The Fate of a Particular Kitten

                                            Vern Graham paddling on the Slippery Rock that fateful day

Last week I made a series of decisions that led to my finding an injured Baltimore Oriole and an attempt to save him. Update: he was too badly injured to be able to save, so he had to be euthanized. He went peacefully, not violently under the wheels of a vehicle on the highway. We tried, and unfortunately that's not enough. But that doesn't mean I wouldn't do the same under similar circumstances. Yesterday, some decisions were made that led to a happier ending.


This weekend I attended the Western Pennsylvania Solo Canoe Rendezvous at Cooper's Lake near McConnell's Mill State Park. Manon and I planned to stay at the lake for some of the paddling classes that were offered that morning. Several whitewater paddlers went to nearby Slippery Rock Creek to paddle in the gorge's challenging Mile; Manon, Rich and I decided instead to go there to walk the trail alongside the creek to take photos of the action.


Rich dropped Manon and me at the Mill by the old dam. As he began to back out, Manon scooped up a little gray kitten that was about to run under the car. There are no houses near the Mill and the obvious conclusion was that the kitten was dumped in the park. We pondered what we might do with the kitten--both Manon and I are animal lovers and couldn't just leave the little fellow there to try to fend for himself. 


A young couple en route to a visit in Ohio decided to stop for a visit in the park and were walking their dog. They were the only other people around. When they drew close, the young lady ran over to Manon with the glee of a child in a candy shop to see the kitten. We told them the story of finding little "Miller," as I called him in my mind (after McConnell's Mill). She asked to hold the kitten, then look appealingly at her husband who shook his head, no. A few minutes later, after many more oohs and ahs and cuddles, she looked at her husband again. He made a decision: he smiled and said yes. We talked to them for about 15 minutes, and going on the instinct of our many years with animals and people interactions, we let them have the kitten. 


Here was another series of decisions that led to a unique experience, and a happy ending.

              The kitten with his new mama and Manon                       Manon at McConnell's Mill

Fate & Decisions

The quirks of fate continue to amaze me. A series of seemingly insignificant decisions resulted in a monumental turn of events for one tiny little bird:

On Saturday, I decided to go canoeing. On the way, I decided to take a shortcut over a gravel road. When the car started making weird noises, I decided to be cheap and take my chances on driving it home instead of taking it to a garage right away. En route to the dealership this morning to have the problem looked at under warranty, I decided to skip a stop at the gas station on the way up. Heading back after the service department removed the stone from the brake shield, I decided to head out of my way to downtown Warren to get gas at Kwik-fill instead of getting it at BP. That's when I saw the little Baltimore Oriole fluttering on the side of busy Rt. 62. Two u-turns later, the little guy was safely inside my cloth grocery bag and we were on our way to Tamarack Wildlife Rehabilitation in Saegertown 90 minutes away.

Now the oriole is in the safe care of Sue and her volunteers, instead of a pile of feathers on the highway. Funny how BP had a very minor part in saving this bird!!!

Our Texas Odyssey

White Prickly Poppy, Harlingen (below) Scarlet Sage, Harlingen (right)


Rock Pigeons, South Padre (left) Black-crested Titmouse (right)
Altamira Oriole, San Ygnacio

Osprey (left) Tropical Parula, Frontera Thicket (above) Green Parakeets, Edinburg (right)


After several months of silence, I finally found a few moments to post a new article to BotanizePA...although this article is about Birding Texas! Charlie and I came snowbirding to Texas for this winter's sojourn. Although Texas is not a favorite state of mine (it spat out that last guy we had in the Oval Office before sensible voters elected Obama), it is one of the best for birding.

Tri-colored Heron (center)

They have a series of parks they call the World Birding Center http://www.worldbirdingcenter.org/ , and we've been to most of them:

• Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park (Headquarters)
• Edinburg Scenic Wetlands
• Estero Llano Grande State Park
  
• Harlingen Arroyo Colorado
• Old Hidalgo Pumphouse
• Quinta Mazatlan
• Resaca de la Palma State Park
• Roma Bluffs
• South Padre Island Birding and Nature Center

The only one we didn't make it to is Roma Bluffs, although I'd like to see it too. But it's a far drive from where we're staying in Port Isabel.

