Discovering the world around me.
May is the busiest month for spring migration. Here on Owl Acres, we’ve been keeping track of our visitors using the Cornell Lab’s Merlin ID. Each morning I stand on the deck overlooking the back yard and woods and let Merlin capture the soundscape and name the birds. A second session from the front porch […]
Continue reading Warblers: American Redstart
At the time that Owl Acres was settled, a source of power beyond the physical manual strength of human beings, was needed to achieve the goal of hauling households across the prairie and then breaking the sod to create farms. The industrial revolution in the 1800s brought a new mindset to people who had hard […]
Continue reading Power on the Prairie Part 1: Oxen
A chokecherry by any other name would taste as bad. And it has many other names, including: bird cherry, chuckleyplum, sloe tree, bitterberry, jamcherry, chokeberry, cabinetcherry, rum chokecherry, whisky chokecherry and black or red chokecherry. It also borrows location names like eastern, western, Virginia, and California chokecherry. And then there’s the scientific name Prunus virginiana. […]
Continue reading By Any Other Name: Chokecherry
When I was a kid, we had a big lilac bush in the corner of the yard. You could crawl into that bush and hide. You could be just about guaranteed to get ticks in your hair if you did, though. Every spring around Mother’s Day, that bush would burst into purple booms that smelled […]
Continue reading The fragrance of Mother’s Day: Lilacs
We were out in the yard, inspecting the blossoms on the apple and cherry trees, when sprays of little lavender flowers caught our attention. A patch of Virginia waterleaf (Hydrophyllum virginianum) was growing next to the shop. The plants were about a foot tall with long, deeply lobed leaves. Clusters of flowers hung at the […]
Continue reading Virginia Waterleaf
Most every morning now that it’s spring, I’ve been taking my Merlin ID app out to a couple places around the yard to see who’s out there. Migration has begun for some birds, and Merlin, created by Cornell Labs, is good at capturing and identifying their songs. One recent new arrival is the song sparrow […]
Continue reading Lessons Learned: Song Sparrow
I like my coffee immediately upon consciousness in the morning. That requires a fast coffee maker, which we have. It maintains a reservoir of hot water at all times and is ready with no notice to produce coffee. Recently, after eleven years of exemplary service, that coffee maker sprung a leak. Water began to pool […]
Continue reading Questionable Identity: Thief or Pharoah Ants
Clancy, our golden retriever, loves to retrieve. He also loves to chew on beef bones. The other day he carried one of his bones with him when he went on a walk. Somewhere along the walk something else–probably a squirrel–grabbed his attention, and he dropped his bone. A few days later on the same walking […]
Continue reading Woodchuck, Whistle Pig, Ground Hog
There’s a place in southwest Iowa where a most unusual display occurs each year between March and May. It’s the mating dance of the greater prairie chicken (AKA pinnated grouse (Tympanuchus cupido). Rather than pair-bonding like many birds do, prairie chickens have a lek form of mating. The females choose who to breed with, and […]
Continue reading Lek Dancers: Prairie Chickens
Spring is here. Along with the winter-hardy cardinals, finches, house sparrows, downy woodpeckers and blue jays, new voices are joining the dawn chorus. We hear red-wing blackbirds, brown-headed cowbirds, and northern flickers. The juncos haven’t left yet but will soon. Robins have arrived, but they’re being quiet. The life on Owl Acres is waking up. […]
Continue reading Spring Is Here