100th Bird!

Birding is all about timing - this morning we had decided to do some local trails and at the last minute decided we better have some breakfast first.  I looked out the window while waiting for my toast and saw a warbler, we grabbed books and binoculars and quickly realized there were two different types of warblers right out our window.  We got a few pics and identified both as a Western Palm Warbler and a possible Pine Warbler (which was confirmed by a fellow birder).

Western Palm Warbler

Pine Warbler

Both of these birds are lifers for us so we were pretty excited and had a good laugh that we had decided to make toast.  Instead of heading out to the trail we decided to walk through a landlocked conservation area across the field from our home.  As we headed out we saw another warbler - this time the Yellow-rumped Warbler which we have seen before but still counts as a bird on our 2013 list.

Yellow-rumped Warbler

Our list for 2013 - recording all species we see was now at 98 birds - we quickly saw a Green Heron taking us to 99.  We walked a bit through what is a planted pine forest and stopped at a large pond and our 100th bird appeared - the Pilated Woodpecker!  It flew across the pond and we managed to get a very fuzzy pic of it a bit later.

Pileated Woodpecker

Shortly after we saw some more warblers and we both identified one as the Black-throated Green Warbler bringing our list for 2013 to 101 birds.  Our life list is now at 214, our backyard list is 82 and we have found 26 lifers since January 1 2013.  

Last week we spent a day down at Long Point adding 16 birds to our list and had another lesson is the role timing plays.  We had stopped at the Bird Studies Canada building around 8:30 but decided rather than get out and walk the trail we would head to Long Point and do that on our way home.  Around 9 another birder saw the American Avocet at the edge of the lake.  It is not a lifer for us - we have seen it in Myrtle Beach but it would have been a nice bird for our year list.  Of course, had we made that stop we might not have seen these highlights - the Blue-winged Teal which we had been "chasing" since January and always seemed to miss.  

 the usually elusive, secretive American Woodcock preening beside a wetland 

and we finished the day spotting this Horned Grebe in almost breeding plumage.

Happy Birding!

DIY EXTREME - THE PENNY WALL

 When we built our home 7 years ago it was always with the intention of tiling behind our wood stove but tile is pricey and we just never got around to doing it. Then Pinterest arrived in my life (Yeah!Pinterest) and I saw a floor done with penny tile last summer and I knew that I had to have a penny wall. We used their technique to do our wall.  You can see their post at: (http://big-design.blogspot.ca/2011/01/penny-saved-is-tile-floor.html ).  Canada had announced their intent to phase out the penny so it was perfect timing to make a monument to the penny.  Let me say that this is not a weekend DIY or one for the faint of heart at least not on the scale we did it, but it is one of the cheapest ways to tile a wall – it costs pennies!  There was a major investment of time and in our case, muscle power (more of that later).   We started collecting pennies last summer by inviting our friends and family to bring their pennies to us for cash but instead they all donated almost 9,000 pennies to the wall! Thank you to all of you! We bought another 10,000 and we had a few thousand of our own.  We decided on not doing the entire wall but instead, doing a 6’wide strip behind the stove and taking it up 16’ to the roof line – yep I said 16’. We found a tile place where we could buy a roll of 1’wide fibreglass mesh and then we had to decide on glue.  Glues to attach metal were expensive and reviews suggested the smell lingered forever so we opted for using silicone – the kind you use in your bathroom or kitchen - to attach the pennies to the mesh.  I tried to research if silicone would stick with the tile thin -set and could not find anything concrete so we went ahead hopeful that it would all work out.

 In October I went on the computer and found http://incompetech.com/graphpaper/circle/ to print circles the size of pennies on paper.   I used 2cm (the size of pennies) for the grid size and a radius of .9 to give the spacing for the grout.   I printed quite a few sheets and cut and joined sheets together to make 4 one square foot templates (so we could make 4 tiles at a time).  We put the templates on a table with a sheet of plexi-glass from an old picture frame over them. Then we put down a piece of plastic wrap to keep the silicone off the plexi-glass and to keep the tiles from sticking together as we piled them up. Finally, the square foot of mesh was put down and we lined up corners and started attaching pennies. Jerry did all of the tiles starting in October, doing one or two a night and having about 9’ of tile ready by the end of December. He wore a spot in the floor he spent so much time doing those tiles!  Each tile took 224 pennies and we chose to do things completely random, heads, tails, US, Canadian, old, new, even damaged and painted. Our oldest penny that we could see a date on is from 1920.

