hangs around the cabin was present too. I noted the Eastern Phoebe may be nesting across from me, in the cabin's gutters, on the corner. They like platform nesting and what better little platform than a nice sheltered gutter with an eve over it?






A couple of days ago in the cabin, I heard what sounded like a high pitched squeaking wheel that needed oiling and knew there was a Black & White Warbler around. I went outside, and briefly played its call on my iPhone and the bird hurried over to peer curiously at me. Now it is a daily treat as it squeaks and squeaks near the cabin. 

Black & White Warbler, singing it's 'squeaky wheel' song

Today Ila and I painted in the Yonts building which is a dormitory for seasonals who work at the Blue Ridge Assembly YMCA. Our job for today, and tomorrow is to paint bright white dorm room walls a dingy, dirty diaper brown. Each room had a lovely pecan wood paneling, which Ila and I paint over with a sort of drab olive paint. In other words we converting somewhat bright rooms into depressing cells. We wondered who decided on the paint choices, but we weren't consulted on the issue so we obediently paint away.

We finished up for the day around 2PM and came back to the cabin. Dave, a YMCA employee who acted as our supervisor for our painting assignments dropped by. He showed us photos of his children, who turned out to be a pretty pair of dogs, a Lab and a cute brown Boxer mix.

I decided to return the favor and show Dave some of my birdie photos of the past week. I turned on my laptop, but it froze on the opening screen. I turned the laptop on and off maybe a half dozen times, but it refused to start up, freezing up on the first screen. Perplexed and annoyed I grabbed my Canon 60D and pulled up this morning's hawk photos to show Dave. Almost immediately the camera screen went black. I turned it on again, and again it just died, weird as I'd put in a fully charged battery after photographing the hawk this morning. So, I fetched a second freshly charged battery, which also promptly died. Puzzled, I gave up.

We chatted with Dave and the room grew warm as it was in the 80s today. I got up and started to raise the lower windows to get a cross ventilation breeze going. Finally I reached a window on the far wall, and lifted it - WHAM - and it crashed right back down! The glass cracked in front my eyes, forming a big oval crack & making a 3 feet wide solid circle of glass. It popped out of the main glass pane, but did not fall - it just hung in its glass matrix, poised as if to keep me guessing.

Later when Dave took off, I asked Ila if she noticed how nothing worked when Dave was around. I mean, as soon as he left my laptop and all of my electronics started right up again, no problems. She had noticed was as intrigued about it as I was.

As the afternoon drew on, Ila was bored so she drove us into Black Mountain for a little shopping.  We hit the yarn store and I got some goodies at the local hardware store, including an inexpensive DVD of Disney's Song of the South. Shhh! That title is not supposed to be available in the United States! When I saw it you could have knocked me over with 2 choruses of Zip A Dee Do Dah, whatever the heck that is.

 

a view of downtown Black Mountain, North Carolina

Birding AND window shopping!

Another view of Black Mountain

As we walked around the little downtown, I realized I was exhausted; no clue why. I didn't exactly exert myself at work today, but tired I was. Maybe it was the temperatures which were in the 80s or maybe I was just weary in general. I only wanted to go back to the cabin and lay around. I was surprised when Ila confessed she was just as exhausted as I was. Maybe electronics aren't all that can experience an energy drained, eh?