In response to suggestions that we write postings to inform the rest of the community about our homes, scenery, habits, etc., there were several threads which were very interesting, and I, for one, would like to see more like them.

I read an interesting article in this morning's newspaper, not badly written, which illustrates one of the fauna of Maryland, so I propose a thread in which we all contribute a brief sketch of something which we feel is a part of our local scene. This should be of interest to those from other areas, and may spark some questions and discussion.

From the Baltimore Sun this morning, by Heather Dewar, a staff writer:
"A sudden streak of charcoal and cream hurtles toward the earth. There is a moment when calamity seems imminent. Then a pair of wings unfurls to a 6-foot span, beats twice, and the blur snaps into focus.
"A great hunting bird nearly 2 feet tall, golden-eyed, dark-backed and white-throated, hovers inches from the sand with its talons outstretched.
"In the briefest of touch-and-go landings, the talons close around a hunk of driftwood. The shoulders tighten, accepting the weight. The big bird flies away with its burden, picking up speed and altitude as it heads for its nest on a nearby channel marker. For the osprey, this spring foraging for nest materials is a routine hosekeeping chore...."

The article goes on to tell how the osprey, or fish hawk, was nearly extinct 20-odd years ago, but how it has come back with the ban on DDT. The nests are built of twigs, some surprisingly large, and may be 6 feet in diameter, always perched on top of something, channel markers, buoys, telephone poles, dead trees, etc. being the most common.

My wife and I spent a weekend several years ago at an inn on Tilghman Island, which is on the eastern side of the Chesapeake Bay, a rural spot not much changed in the last 300 years. The back of the inn, where our room was, faces a narrow channel between the island and the mainland. Across the channel is a bird sanctuary. Not 50 yards from the little terrace outside our room was an osprey nest on a channel marker, inhabited by a pair with chicks. We could watch the actions of the parents, but got only an occasional glilmpse of the chicks because of the size and depth of the nest. Not far away were nests of egrets and great blue herons. The ospreys are interesting, although not especially beautiful birds. The egrets are beautiful, but not especially interesting and they stayed far away. The herons were both interesting and beautiful. The great blue heron is large and colorful, with handsome grey and blue plumage. They walk around in majestic fashion and spear fish from the shallow water with their sharp sword-like beaks. We were greatly amused by one enterprising fellow who got himself a regal meal by snatching a soft crab which had just molted in the holding tanks of the inn restaurant, a tasty meal which we paid about $15 for. The only downside of this wonderful mini-vacation was the mosquitoes, which were dreadful. Since the bird sanctuary was so close, they couldn't use any pesticide to keep the mosquitoes down, and there were clouds of them at dusk. We had to drive 20 minutes to St. Michaels, the nearest town, and bought the last package of Benedryl in the county.

Our house is in the country, and the wildlife is abundant. I don't know if we have more rabbits or more deer in our yard; both enjoy the smorgasboard served in my flower beds. This was a hard winter, and the deer really cut the shrubbery short, and I don't know whether some of my flowers are going to be able to come back this time. Still, watching a herd (we had 13 or 14 on the north lawn recently) is recompense, especially when the fawns begin to caper. One year, I watched a pair of twins repeatedly race toward each other, running along the side of our road, as if they were playing chicken. They didn't notice me standing there, spectating, for quite a while, and when one finally noticed me, it distracted him and they ran into each other. Fortunately, nothing was hurt but Fawn Pride. We have left a large portion of our lot wild to provide the critters with food and shelter. Watching a deer sproing-sproing-sproing across the meadow, in leaps of ten feet, is amazing.

I saw my first real live iceberg a couple of week ago! Newfoundland is right on "iceberg alley". The icebergs break off from the ice sheets in Greenland and move south along the northeast coast of Newfoundland. On one of our few beautiful days last week, we drove to a nearby town in search of a favourite coffee shop, which, as luck would have it, was closed. But we went down to the harbour and there was a small iceberg floating nonchalantly in the bay, with a couple of seagulls flying around it and resting on it. There are some great Newfoundland postcards of icebergs in the St. John's harbour, just sitting there in the middle of all this shipping action. We are planning on taking a boat tour, or more than one, to see icebergs, whales, and/or puffins (all three are plentiful along the coast of Newfoundland).

(My friend took a whole bunch of photos of the iceberg with his digital camera. So I could post some pictures to MaxQ's account, if someone will PM me some instructions...)

We've had reports of black bear in the Newfield NY area. There was a newspaper article last week and my neighbor saw one while out bow hunting last year. Other than that we got the normal including turkeys, foxes, coyote, etc.

Here in the suburbs of Atlanta we don't have much in the way of interesting animals (other than my dog). But I'd like to relate an experience I had in Brazil:

I spent a week on a ranch in the Pantanal (southern offshoot of the Amazon rainforest - a "wetlands" on the Brazil/Bolivia border). Early one morning I got up and out before the others and went in search of birds. I saw a flock of hyacinth macaws, maybe 8 or 10, screeching as they flew in spirals over the area. That in itself would have been breathtaking enough, but they were soon joined by a haphazard group of half a dozen toucans. Even having lived in Brazil as long as I had, I'd never seen toucans except at the zoo or on cereal packages. These guys appeared to have a sort of love/hate deal going on with the macaws, something like hawks and crows here.

But the most wonderful part of it all was watching God manifest their [sic] sense of humor: toucans are top-heavy, and they can match the macaws in graceful gliding for only so long before they have to flap-flap-flap their beaks back up to level flying position again. It was a hilarious and beautiful sight, watching them try to play group tag with the big blue birds.