Thu, 04 Apr 2024 23:32:10 -0700WeeblyThu, 20 Apr 2017 16:47:50 GMThttp://blackbrookaudubon.org/blog/winter-isnt-over-till-the-last-frog-singsIt’s been a noisy week here in Solon. The Cardinals have moved their pre-dawn wake up alarms to 5:50 AM now, and we leave the bedroom windows cracked just to hear them. There’s a lot more to Cardinals than meets the eye, but the ear knows, and we smile. The Bluebird bunch still comes and goes, looking for live mealworms at the window feeder. Since the Cardinals get us up, the Bluebirds get fed fresh every morning. I wonder if there’s some collusion going on here.
The Chipping Sparrows have returned, almost a week earlier than we’ve ever recorded since 2004. Such jaunty little fellows with their bright white eye stripe and brownish caps. They always seem to search together, never more than a few seconds or a few feet, apart. There’s a new finch seed mix that a mill down by the canal makes, and nearly everyone with feathers seems to like it this spring, the little “Chippers” even coming to hanging tube feeders for their treats, unprecedented here in the “Kim’s Kitchen” of local bird world.
We’re seeing that the Ruby-throated Hummingbirds have arrived in Columbus. If the old “spring moves at 200 miles each week” adage still holds, it should be hummer time this weekend. I can tell when spring arrives in our household. The large pitcher marked “Do Not Drink - Hummer Food” returns to the refrigerator, and what looks like ice cold water turns out instead to be cocktails on the patio for the smallest of our feathered friends. Sigh.
Spring comes so quickly these days. In just a few short days, the wet brown blanket of leaves in the forest changes as tiny shoots of green wriggle their way upward into the welcome sun. Pioneering spring ephemerals like Salt and Pepper and Spring Beauty quickly give way to Cut-leafed Toothwort, Wild Ginger, Trout Lily, and Mayapple.  Trilliums will come and go before we can take a breath. It is time to shake away our winter doldrums and find them before they all pass.
When my office was at Garfield Park, I called it “spring” when the first Red-winged Blackbird arrived, usually the week of Valentine’s Day. The Eastern Phoebe that nested under the nearby bridge was next, and though that meant the end of snow, there were still cold days and nights to come. Spring Peepers, fickle prognosticators of spring, gave us hope only to silence themselves when the next snow fell or their vernal ponds iced over again. My grandmother always said, “it wasn't spring until the Peeper frogs have croaked three times” and most years she was right. The noisy tiny Peepers had to be frozen out at least twice before the last of winter left, and spring was safely among us once again.
Yesterday afternoon the last harbinger of spring made its presence known as the first Gray Treefrog of 2017 began to trill from an old oak nearby. Only a few of these arboreal climbers live in our neighborhood, and where they breed is still a mystery to me, but his song was so long absent, and so dearly welcome. The warblers are yet to appear here, but it won’t be long. We’re less than two weeks away from Northern Orioles and perhaps a grosbeak or two, then the “Great Warbler Onslaught” begins.
The world’s longest continually running spring boardwalk series has begun here in Northeastern Ohio, each Sunday morning now, and the Doppler radars are starting to show the evening lift-off migrations in the southland. Don’t wait, come out and celebrate with your Blackbrook Audubon friends.  Bring a friend of your own. Spring is waiting for you.
 - Bob Hinkle, naturalist
]]>Tue, 07 Mar 2017 13:25:03 GMThttp://blackbrookaudubon.org/blog/spring-legacyIn early March each year, at the time when the Redwings return and the first brave Spring Peeper peeps, I am always reminded of one spring a long, long time ago when an old bearded goat farmer changed my life forever. I was but a wee young naturalist then, a fresh college graduate, just home from the Army, just starting my first real job as a naturalist. I was working late near twilight time, lost in thought about all the new programs that had to be created, and budgets that were too thin. Thoughts drifted away, tired and discouraged, when there came a sudden and unexpected pounding on the office door.
 
“Aye Robert!” cried the center's caretaker, a man who planted corn for wildlife and raised chickens and kept a goat in his ramshackle house. “They're back!  The dancing has begun!” Thinking him daft, I cautiously opened my door, foot bracing the door bottom in case the newly stricken madman tried to push in, but that was not the reason for his cries. “Have you heard the dance?” he asked. “Have you seen it? No?  Then come with me!” I followed his quick steps out beyond the pasture to an old field where Red Osier Dogwoods grew here and there, and brown grasses reminded us of winter. “Listen”, he said. “They've begun!”
 
The air was cool, damp, fresh and earthy. In the eastern sky, Venus had just appeared as twilight settled upon the land. “Peent!” we heard, then “Peent!” again. And again, and again. “Listen!” he exclaimed. “He's about to fly!” A sharp, high pitched twitter of tiny wings pierced the darkening sky, first fading, then louder as the bird turned to our left, barely visible, then louder as he circled overhead, twitters changing pitch and becoming more and more frantic second by second as he now hovered a hundred feet about our heads. Then nothing.
 