Bentsen: This is one we've been to about 5-6 times and where we got to see the Bare-throated Tiger Heron...the first record of one of these in the US. It hung around for about 2-3 weeks. I didn't get photos because after waiting several other times for it to make an appearance, I decided to leave the camera in the car to assure it would show up. Sure enough, I was there about 10 minutes and it flew in, landing and posing about 75 yards away in the open. It posed there for a good 5 minutes and lots of folks got excellent photos of it. I did get photos of a baby Collared Peccary, and about 6 weeks later, again.



Edinburg: We were here once, on a very hot day. It is known for its butterfly gardens, but not much was in bloom in January, although I did get a few shots of some butterflies. We did see many Ruddy Ducks, such little cuties. Like the Least Grebe, the Ruddy Duck has what a naturalist said the other day, the "Awww Factor." (We saw our first Least Grebe during a visit to Aransas National Wildlife Refuge on our way down, where we also saw the endangered Whooping Cranes.) It was near here that we saw a flock of Green Parakeets on the wires and eating acorns in the oaks. (see photo above)

Estero: This is one of our favorites and we've been there about 4 times so far, and going again for Breakfast with the Birds. They lay out a continental type breakfast and then we all go out on a bird walk with their volunteers and naturalists. Only $3 to cover the food cost--and we get into the park for free because we have a state parks pass. It is a recovered wetlands--used to be farm fields. It shows what good stewardship can do. They have Common Parauques here; they sleep during the day and blend in extremely well with the duff they roost in.

Harlingen: This is actually several connected pieces of land along Colorado Arroyo. The main part is a recovered landfill. We've only been there once, but will be going back for sure. They have a great bird feeding station (actually, they all do, but this one struck me as especially nifty). I got some nice Buff-bellied Hummingbird photos here. It is maintained by volunteers, including Master Naturalists, and we had an informative chat with one of them while sitting at the feeder station.


Hidalgo: We weren't too successful on our one visit to this one--possibly because it was a hot day and Charlie and I didn't want to walk the bike trail, so we didn't get out to see much.

Quinta Mazatlan: A small property with a historic adobe mansion and beautiful grounds of varying habitats, plus many feeding stations. The first time we were there we saw and photographed a Black-headed Grosbeak; and last Saturday we went to see the rare Scarlet-collared Grosbeak, which was good at hiding from the camera! He was preening as he hid behind the leaves.

Resaca: Lots of mosquitos! We walked the 2 3/4 mile tram trail and saw a lot of Couch's and Tropical Kingbirds. I'd like to go back again before we head home.

South Padre: This is just across the Causeway*, on South Padre Island, a ten minute drive for us and the newest of the World Birding Centers. We've been there several times, but since our passes aren't good here, we don't go more often as the entrance fees can build up. They have about 4,000 ft. of boardwalk and you can get wonderfully detailed closeups of many of the birds. Next door is the Convention Center, so we go there now and then to check out the shorebirds, ducks and others on the Laguna Madre, where 80% of the Redhead ducks go every winter. The salt concentration is very high here, and they like the plant life that grows in this specialized environment. Several days ago, I saw what appeared to be a fishing line, which can be devastatingly deadly to any bird who manages to become entangled. I discovered it was a kite string, and now I have a kite to fly!

*I participated in the 26th annual Port Isabel Causeway Run/Walk on January 9th, the "walk" of 3 miles from Port Isabel to South Padre Island. It was a bitterly windy and cold day, but we kept up a good pace and kept warm that way.

Some other places we visited are Frontera Thicket, owned by the Audubon Society. We did a Christmas Bird Count here and nearby (in conjunction with the Valley Nature Center in Weslaco) and also went again last week. Great place to bird, but $5 a person. Also on South Padre Island are a few other birding hot spots. We stop occasionally at the end of the Causeway where there is a nice boardwalk for bird viewing. Isla Blanca Park was nice for seeing some early blooming wildflowers.

And we went about 2 weeks ago to Zacate Creek in Laredo, about 4 hours' drive each way, to see the Amazon Kingfisher, another first recorded sighting in the US species. Also, there's Boca Chica, which is about a mile or so from where we're staying, but about a 35 mile drive to get to. It's a beach where some are seeing Gannets, Noddies and other sea birds. This is where I got an action shot of a Forster's Tern diving. To get there, we have to drive west to Brownsville where the end of the shipping channel is, then east to the beach. We got some photos of a cooperative Aplomado Falcon along this road. And last but not least is Bahia Grande, the drive to Brownsville, where we saw a lot of Yellow-crowned Night Herons. Oh, and not to forget Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge, a half hour away. There is a 15 mile wildlife drive there that we have bicycled and walking trails for birding and botanizing. And...Palo Alto Battlefield, with its open fields for White-tailed Kites and Gray Hawks...and our first feral pig.

left: jellyfish
right: dozing squirrel

Cutest Dog Competition

Vote for Maggie!