New Years Eve Day we attached 9’of tile – we had been waiting for a day that would be sunny enough not to have the wood stove on (our main source of heat).  The actual tiling was pretty easy.  Only a very thin coat of thin set was possible as the pennies are so thin and we needed to leave room for grouting.  Each foot of tile required us to attach pennies one at a time to fill in the “half-row” at the top of the tile.

The silicone did not seem to present a problem and only a few pennies fell off the mesh while we were attaching them to the wall.  It was pretty easy to re-attach any with a bit of thin-set on the penny and then stick it to the wall.  Next morning they were all still there on the wall.  We were thrilled it had worked.  Jerry went back to making tiles and we had the next 7’ ready to go a few weeks later.  Our roof line is sloped behind the stove so the last tiles had to be made up as we tiled once we could measure and cut the mesh on the angle to fit.  The wall took approx 19,500 pennies - we spent only $100 on pennies, $75 on the mesh, and about $70 on the grout and thin-set - we used the standard stuff from Home Depot. Add the costs of trim, plastic wrap and silicone and we spent approximately $300 to tile a 16'x 6' area.

We painted and attached a thin trim down each side and across the top and we were ready to grout.  We knew that the grouting would be challenging, grouting regular tile is hard work and pennies are not smooth.  It was apparent very quickly that Jerry was not able to pull a lot of the grout back off the pennies because it caught in the minuscule edges of the pennies.  I tried taking the grout off with sponges and lots of water as you would normally do but then I was losing the grout in between and there was not much of that because the pennies are pretty thin.  It would have taken huge amounts of water that we could not put down the septic system and it all seemed terribly wasteful.  So we made the decision to let it all dry for a day which meant that we then had to remove the dry grout from more than 50% of the pennies with damp cloths and screwdrivers, paint scrapers one penny at a time and most of the work while we were on ladders 16' up! 

The first day we cleared a couple of square feet and I was pretty discouraged.  I avoided looking at the rest of the wall.  But a new day dawns and you find your groove with cleaning, some areas were easier than others, we had the tunes blasting and there were two of us working on it.  After about 40 hours of scraping the wall over two weeks it was finally done. All told we figure it took about 100 hours of work for the whole job.  

It was soooo worth all the work!  I love the glow of the coppery colour, the variation of the tones in the wall. I love the way the light makes it sparkle in some areas.  The pics do not do it justice - really it looks so much better than these pics!

Thanks again to all our friends and family - can't wait for you all to come and see your pennies!  

32 species - First Day!

We had a great start to our Big Year getting 32 species -with 11 lifers for us today.  We hung out down at LaSalle Park in Burlington and then along the canal by the lift bridge.  We have not really concentrated on ducks before so it was not surprising that we got so many lifers.  There were lots of birders out and we had help and confirmation with most of our identifications which was nice.  The Northern Mockingbirds - two of them - were a bit of a surprise, near the open water but we had great views of them and confirmation from another birder.  There are a pair of Peregrine Falcons hanging out at the lift bridge and we had the opportunity to watch one hunting pigeons.  He was not successful. I've added our bird count on the blog so you can see what we have seen.  Enjoy!