Watch!” he whispered. “Look towards the light horizon, towards from whence he came!”  Overhead, I heard the twitters change to warbles, more frantic sounding second by second, until finally I saw the tiny bird with the enormous bill drop past the horizon as if crashing to the ground.
 
Then... “Peent!  Peent!” and on it went, the show repeating three more times, until Venus brightened and the sky darkened and we could see no more. The bird continued calling and flying behind us for a bit as we walked back to the barn and nature center. With measured words, he told me about this bird, this American Woodcock, and their annual sky dance in hopes of calling in a mate, or if he called loudly, and danced well, and twittered just right, perhaps many mates in the brief few weeks that were allotted for such things. He had sought the woodcocks out each spring for decades, he said. Growing up in the farmland of southern Michigan, he always found them. It was a part of his circle of life.
 
And so, he passed part of his legacy on to me that evening. For the brief, few springs I worked there, there were added annual woodcock watch programs for the members and the public. When I began graduate school, I organized woodcock watches for friends. I went to Vermont to teach university, and created woodcock watches for students and faculty. When I visited at Massachusetts Audubon, I led woodcock watches for them. Then, with the move to Cleveland Metroparks, the woodcock legacy continued for three decades, my entire career there.
 
I am older now, and the dancing grounds are smaller. Houses are built for an ever-increasing population, and open land disappears. “Land for Development” the signs say, but the land is already developed. The inhabitants simply cannot speak in a language we have yet learned to understand.
 
Far more woodcock springs are behind me than ahead, but for as long as I can, I will venture forth to find them, and remember that one special evening when an old goat farmer shared a special bird with a young naturalist, and changed that boy's life forever.
 
– Robert D Hinkle, PhD, Naturalist
 

]]>Mon, 30 Jan 2017 20:18:53 GMThttp://blackbrookaudubon.org/blog/a-story-of-bluebirdsA year ago today Kim lost her mother. There’s a bird story in that, a very personal one, but with Kim’s permission, I will share.
 
When Barbara was a little girl, she found a baby bluebird in her yard. There were no others around, and that was more than 80 years ago of course, so not knowing what to do she took it in.  She dug worms, and went to the library and learned about bluebirds, and in a week or so the little bluebird was fat and happy and was able to fly and she let it go.  Through the years, she often spoke of that little bluebird.
 
Mid-January last year, two pairs of Eastern bluebirds appeared at our kitchen windows, exploring the seed feeders that hung there.  Kim had live mealworms on hand, and a hasty trip to a birding supply store in Bainbridge for a window-mount platform feeder soon gave us a sheltered place for the bluebirds to find the live, tasty treats. And so, we began starting our morning with coffee and our bluebirds, and both pairs would politely take turns at the platform, gobbling ten or more mealworms at a time, then flutter off to the Red Maple tree nearby to rest.
 
One year ago this morning, in lightly blowing snow, right on schedule, the bluebirds came. But there was a fifth bluebird this time, and when Kim opened the window to replenish the mealworms and suet crumbs, the new bluebird dropped down, landed on her hand just briefly, took some food and left. A few hours later, we learned that Barbara had passed away.
 
We never saw the fifth bluebird again.  The four bluebirds continued to visit us through the winter and two even stayed and fledged little ones in this suburban yard that never hosted bluebirds before. We always kind of thought that the fifth bluebird brought a message perhaps, a message that mom was about to get her wings and fly.
 
Now, I still consider myself a scientist of sorts, a wildlife biologist by training. I know how the scientific method works, and the universal predictability of phenomena which are tested, proven and true. And yet…… I have also seen many other things in my years on this earth.  There are so many other things yet to discover, even the reason for a bluebird dropping down on a snowy morning and feeding from a woman’s hand, on the day of her mother’s passing.
 
Bob Hinkle, Naturalist
Solon, Ohio]]>Fri, 20 Jan 2017 18:00:12 GMThttp://blackbrookaudubon.org/blog/inauguration-day​And so it begins.  We hope for the best, we optimistic birders, but most fear the worst.  A new administration that vows to disassemble environmental protections closes its grip on our beloved nation today, and those of us who choose birds over boardroom and days afield over days a-desk are left to ponder what lies ahead.
 
People will protect only that which relates to them. There must be both an intellectual and emotion link to nature. It is not enough to “know about nature”, one must “feel about nature” too. And so begins our mission.
 
We, the local Audubon chapters, should be, can be, on the forefront of change. Change happens one person at a time, until people become groups, and groups become powerful. It is our calling to build the bridge back to nature.
 
It begins with the smallest moments. Enjoy birding? Take a non-birding friend next time. Start at a place where you know there will be birds, close enough to see easily by a beginner. Give them your binoculars on the trail so they have the best view. Show your enthusiasm, show your love for things wild and free. Lead them to wonderment. Share a day in nature. Then nourish the day. Fan the spark you may have created. Light the fire and passion in others. Be the change you want to happen.
 
