RhinebeckFarm.com

This handsome Baltimore Oriole stopped by to inspect our new copper beech tree this afternoon. Presumably having found things satisfactory, it flew over to look in on one of our new sugar maples. The trees seem to be growing and healthy.

I’m not sure snowdrops count as harbingers of spring, since, as their name suggests, they appear in winter. The bee at center bottom looks promising however. Ring-necked Ducks, on the other hand, are reliable harbingers, appearing on the pond for a couple of weeks each early spring. They came early this year. They were so […]

The Barred Owl is one of those things, like the morels, that have been here the whole time yet took us a long time to see. Not that we never saw the owl – every few years, walking through the woods, we’d startle him and watch him fly off. And we’ve often heard owls at […]

I returned to the farm after two weekends away: the first to attend a work conference, and the second to recover from the Covid I got at the work conference. I was feeling a lot better today, especially when I was greeted by this Rose-breasted Grosbeak singing his heart out over our driveway.

Jen is her own harbinger of spring, braving a wet, 40 degree day to get the beans started. This weekend we saw Ring-necked Ducks (f/k/a Lesser Scaups) diving in the pond, Herman the bachelor muskrat giving himself a bath nearby, a coyote skulking around the backyard, and a raccoon in the Hoeners’ driveway.

Most of the birding content ends up on Instagram these days, but here’s an exclusive image for Rhinebeckfarm.com readers: a Cedar Waxwing. Like the morel, it’s something that has always been here but somehow we’ve never noticed until now.

They are very hard to evict at this point.

Everything is bright green at the farm right now. If you can zoom in, you will see our corkscrew willows at either end of the picture, an unwanted Canada goose at left, our tiny flowering cherry behind the pond, and the shimmering bog beyond.

Still, signs of spring abound, including this unusual assortment of ducks (two Mallard males and a female; one Ring-necked Duck). The snowdrops were up, as were a few crocuses. The Canada Geese are returning. And Jen gave Sarah a spring haircut.

After a long hiatus we have spent the last week here at the farm — and indeed we are stuck here indefinitely — as a result of COVID-19. We have all been strongly encouraged to “work” from “home” and I am doing my best to comply. Still there are encouraging signs of spring all around, […]