My little Maggie is entered in the Cutest Dog Competition. Grand prize is $1,000,000, and if she wins, she'll be donating a goodly portion to Tamarack, Audubon and other environmental and animal welfare groups. So please go to the website daily and vote for her until the contest is over. Your help is greatly appreciated!
(copy and paste since I don't know how to link these things!) Wait! I just realized that somehow, quite by accident, I linked the title of this article to the website where you can vote for her!

http://www.cutestdogcompetition.com/vote.cfm?h=EB9CEFB4B65E55257357E3331BCAED49

You can view the video of her dozing in the canoe:

http://www.youtube.com/user/Sparrowood#play/uploads/3/TmGzCH3j6ak


For those of you who never met Maggie, here is a short biography of her. I adopted her through a small breed rescue on the internet in 2001. She came from Michigan and was turned over to the rescue group by her former people who decided to get larger dogs...maybe this is why she is so frightened of big dogs and goes on the offense when she encounters one! She suffers from epilepsy and is on phenobarbital.



She is 13 years old now, but still goes hiking, bicycling and canoeing with me, just not as often and not in bad weather anymore.
All the dogs in the competition are cute, but we all must admit that Maggie truly IS the cutest!! Thank you for your daily votes!

Summer Concerts...music in the park

My father raised me to appreciate all sorts of music. I grew up listening to Glenn Miller, 101 Strings, Pittsburgh Symphony, barbershop quartets (my favorite album as a kid was one by the Buffalo Bills...NOT the football team, the quartet who sang Lida Rose in "Music Man"), Doris Day. I advanced through the years to Peter,Paul&Mary, Herb Alpert, The Association, Blood,Sweat&Tears, Chicago, Nilsson, Manhattan Transfer, Willie Nelson, Jimmy Buffett and even a bit of Frankie Valli (Can't Take My Eyes Off You). During my high school years, my friend Mary and I were the number one groupies for a group from our school called the Wellingtons. Joe, Rick, Jimmy, Kenny and Bob were idolized by us, and we followed them from gig to gig around western Pennsylvania to sit moon-eyed in their presence! We spent my birthday for several years' running at the big 4th of July community picnic at Kiwanis Park where the highlight of my day wasn't the fireworks, but when the Wellingtons broke into the Beatles' "Birthday." (Photo of the Wellingtons, ~1969, July 4th Kiwanis Park, Glenshaw, PA) Of course, we finally got past the teen idol stage, and the guys in the group moved on to the rest of their lives around the country. In fact, at our high school reunion last year, I learned that Kenny actually pursued his career in music and worked with some big names in the rock industry. Mary and I scraped the money together to go to the Chicago concerts, and I once blew off a day of work to see some of the members of Blood, Sweat and Tears at a promotional appearance at a store in Pittsburgh. I saw ShaNaNa in concert in Pittsburgh, Manhattan Transfer at Chautauqua Institute, and Jimmy Buffett, the king of the live concert tours, at Blossom in Ohio and Star Lake in Pittsburgh. Summer concerts became a tradition for me since my teen years...a tradition that carries through to today.

