Cop Car's Beat

Ready to quilt

Wonderful GrandDaughter is expected to produce a brother for Next Generation 1, in May. Next Generation 2's quilt top has been sandwiched and is ready for me to start the quilting. Yea! I'm on schedule!

 

 The second photo is a close-up of the appliqued dragon that echos the dragon in the main fabric's design.

Carolina wren

Someone left a comment recently about our having Carolina wrens here in Kansas during the winter. I cannot find the comment and my reply, so this posting will add some information found through the KSBird-L missive for the day.

The marked range shifts seen with global warming suggest that ranges are limited by temperature. Other findings, however, suggest winter survival is directly tied to food availability. We studied Carolina wrens Thryothorus ludovicianus at the northern edge of their range to understand the roles of temperature and food in limiting this species. We established 21 transects over 3 habitats (residential, city park, and rural) with varying degrees of human influence on temperature and food supply. The three habitat types showed variations in wren density, temperature, and feeder presence. While wren densities showed similar seasonal patterns in all habitats, significantly higher densities of birds were observed in the city park and residential habitats. Post-winter densities of Carolina wrens were predicted by the presence of bird feeders, and not by January mean minimum temperatures. Our findings suggest the winter range limits for endotherms is more directly related to food supply, and only indirectly related to temperature. Therefore supplemental feeding and other changes in food supply may modify the range shifts predicted from temperature changes alone.

Job, J. and Bednekoff, P. A. (2011), Wrens on the edge: feeders predict Carolina wren Thryothorus ludovicianus abundance at the northern edge of their range. Journal of Avian Biology, 42: 16–21. doi: 10.1111/j.1600-048X.2010.05242.x

GBBC list for 2011

Species                 Count for Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4

Canada Goose    13, 80, 14, 0

Mallard                 1, 0, 0, 0

Red-tailed Hawk  0, 0, 1, 0

Mourning Dove     3, 3, 1, 0

Barred Owl            2, 0, 0, 0

Red-bellied Woodpecker 2, 2, 1, 2

Downy Woodpecker 3, 3, 3, 2

Hairy Woodpecker 0, 0, 1, 0

American Crow        4, 2, 1, 2

Black-capped Chickadee 2, 2, 2, 3

Tufted Titmouse     1, 1, 1, 2

White-breasted Nuthatch 1, 1, 0, 1

Carolina Wren         0, 1, 0, 0

Eastern Bluebird     1, 1, 0, 0

American Robin     5, 6, 5, 9

European Starling 1, 4, 1, 1

Cedar Waxwing     3, 26, 9, 0

Harris's Sparrow     3, 10, 5, 8

Dark-eyed Junco (Slate-colored) 4, 4, 6, 3

Northern Cardinal     2, 2, 2, 2

House Finch             2, 4, 2, 7

American Goldfinch     6, 21, 7, 7

As Bogie wrote, birding hasn't been all that great for the Great Backyard Bird Count this year - borderline pathetic. Where was the flock of turkey that we nearly always report? Where is our resident sharp-shinned hawk hiding...our great blue herons? The bright spots were getting to see such a large number of cedar waxwings and our (count 'em: two) pine siskins - the first of the season. Others reported purple finches, but we saw nary a one. Red-breasted nuthatch? It's been a few years!

Maybe I'll actually get out of the house, next year, and have something spectacular to report - such as the pileated woodpeckers that are invariably reported in Derby.

Week of extremes

In the previous posting, we were discussing the extreme cold temperatures that most of us were experiencing. But...we held on and by Tuesday of this past week we hit (positive) 78 degrees. Thus, we beheld a 98-degree temperature swing in just under seven days.

Elegant Friend was finally able to come over Wednesday evening for our "regular" craft session. Austensibly held each Wednesday evening, our last session had been in early December. The weather, EF's travel, and other priorities have kept us from doing our thing.

The Great Backyard Bird Count started yesterday and runs through tomorrow. As the weather is wonderful, the birds are not as drawn to our feeders; thus, our species and individual bird counts will be down. I'm not complaining. I seem to recall one year when we saw no birds at all. Already, yesterday, we had three Cedar Waxwings. They aren't often seen, but they regularly visit the trees in our neighbor's back yard - rarely in our own back yard. As long as we can see them from our yard, I count 'em.