American Wigeon

Trumpeter Swan - tagged from Wye Marsh

Northern Mockingbird

Greater Scaup

The Big Year

2013 is going to be a bit of a detour from the original intent of this blog.  We have decided to make it "A Big Year".  In the world of birders a Big Year is when you pick a geographical area and make every effort to see as many species of birds as possible within the year.  Now we are not seriously going for the records (money and time will not allow it) but just trying to ramp up our numbers of "lifers" (a species seen for the first time). The inspiration is a movie from 2011 The Big Year starring Steve Martin, Jack Black and Owen Wilson and is based on the year 1998 when three men were all doing Big Years. Sandy Komito still holds the record of 745 birds seen in North America in 1998 with 3 more accepted by state committees for a total of 748.  Rumours suggest he spent $130,000 to do it.  In 2011 Jon Vanderpoel did a Big Year and ended with 744 birds with 1 provisional. (http://www.bigyear2011.com/).  To give you an idea of how crazy those numbers are - our lifetime bird count starting in 1984 is only 183 species - TOTAL for North America!  We are not what could be considered avid birders!
 In Ontario the record was broken this year by Josh Vandermeulen with 344 species (http://joshvandermeulen.blogspot.ca/2011/12/rules-for-my-big-year.html) beating the record of 338 set by Glenn Coady in 1996.  The coolest thing about this competition is that it is all based on the honour system.  If you are not 100% sure of a sighting - sadly you do not count it - scouts honour!  Jerry and I have always had that mandate with our lifer list. Both of us must verify a sighting in order for it to make it into the book. There have been a few arguments and probably a few missed birds over the years.
We both have new binoculars, far better than our older ones, we will be trying to get as many pics as possible to verify lifers and we are arming ourselves with an Ipod of bird calls to help with some identifications.  We also hope to have the help of fellow birders to help with identification in the field and maybe through pics posted on the blog.  We don't think we will do any actual "chasing" of birds (reports of rare sightings and you travel quickly to the location in the hopes of still seeing the bird) unless they are quite local to us.  We will be logging more miles on the car but still hope to do it in a somewhat environmental way.
We are lucky enough to live close to some of the best birding areas and migration routes in Ontario - Hamilton, Point Pelee, Long Point, the Grand River.  In the last 6 years living out here we have seen 72 species just in our backyard so with some effort we should be able to increase our numbers substantially.  We are planning to do a few road trips this year into the States and out to B.C. so this should also help our numbers.  We plan to have a list for North America as well as a list for Ontario.  We have spent the last week downloading birding hotspots, booking for spring migration at Point Pelee, studying our bird book and getting lists ready.  Now we just need to wait for the clock....

                                                  Happy New Year - let the counting begin....

Invasion of the Japanese...

Beetles, that is.  We have been hit hard this year.  Four years ago we had never seen a Japanese Beetle but now they have become a permanent, and growing fixture every summer.  Apparently, they were introduced in Canada back in 1939 in Nova Scotia and have been claiming territory ever since.  There are 300 plants on the adults menu and almost everything we have planted is a favorite.  Our linden trees, gooseberries, raspberries, currants, plums, all the fruit trees, grapes, and this year they found our sweet potato plants.  I’ve spoke with friends in the community who have them eating their basil, tomatoes, beans, and other veggies.  So far, we are lucky that they have not headed into the veggie gardens other than the sweet potatoes.

The last couple of years Jerry  spent hours picking them from the trees and shrubs but the sheer numbers this year on the sweet potatoes necessitated a declaration of war.  We went and bought two of the traps.  There is a great debate online about whether the traps bring more beetles to your property or not.  Ideally, you would want to install them on your neighbours’ property (haha) hoping that the beetles head there instead.  In our case, we are the only property on the street that has extensive gardens so the beetles are all here anyway so we might as well try to limit some of their mating and egg laying. 

The beetles have a one year life cycle where the adult emerges from the lawn in June/ July/August, they find plants to feed on, mate,  then drop down to the grass and lay eggs, then head back up to mate and feed again.  One female can lay about 50 eggs a season so you can see how fast the population can explode. The adults all die at the end of the season. The eggs in the grass hatch to become grubs, big white ugly grubs that then eat the roots of your lawn (that is why our wonderful Ecolawn in the back has been dying off on us in large ugly brown patches).  The grubs overwinter in the soil, then pupate and emerge as an adult the next summer.

By not buying the traps until just a few weeks ago I think we are in for an even bigger infestation next year but we are certainly killing thousands of the beetles.  We have large putrid smelling buckets of beetles and soapy water sitting around making sure they are dead before dumping.  The traps need to be emptied daily of the mass of beetles that are attracted to it.  Still the plants are covered with beetles.

With no predators here in Canada and ideal weather conditions the Japanese Beetle is one more story on how introducing a species from another country can wreak havoc on our own natural systems.  With the cooler temperatures the adults are almost gone for the season but in my head I can hear the chewing of all those baby grubs in the lawn...

Our New Watering System

In my last blog I talked about how we water most of our gardens using rain barrels ( filled with water piped from our roof) and watering cans.  I have been suggesting to Jerry (he would say whining!) for the last year or so that we need to come up with another method in the future.  We are not getting any younger and with injuries to our wrists and arms in the last years it makes sense to limit the amount of work we have to do.  I have been sending him blogs and websites of how others are managing watering systems with solar panels, pumps etc but he has always had a reason why a system was not practical for our purposes.

