Sit There Again

 

Tammy and I try to go visit Sweet Marsh fairly regularly just to sit and listen to the birds and watch the water to see what creatures will make themselves known to us.  Yes, I suppose we should go walking too, but these trips often have very different goals than a walk or a hike often has.  

You see, if you sit in one spot calmly, nature will come to you.  If you tread with heavy feet on the path, creatures typically flee or hide.  You will miss the way the dragonfly either trolls for food or protects its small patch of the marsh.  This time I sat on the dock and watched while one particular dragonfly would move slowly over the water (about two feet above it) until it it either encountered another dragonfly or it met some sort of criteria I was not privy to.  Then, it would either zoom around its opponent or it would zip back to a starting point and being the same slow advance all over again.

If you sit in one place long enough you can notice the  moment when the clouds and the sunlight interact in such a way that you can capture the contrast of a lily flower and the lily pads against water that appears to be almost black.  And maybe you can sit there long enough so that the frogs you scared into the water as you walked onto the dock will climb back onto a lily pad so you can converse with them quietly.

This particular Green Frog escaped my notice until much later, when I took some steps on the shore.  It responded with a startled (and startling) chirp and jumped into the water.  This particular frog decided it wanted to keep an eye on me, so it held very still in this area between lily pads and duckweed.  

After Tammy and I had a chance to review the photos I was able to take, she noted the interesting outline of the water near the lily pads in the center.  

Sometimes you see things and they don't register, which is why I do like the opportunity a camera provides for me.  I have an opportunity to "re-see" some things that can help me understand what was there.  It also helps me to see even better the next time around.  

It's a good reminder that our brains do need some training to see, just like it needs training to listen.

We have very much appreciated the Merlin app that is offered by Cornell Labs.  It displays a bird name soon after it records a song that it can identify a match and I have the app set to show the most recent match, even if it has heard a particular bird before in the recording session.

Merlin's accuracy seems to be pretty good because we have been able to verify most birds it claims to have heard, though we can attest that it has tried more than once to match some of the odd sounds our hens make with various water birds.  Not a surprise as we are learning most birds have a range of vocalizations and there can be overlap in tone, song-type and texture of their voices.

An American Robin by the water's edge

Both of us have grown up knowing the sounds of some birds that can commonly be found in towns, such as the American Robin or a House Wren.  But it has been good to train our brains to more readily recognize the songs of the Common Yellowthroat, the Indigo Bunting, and the Warbling Vireo (each of which have become fairly common birds at the Genuine Faux Farm).

We have noticed that the Merlin app can have a hard time hearing anyone else if Mr. Wren is very close as it belts out its song.  The House Sparrows have a similar effect when they get going too.  And Merlin never seems to catch the Ring-necked Pheasants that periodically croak at us on the farm.  (Well, ok, it's caught it once or twice, but our ears do a much better job on that bird than Merlin does).

One bird that didn't take me long to learn was the Song Sparrow.  These little birds often came out to watch us work in the fields at the Genuine Faux Farm - preferring to observe us from a bush or some tall grass stems.  They would scatter if there were any engines, like a tractor or a tiller running.  But if the humans were walking behind a wheel hoe or weeding a row of some crop or another, they would sing sweetly about their day.

Sometimes these birds would be so close that I felt it was important to stop what I was doing and pay full attention.  There were moments when I would quietly tell them I was ready to hear their song and I would ask them politely if they would share.

And often they would.

When that happened, I would be sure to listen fully until the concert was over - the end usually indicated by a flash of wings and the departure of the bird from my vicinity.

The best applause was quietly saying "thank you" and going about my business in hopes that there would be an encore.