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Last summer we were thrilled to have bog-front seats as we watched a couple of Great Blue Herons raise their chicks. After a stormy winter, the nest was completely gone, but the herons have rebuilt in the same spot. We hope they continue to have a productive spring.

We devoted Easter morning to the annual cleaning of the barn, which involves sweeping out the prior year’s accumulated birdshit so that the Barn Swallows can enjoy tidy accommodations for the coming season. Yesterday Daisy climbed Burger Hill with her husband, Ringo. These days, Daisy finds it easier to climb the hill than to get […]

Ring-necked Ducks on the pond remind that, even if it is cold and gray, it is springtime.

Here’s Jen out in the woods, stalking the elusive Barred Owl. We had a glimpse of the owl, but we got a much closer look at these ferocious creatures of the forest, who appear to have wandered over from the Vlei Marsh trail.

Sarah, visiting home for the weekend, surreptitiously took this photo when we visited Vlei Marsh this afternoon. We saw a Bald Eagle but it didn’t stick around for long.

The herons have built a nest very near our bank of Vlei Marsh, giving us a good view of what we expect is a growing heron family.

According to the fox, goslings are like potato chips.

Canada Geese are never welcome in the pond, but it’s hard to be angry with the goslings when they are in their maximum tennis ball phase. On Sunday, I looked out the kitchen window to see this fox stalking the goslings near the pond. If I hadn’t gone outside to take a photograph, the goslings […]

Today was our annual sweeping of the barn, in which the droppings of a generation of barn swallows and pigeons are removed to make way for this year’s crop. The barn swallows should arrive any day. The pigeons never left.

A healthy complement of Ring-necked Ducks — maybe fifteen or twenty — has arrived on our pond, sharing space with the pioneer Canada Geese of last weekend. These ducks say it’s almost spring the same way the Salt Point Stewart’s says you’re almost in Rhinebeck.