The rain continued to pour down this morning as I was assigned to rove. I must say that unlike yesterday afternoon, there weren’t any people on Swamp Island Drive this morning in the rain. We’ve had enough rain in the last two days that I was reluctant to drive down any of the sandy unpaved roads. There were deep puddles everywhere.
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You can tell by these two pictures of a turkey vulture just how dark and overcast it was. This bird was trying to dry off its feathers, but wasn’t having much success. I figured my rove time would be pretty much a flop as far as seeing any wildlife at all, but I was wrong.
As I made my way around the loop and back to where I had started, a bunch of little birds flew across the road. One stuck around, so I lowered the passenger’s window and got my camera into my hands. Low and behold, it was a brown-headed nuthatch sitting on the branch of a dead tree. If you look carefully, you can see an old woodpecker hole to the left of the nuthatch. I noticed this hole early on in my time here, and wondered if a chickadee or titmouse might use it to nest in once spring arrived.
I never expected a brown-headed nuthatch might use it. They are usually so high up in the pine trees. As I sat there, this little bird hopped in and out of the hole and was giving me a vocal thrashing for not moving on.
I know the pics are a little dark, but that’s the best I can do under low light circumstances. I have to use a shutter setting of 1/1000 of a second to be able to hold the camera still enough to get a shot. I have tremors in my hands, and holding the camera still is a real challenge. That means I generally need sunny days in order to use the telephoto lens. It made my day to make this discovery! I moved on quickly, and won’t bother this bird very often, as I don’t want it to abandon the nest.
The candy roots are also beginning to bloom. The color of the flower is determined by the acidity of the soil, I believe. These blooms look like they’ll be yellow, while I’ve found others that are orange. The orange ones were next to those sundews that I posted on a previous post.
Since I turned down the opportunity to volunteer at the National Elk Refuge in Wyoming for the summer because they were looking for someone to work four days a week in the visitors center, I did send out my resume and letter of interest to another refuge. That was plan B for the summer. I will have a phone interview for this position this coming week. It is at Tamarac NWR in northwest Minnesota. Quite a change from the mountains, but I do love the northern woods and haven’t been there in seven years. It’s the land of lakes and loons. I miss hearing the eerie call of the loons.
I’ll let you know how that goes. If I get the position, I’ll fill in the pluses of this location. If I don’t get it, I’m just going to be a bum for the summer. One way or the other, I’m going to enjoy myself.
THE END!!
Thanks for stopping by… talk to you later, Judy
