There's Always 'Fun' in Fungus

This is not a bird, but it's still kind of cool. Whatever it it.

It's the last official weekend of summer, and everyone I knew is getting some.

On their blogs and tweets and by e-mail, they brag about how great it is, and how surely everyone must be getting some--it's a three-day weekend, they say, and there are a lot of people out there looking for the exact same thing as you. So if you're not getting any, it's your fault for not trying.

On a weekend like this, if you don't get outside and find some good migrating warblers, you are a sorry-ass loser.

I'm pleased to report I'm not a TOTAL sorry-ass loser. But despite three mornings spent craning my neck at weird angles while peering at microscopic, backlit flying objects in the tops of 4-story-trees, my weekend count was disappointingly low. I did get one lifer—a Blue-winged Warbler at San Felasco Hammock—but apart from that, only the usual suspects in tinier than expected numbers: tons of Northern Parulas, a single Prothonotory Warbler, a couple of Yellow-throated Warblers and Ovenbirds, a nice big flock of Yellow Warblers, and a single immature American Redstart. And all of these successfully eluded our attempts to get decent photos of them.

So my consolation eye candy for this week is something else that's kept me occupied on the trails: the strange and colorful mushrooms that have been popping up after the heavy rains of the last few weeks.

The variety of mushrooms out here is far bigger and more dramatic than back in California: in the coastal scrub of southern California, most life forms—birds, insects, and mushrooms (when it's wet enough to support them)—are beige or brown, like the surrounding sand and rocks. Here, plants and animals are much brighter, like this Day-Glo orange shroom:

Just as alien to me as bright orange mushrooms were these green mushrooms, which look almost like misplaced leaves growing from strange angles out of the tree trunk:

Here are some lacy white ones. I don't know the names of any of these varieties, nor do I know if they are poisonous or not:

These cute little red things, however, just look poisonous to me. Or at the very least, seriously hallucinogenic.

For some reason, I couldn't get my camera to allow a closer shot of these (nor the other, equally cool-looking red mushroom with white dots that I spotted last week). And as I mentioned, I don't know the proper names for any of these varieties. Any ID help will be gratefully accepted!

Mellow Yellow

Hood birds are good birds!

This week brought the best and worst of fall: The migrant warblers are finally starting to move through Gainesville, filling the trees and brush with tantalizing little flashes of yellow. But just as all the good birds arrive, so does a new academic year. Today all hell broke loose another year of inquiry and discovery began at UF, which means my weekdays will be filled with wall-to-wall classes and meetings, and my weekends with grading and administration. And of course, during the summer when my schedule is totally flexible, there's NOTHING OUT THERE but House Finches.

Nature is cruel.

My last weekend of summer vacation was a perfect way to segue into fall: On Friday night, I was hanging out wondering where to bird on Saturday, when a friend called and asked if we'd like to join her at San Felasco in the morning. This was a perfect choice: we had been the previous week and seen some tantalizing hints of the fall wonders to come (first of season Yellow-throated Warblers and American Redstarts), and another week of migration and another pair of eyes could only make the birding better.

And it was: after a slow start ("Why did we come here??") we saw flashes of non-leaf-like movement in the trees. A fat brownish bird that we thought was an early Hermit Thrush hopped in front of us for a moment, then darted into the brush. In a nearby tree several small birds flitted promisingly: we raised out bins and found five different warblers: a Northern Parula, a Prothonotory, a Black-and-white, an American Redstart, and a male Hooded—the latter a lifer for Glenn, and the first really bright male for me! Awesome, dramatic-looking birds.

We also saw another interesting yellow bird: this time, not a warbler, but some bigger bird, with faint washes of reddish orange on it. A female something-or-another. Later that evening, another friend IDed it as a female Summer Tanager:

It's great having Glenn out here: now I don't have to come home to an empty house every evening, and I get to relive the thrill of seeing all the East Coast birds for the first time all over again. (And I get infinitely better photos to use here!) One of the most common year-round residents here is also one of the prettiest: the White-eyed Vireo, a fairly new bird for Glenn:

Can't wait to see what else fall migration brings in—if only I get enough time to get out and enjoy it.

A Moving Experience

Fresh Start: A juvenile Northern Cardinal checks out our new place.

I hate boxes.

I hate stepping around them. I hate taping them together. I hate filling them with stuff, then lugging them down multiple flights of stairs and wondering how I'll fit them into my car.

I hate finding them in odd corners, opening them and finding my life's belongings wrapped up in 10-year-old pages from defunct alternative newspapers, which reminds me how pathetic and old I'm getting. I hate wondering where they are, and once finding them, trying to figure out where to put them next.

And this is all I've done all summer. Moving SUCKS. Glenn has finally moved out to Gainesville to join me, but this meant (1) moving out of our place in California, where 10 years of random crap had prodigiously, yet stealthily, accumulated, (2) simultaneously moving out of my tiny pied-a-terre in Gainesville, which was too small for all this stuff, and (3) moving INTO a bigger place in Gainesville. Orthogonally related to all this was (4) sorting through and discarding tons of stuff from my high school and college years still at my parents' place, in preparation for their possible (but not imminent) move. My heart nearly broke as I shredded dozens of absolutely hilarious letters from my sophomore roommate and my freshman-boyfriend-who-turned-out-to-be-gay. The idea of paying for and dealing with yet another moving box was just too awful.

All this misery came to a head last weekend, when both Glenn and the movers arrived at our new place. Between packing and unpacking stuff, watching poor Glenn do battle with both jet lag and an uncooperative wireless router, and trying to figure out WHY our Florida renters' insurance policy costs four times more than our old policy in California ("This is Florida", was the best answer my insurance agent could come up with), I haven't had much time for birding or blogging. Yup, it sucks to be me.

But the payoff for all this stress is significant: Among the charms of our new place are much-improved backyard birding opportunities. The feeder at my old place attracted a fair number of birds, but was in a thoroughly dismal location:

Here's the same feeder now: near real live trees!

We already have a number of Tufted Titmice and Carolina Chickadees coming by regularly:

A family of Northern Cardinals (an adult male and female and two juveniles) comes by several times a day as well—at my old place, it took about three months for the birds to warm up to my feeder.

There are also a lot of Carolina Wrens, Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, and Blue Jays in the area that we hope will drop by: we've put up a suet feeder and a hummingbird feeder to make the place more interesting for them.

Meanwhile, fall migration is slowly but surely starting up. We went by Palm Point Park yesterday in search of migrant warblers, and found a Black-and-white Warbler and several Prothonotary Warblers. The Prothonotary was a lifer for Glenn:

At San Felasco Hammock State Park this morning, we saw Yellow-throated Warblers, Northern Parulas, Worm-eating Warblers, American Redstarts, and a Black-and-white Warbler. The park was quite birdy (and buggy); I'm sure there were a lot of good birds in there that we missed.

And back home, there's almost always something flitting about in the back yard. There's nothing like the company of birds to make a random building filled with half-empty boxes feel like home.