One day, last week I see there is a long extension cord from the house down past our gardens.  I figured he was working on piping to the rain barrels but went down to investigate.  Miracle of miracles, he has a small submersible pump that is attached to a hose and he is going to submerge it into one of the barrels.  INSTANT WATER! 

 So easy!  Attach hose to pump, lower into water, plug pump in, start watering garden.  I was SOOOOOOOO happy!  I asked him when he got the pump and his response – it was in our basement ALL THESE YEARS!  He had purchased it when we were building 6 years ago for some one time use.  WHAT!  Last year while he was recovering from hernia surgery and I gave myself a frozen shoulder trying to water in the drought there was a PUMP sitting in our basement!  #*&^. 

For a moment my happiness was gone, but then I stood there watering for a bit and all was forgotten -  it was sooooo nice.  You have time to look at all your plants, look at the property, to check out the little details that you don’t see when you are sweating and running back and forth with watering cans.

Once the one area was watered we moved hose and pump over to the next set of rain barrels. The watering of all the gardens was done in record time.  To make it more efficient we have decided to get hoses that we can leave at each rain barrel station (we have three) and then it is just a matter of moving the pump around. 

The one drawback is our watering spout on the hose gets clogged quickly from the sediment in the bottom of the barrels.  We fixed this by just taking off the shower spout and watering with a stream of water.  We could also just add a brick or something for the pump to sit on in the barrel and then it is not pulling in sediment from the bottom.

We also won't be getting that great arm workout from pulling full watering cans from the rain barrels but with all the jobs to do around the property I have a feeling that I still won't be having to join a gym.

And because we almost always are watering when the sun is out, we are using electricity produced from our solar panels to power the pump. YES!  Crossing “watering system update” off the to do list!

The Great Rain Barrel Dump

It has been very dry - the understatement of the year - 80% less rain in May than normal, little in June, almost none in July - still we consider ourselves lucky that we live in an area that does see  it's share of thunderstorms which enable us to water most of our gardens, most of the time, using rain barrels.  When we built our home we had the foresight to get our septic installers to install pipes from each of the downspouts around the house and pipe the water back into the garden areas - we have three stations quite a distance from the house with multiple rain barrels connected and then two up near the house, front and back for the gardens there - in total we have 11 barrels.  We should probably have 15. 



 Most mornings finds us outside early slogging to water the gardens - we water by dipping in watering cans into the barrels, pulling them out, then walking to the nearby garden and repeat AGAIN and AGAIN.  It is an awesome arm and shoulder workout but can be more than exhausting when the temp hits into the 30's before 9.  Every year I ask Jerry to put in taps or hoses so we would have less work but recently I have been watering a friends garden while they are away and the tap from a rain barrel takes FOREVER to fill a watering can! So we continue the old fashioned, fast way.  

We have run out of water in the barrels a number of times this year and have had to resort to watering with the hose - after the hard labor of the watering cans it is kinda nice to just stand there holding the hose, no upper arm workout, just time spent gazing around but the well water is cold, not good for the plants and it feels like 'wasting' to us when we use the hose.  We try to get every last drop from the rain barrels. 
When the forecast suggests an 80% chance of rain on the way (like they are today) we take a look at our rain barrels and if there is still water in them we do the big rain barrel dump.  We would rather that water go into our gardens then overflow once the storm hits and just run into the vegetation around the rain barrels.  We did not have the foresight to put the rain barrel stations directly INTO the garden areas mostly because we had no idea where the gardens would be.  That would have made the most sense and we may have to consider changing things up if the summer droughts become standard procedure and I have a horrible feeling that they will.

Anyhow, the forecast is calling for rain and so today was a rain barrel dump day - We have watered and watered to empty out all 11 barrels into our veggie gardens.  Our thinking is that by watering just before the storm there is more chance of the ground being moist and allowing for greater penetration of the rain - these violent, quick storms drop a lot of rain but little seems to be absorbed, instead running off the gardens and taking soil with them. While there is a bit of a risk that we will not have water for days ahead if the rain does not materialize, the "extra" water on the garden is not a bad thing at this point and we can say they have all had a good watering and we may actually have a break from watering if the rain arrives. 

                                             The good news is the clouds are rolling in...