My parents discovered the concerts on the lawn at Edinboro University back in the 1980s. The Concert Band of Northwest Pennsylvania, directed by John Fleming (who became my boss at Baron-Forness Library in the 1990s), offered a series of summer concerts that featured marches, popular, classical, circus and other varied music genres. I often attended these evening concerts, sitting in the shade of the big maples on campus enjoying the glorious sounds wafting over the audience as the sun lowered in the sky. During my years working with John in the Audio Visual Room, part of my duties included assisting with the clerical tasks for the Concert Band. John also founded the Band Camp for Adult Musicians, with which I was also involved alongside the CBNP. The climax of the week-long Camp was a concert in Memorial Auditorium. Wonderful music in small-town Pennsylvania, drawing musicians from across the US and even as far away as Australia. Charlie and I moved to Tidioute two years ago in 2007. It was an hour's drive to Meadville for the CBNP concerts in Diamond Park; they repeated the concerts that were held in Edinboro at the park in Meadville, to carry their music to a wider audience. Since I don't drive far at night because of poor night vision, I wasn't able to attend many of their concerts any more. But last summer we discovered that the Titusville Council on the Arts sponsors a series of Monday Night Concerts in the Park in Scheide Park, Titusville. When I saw that my favorite bluegrass band, Generic Grass, was scheduled for a concert in June, 2008, I went. And that was how I discovered the Monday series and some of the wonderful bands that the TCA brought to the gazebo in the park. My brain gears engaged: if I can't get to the CBNP concerts, maybe I could bring a CBNP concert to me. I contacted the TCA and after a little coaxing, and going-between messaging, we finally brought them to Titusville this past Sunday.

Along with the Band came Trudy!

"Trudy is a band organ built by David F. Wasson who plays euphonium in the Concert Band. It is similar to automatic organs built during the first part of the 20th century that were used to provide music at fairgrounds and other outdoor events. Many organs of this type are given names, this one is named after David's grandmother. The tuning system used on this organ is based on a type used by pipe organs about 300 years ago. This lets the organ play well in seven major keys and three minor keys. Construction of this organ began in 1985. The sound and appearance of this organ has changed over the years as new pipe work has been built and added. With a few exceptions, all of the music is arranged by Mr. Wasson, and is punched into paper rolls on a automatic music roll perforator of Mr. Wasson's design and construction." (JZFleming)

Although I had been to Titusville on Sunday and didn't plan on going back over right away, the next day a friend invited me to bicycle with her on the Oil Creek Bike Trail. Since it was Monday, and time for another Monday Night Concert in the Park, I figured we could make an afternoon and evening of it. We biked the trail in the afternoon, met Charlie at Perk Place for dinner, then hied over to Scheide Park for a concert by the Loose Change Band, a country group out of Erie that was back by popular demand. Hundreds of people sat in their lawn chairs eagerly anticipating the start of the concert when we arrived. As I hunkered down in my chair, Charlie said, "That drummer looks like Dan. Get his picture." (I was there with the camera to take some shots to send to the TCA.) As I rounded the gazebo shooting photos, I finally made it around to the drummer, who looked up, flashed a big grin and nodded "hi" to me. Yes, it was Charlie's cousin Dan! Small world, eh?

Well, we are only partially through summer, with a lot more concerts coming up. In two weeks we'll be back over at Scheide for the Top Cats, a group out of Indiana, PA, who play music from the 50s, 60s and 70s. We heard them last year and I was so excited when they played many of the old songs that the Wellingtons played that I called Mary in Ft. Wayne and held the phone up for her to hear the music. Yes, Mary and I had come full circle, mooning over the music of our youth that has lasted through the years to become the classics of our generation.

4th of July Woodland "Fireworks"

Charlie and I had guests this weekend who came to camp in our yard and paddle with us. We paddled sections of the Allegheny River, but several of us took the middle day (the 4th) off from paddling to tour the Newbold Estate and hike Anders Run through the Big Trees. Here is my account of our adventures:

Up here in the north (Warren & Forest Co.), we have rhodies in good bloom, not at peak yet, but still looking great. We paddled the Allegheny River from Tionesta to President on Sunday the 5th and saw many in bloom on river-left, the eastern side of the Allegheny. Also in bloom now are the flowering raspberries to add a colorful accent to the riverbanks. We saw three mature Bald Eagles near River Forks below the confluence of Tionesta Creek and the Allegheny.

On Saturday the 4th several of us hiked the Newbold Estate and Anders Run. It was exciting to see the progression of the spring wildflowers: seed cases dangling from Solomon's Seal, apples on the Mayapples, berries developing on the Canada Mayflowers, still some blossoms on the partridgeberry, seeds on the yellow violets. Lots of shinleaf in bloom as well as Indian pipes everywhere in the damp leaf mold, dainty yellow whorled loosestrife, and wintergreen in bud. We also found some fungi, the highlight of which was a white coral fungi, name unknown. At the Stone House in the Hollow we found a sleeping bat. What a photo op that was, since it was at shin level. And of course we concluded with a hike through the big trees of Anders Run!

With a break for lunch in Warren, it was a perfect way to spend my birthday!