My mothers youngest sister (in a family of three girls and one boy) was hospitalized about eight days ago for a large blood clot in her leg. Two of my nine cousins live near Kansas City, where Aunt V lives, and are seeing that she is well cared for. Aunt V had called Cousin S (daughter of the sister between Mom and Aunt V) to come take her to the hospital; but, Cousin S was smart enough to call 911. Aunt V lives less than one mile from a hospital (which figured heavily in her and her husband's having moved into the apartment in 1993), so she was able to receive prompt treatment. (Cousin J, daughter of the only boy in the family, has Aunt V's power of attorney and is heavily involved in Aunt V's treatment.)

I have been calling Cousin S most evenings since Aunt V was hospitalized, and keeping our family (my two brothers, our two daughters, and our granddaughter) posted by email. So far, she is doing well - taking rehabilitation that should allow her to go back to her apartment to live. Aunt V is the last of her generation, in Hunky Husband's and my families.

Our week's weather

Below is a slightly edited version (to make sense as a posting) of an email that we received from the landscape company, owned by Elegant Friend's younger son, that takes care of our lawn needs.

The early morning of Feb 10 we hit a low of -17F. According to an article  – this was the coldest night in 29 years, the second coldest in 106 years and the 4^th coldest ever recorded in Wichita.

This is essentially a zone 5a temperature - [USDA page] 

How will this affect us?  Time will tell. We were blessed to have six inches of snow cover still on the ground this will help perennials that were covered. Gardeners in Minnesota (zone 4) can get by with some zone 5 and 6 perennials when they have adequate snow cover. Some shrubs may die back to the snow line.

How will this affect trees and shrubs? Zone 5 plants should be fine. Zone 6 plants may have cambium damage that can cause them to die back or die.  After it got down to -21 in Feb of 1982, some zone 6 died totally, and mimosas leafed out then slowly died back to just the lower trunks over the next year.

 

 

 

 

I just wish to point out that our own little city, being closer to Oklahoma (Nowata OK reported minus 31 degrees) than is Wichita, got colder than the official Wichita reports. Our own thermometers (checked one against the other) registered minus 18 degrees. Wow! One whole degree different. (Gotta get those bragging rights in.) Combined with the winds that we experienced, our chill factors were, again, down in the minus 30s.

At that, we were still four degrees warmer than the temperature recorded by Bogie in Coldest Day in the year (so far) during the previous cold wave.

More blue (and other color) birds

In Two eastern bluebirds - happy for a drink, I posted a photo showing said bluebirds on our heated birdbath. That photo was taken last Sunday and recorded the first sighting I'd had of bluebirds in our yard for several weeks. When the storm hit, they became regular visitors; but, I never again was able to capture a photo of the two of them at once. For some reason, they chose to visite singly. Here they are.

 

The first two photos were taken Tuesday afternoon, the third on Wednesday afternoon. You can see that the heater in the birdbath was unable to completely cope with the low temperatures, and you can tell that it was sunny, by the shadows, when the third photo was snapped.

 
I didn't capture the image, but I saw a bluebird walk out onto the ice/snow rim to get at the edge of the water - on the side of the birdbath toward the viewer. The temperature had been down to -8 degrees for a few hours that morning.

Other birds that visited our feeders:

 
Above: On the left, a local chickadee snapped on Wednesday, on the right, a tufted titmouse snapped on Tuesday. I would tell you that the chickadee
was a Carolina chickadee or a black-capped chickadee; but, the only way to tell is by their song. I am convinced that, in our area, we have both kinds of chickadees and perhaps hybrids between the two. In addition, I think they learn one another's songs. I settle for "local" chickadee. If any of you want to stick a definite ID on this bird, please share your thoughts with me.

 

Above: On the left feeder is a Carolina wren, on the right feeder is a yellow-shafter flicker - snapped Thursday.

Hunky Husband is at home. Fortunately, his routing coming home differed from his routing going to Richmond VA - through Chicago's O'hare instead of Dallas-Ft Worth. DFW cancelled about 300 flights, yesterday!