Bonta-Nature-Gram #1 for 2009: From the back porch

Robins’ rattles echo in the arborvitae as they settle. Geese honk unsure whether to stay or go while the incoming are sure they’ll stay.



Pam Croom © 2009

Bonta-Nature-Gram #46: view from porch

73 degrees and sunny, but smoke chokes the throat and wafts across the sky. Alabamans do love to light fires-too bad they don’t watch them.




Pam Croom © 2008

Go See the Eagles

Bald eagle numbers had dwindled in Alabama. In the Tennessee valley there were none. An effort to bring back the population was started in 1985 with the first release of young birds; the program ran through 1991. It started with four young eagles that were released from the Mud Creek Hacking tower on the Mud Creek embayment of Lake Guntersville in 1985. A total of ninety-one eagles were released in Alabama. In 2007 it was estimated that there were around one hundred nesting pairs in the state! The program exceeded anyone's wildest hopes! It started out slow with several years of unsuccessful nesting starts, but in 1991 two nests succeed in producing fledged offspring! It has been going like gangbusters since.

One of the original hacked birds, a female, nests near the Guntersville dam. She does not seem to mind the proximity to people. Her head is yellowish that is how you can identify her. Older bird's white feathers yellow with age.

There are eagles year round on Guntersville Lake. Many of the nesters stay as residents, but right now is the highest the local population will be for the year with the influx of winter migrants. The migrants are mostly from the Great Lakes regions and they will return there starting in February.


For a great opportunity to see and learn about bald eagles come to Guntersville and stop by the park. Keep an eye out for eagles all along the Tennessee River in Alabama. If you cannot get to Guntersville, Pickwick Lake is another excellent spot to see eagles.

To see the Lake Guntersville State Park's Eagle Awareness 20009 Brochure go to:

www.guntersvillestatepark.com/eaglebrochure1.pdf

Bonta-Nature-Gram #45: view from porch

A yellow flash and a chase ensues. The maple weeps, but no yellow-bellied sapsucker finds succor-just a defensive yellow-rumped warbler.


Pam Croom © 2008

Christmas Day

I hope Christmas day has found you in good cheer. Hopefully, Santa has treated you well, because I know all of you were good little boys and girls! Santa did right by me! He brought me, via the husband after I wrote out the brand and number of it, an outdoor camera that will shoot in the infrared. Woo haa!

This afternoon, of course, was spent putting it up and testing it. Here the Stealth Cam is up, and I started trying it out...

and making adjustments...

one less sapling for America! Ah, better...

and down loading pictures...

and whoooaaa hurricane!

What I learned so far is that it takes three to four seconds after the motion detector senses motion for the camera to snap a photograph. After that it is about three seconds between shots. The camera is set in burst mode of nine photos then it waits for one minute before it starts looking for motion and photographing once again. For daylight, the motion sensor detects out to about thirty feet. So moving straight into the camera, me or a similarly paced animal (say deer), would cover almost that full thirty feet in four seconds. Therefore, I think aiming the camera straight down an animal trail will probably net me a partial of the animal coming or going and then eight animal-less photos. I would expect head on shots for bait stations to work well where animals are eating or pausing. I have a salt rock out, and there is the left over duck food to nibble so I hope I will attract some one other than myself! Stay tuned, but do not expect anything too soon for it is raining tonight! Drat it!

Bonta-Nature-Gram #44: view from front porch

From the smallest magnolia, the chipping sparrows drifted down like brown, falling leaves to the grass to search for seeds in the cold air.



Pam Croom © 2008

Bonta-Nature-Gram #43: view from porch

kingfisher darts, hovers, stalls, dives, and flies away to the snag piscine snack in beak. Whack, whack, against the branch goes the fish, bones broken and glug!


Pam Croom © 2008