Bob Hinkle
Solon, Ohio
 
 
]]>Tue, 13 Dec 2016 18:22:44 GMThttp://blackbrookaudubon.org/blog/first-snowAutumn came and went in only a day, and this morning our feeders are scenes of frenzied fluttering as chickadees, titmice, finches and woodpeckers race to find food.  It must be horrifying for a youngster “bird of the year” to awaken to a world suddenly cloaked in white and a temperature dozens of degrees colder than anything it’s ever felt.  Cold, so cold… penetrating… draining tiny feathered creatures of the very warmth that only massive inputs of food can sustain.

And so this morning out I trudge, pajamas and overcoat, slippers and gloves, dipping not once but three times in the metal can filled with mixed sunflower seeds and other goodies and make the first “snow run” to the feeders in the far maple, the near magnolia, the window feeder and the hanging basket until everything seems full. Much is sprinkled on the ground this morning too, my “carelessness” a function of learning who prefers hanging feeders and who would rather forage in the snow.  Several hands full of shelled sunflower chips find their way to the floor of the porch, the spaces under the main feeder, and over to remnants of Kim’s English garden, where the resident juncos can forage and find cover and food all at the same time.
When I was young and foolish, I was educated as a wildlife biologist. We were taught that wildlife was a crop to be harvested, much like corn or oats, and that while it was a good thing to consider all species of wildlife in our management practices, it was mostly our job to manage land for a sustainable harvest and that with proper habitat management, wild species pretty much took care of themselves.

This was years before “modern agriculture”, before the advent of megafarms and the death of the 40-acre field. There were “fencerows” and “farm lanes” in those days, long strips of weedy places that provided food and shelter for rabbits, pheasants, quail and songbirds. All that is gone now, and with it, much of the wildlife that lived-in harmony with the family farm.  These days, farming and wildlife are almost polar opposites…where one exists, the other is absent. There are exceptions, of course, but even they grow less frequent every year.

I heard an otherwise well-educated young fellow the other day say “We have to let nature take its course”.  Nature can never “take its course” again, not in today’s overpopulated world. We have so altered, so changed nature that we can never “let nature take its course” again, for the wild unfettered course of nature is as extinct as the dinosaurs. It will be our task to forever observe, note, care for, and manage wildlife populations far into the future, until the unlikely day that human population density once again shrinks to a sustainable level and green space, forests, grasslands and human habitation reach something close to equilibrium again.

And so tonight I retire with slip on boots and a warm pull-over jacket nearby, ready to head out again in tomorrow’s promised snow storm to refill the feeders. The little ones are frantic again. They’ve never seen snow, and food seems scarce until they learn to find wild seeds nearby. Until then, my mornings are called for. Do we feed birds for their sakes, or for ours?  I’ve pondered that question for more than a half-century now. I no longer care about the answer.  I’ll greet the morning with a bucket of seed and hungry feathered friends. And we’ll both be grateful.
​

• Bob Hinkle

]]>Tue, 08 Nov 2016 15:11:34 GMThttp://blackbrookaudubon.org/blog/the-iba-and-other-thoughts-an-occasional-blog-at-blackbrook-audubon​So, dear friends, it has been suggested that I write for you, from time to time. As advertised, some of it will be about our efforts in the promotion and production of the Chagrin River Watershed Important Bird Area, but not all of it will be. I would like to share some thoughts about nature with you, and the changes in the seasons, and our lives with birds and their lives with us. It has been said by those wiser than me that if we are to save the Planet, it is too late to start with the children, our only hope for the future is to teach today’s adults about nature, for they – you and me and your friends and family – are the voters who can still influence political decisions that will make or break the future of the environment for all the years to come. Our time is now.

I come to you after serving thirty years as the last chief naturalist at a large park district to your west. I moved to Ohio specifically for that honor, knowing that our state had been the center of resource interpretation and nature education since the early 1930’s era, and knowing that position, and this state, offered the best opportunity to make a difference. In the years before that, I served as a professor at Michigan State University and at Vermont’s Johnson State College. My mentor was Dr. Gilbert W. Mouser, who studied ornithology from Dr. Arthur Allen at Cornell University.  By the time I came to know and honor Dr. Mouser, he had already forgotten more about ornithology than I would ever learn.

In Vermont, I studied the home range and feeding strategies of the American Porcupine. It was not until I was presented with a newborn porcupine by the county Conservation Officer one spring that I came to begin to know wildlife. It is easy to be a “scientist” or a “researcher”, and be unencumbered by the realization that “lesser animals” have cognition, and feelings, and personalities. It is only when a person lives with them, and watches them, and bonds at one level or another with them, that one can say “I am beginning to understand that species”. And so, my friends, I admit my scientific heresy to you.
I cannot, and will not, ever say that I truly know a species of mammal, or bird, or any other living creature. If you like, I will share my observations with you, and write in awe of other forms of life who’ve come through millennia along with us, fellow travelers on our voyage though time. From time to time, I may stretch our mutual understanding of “the way things are” or “everybody knows that’s (right) or (wrong)”. You are free to accept or reject anything I write, my only request is that if you respond, kindly share your thoughts with mutual respect.

So come, let us discover and rejoice together. Our Earth is an amazing place, more amazing that we can ever understand. And we have been tasked as stewards. Let us be determined and diligent in our tasks.
​
]]>