November 20, 1986 - Fit For A KingletPage 10A /The Suffolk Times /November 20, 1986
Fit For
A Kinglet
By PAUL STOUTENBURGH
It's Sunday evening about quarter
to five and I'm watching a gorgeous
full moon come up through the top of
the trees that line our little pond
down in the pasture. If I concentrate
on one particular spot in the tree, I
think I can actually see the moon
moving. As it rises, the color changes
from a reddish -pink to the more typi-
cal pale yellow. Later, when it's high
above, its color will be a silvery
white, having worked its way out of
the haze of the horizon.
Barbara and I have been working
outside pulling and cutting the use-
less debris that seems to clutter a fall
garden. The weather is balmy and
it's a good time to cut back the
raspberries so they can receive their
annual mulch of raked leaves. Some
difference from the temperature
plunge of a few days ago when I had
to break ice in the cow's trough. The
grass in the pasture has been nibbled
so short the cows now need some hay.
This morning they surprised us by
breaking through the fence that sur-
rounds our garden and orchard and
enjoying all the extras our garden
had to offer: tender grass, newly -
formed apple buds in the orchard and
the tops of my winter onions. They
might be dumb animals when it
comes to thinking things out, but
when what's good to eat comes along,
they know the right items to select.
They have no trouble finding the de-
licacies.
By now the moon is free of the will-
ows and has clear sailing through the
crisp evening sky.
Celeriac Enjoyed
One of the items rescued from the
cows was a new vegetable planted
this year called celeriac which I had
left in the ground to get the most out
of our long fall season. Celeriac is one
of the great vegetables I was intro-
duced to by a special friend of mine
some years ago. It's like the heel of
the celery, but grows to a large size,
with a bulb -like shape. The one the
cow cut the top off of is now part of
Barbara's stew simmering on the
wood stove and adding a delightful
aroma to the house. I guess I'm old -
fashioned, but that kind of smell tells
me the world is still a pretty good
place to live. It surely excites the
taste buds, making my appetite
ready for dinner any time.
Cows are generally passive, but
today when I went to feed them and
found them enclosed in the garden,
they got quite rambunctious. I
opened the gate at one end and
herded all but one, the young bull
calf, out. He got separated from the
others and found himself alone and
fenced in. His frustrations were
taken out in a charge towards the
fence and then -- would you believe
it -- up and over the fence he went. I
couldn't believe my eyes. He never
missed a step and kept running until
he caught up with the others in their
feast of John Tuthill's hay. (The
moon is getting whiter.)
Calls of the Week
The week has been a busy one with .
manly calls, includinig a ++port of a'
Photo by Paul Stoutenburgh
GOLDEN - CROWNED KINGLET - -While passing trapped on the front porch of the Bookouts' home on
through our area this friendly little kinglet found itself Sound Avenue.
rusty blackbird in Peconic in the
area of Great Pond and the adjoining
wetlands that stretch along old
Soundview Avenue. These wet spots
are exactly the kind of place you
would look for rusties.
Then a concerned lady called about
a herring gull that had a broken
wing and a lady from Orient wanted
to know more about the black bands
that had been placed on the necks of
swans in that area. After a few calls
to the Department of Environmental
Conservation in Stony Brook, I found
out the bands were put on eight years
ago as part of a study to find out more
about swans and their movements. I
guess the black band the lady called
about speaks for itself, for the swan
has been raising its young each year
in that particular area.
A man in Cutchogue called about
a huge basketball -size paper wasp
nest he could see in the trees now
that the leaves are gone. The maker
of that nest is the white -faced wasp
that can give quite a sting if
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molested, but if left alone creates no
problem. This nest will not be used
again because the females hibernate
in the ground through the winter and
start anew in the spring.
Of all the goings -on recently, the
one thing that touched me most was
the report of a golden- crowned
kinglet caught on the front porch of
a house on Sound Avenue. Kinglets
are the tiniest of birds. Even smaller
than a chickadee.
They usually visit us in winter, but
not in any great numbers, just an oc-
casional one. I associate them with
our Christmas Bird Count when we
hopefully find one or two with
perhaps a ruby- crowned kinglet or
some other small birds that seem to
keep company together. It's always
something special to see one, particu-
larly when you can get so close to it.
They nest in the coniferous forests
to the north of us and move south for
the winter. This one was probably
collecting insects along the founda-
tion of the building when it came to
1.
an opening in the screen door and
slipped in. It was so tame I could get
within inches of the beautiful little
tuft of feathers. The bright orange on
top identified it as a male, for the
female's top is yellow.
Once inside it found itself trapped
and here's where I came in. Being
from the north, it was unafraid of me
and I actually at one time had it sit-
ting on my finger. What a privilege
to see such a wondrous sight within
arm's reach. Once I photographed it
and opened the door, it flew outside
to a nearby shrub where it started to
feed immediately. Food comes first,
and small insects and eggs of all sorts
that were tucked away for spring's
development would now become din-
ner for this active little bird.
Barbara has opened the steaming
pot on the stove and I'm being called
for dinner. I hope the little kinglet is
secure some place in his own world,
and as his eye blinks from under a
wing he, too, will see our white moon
now high in the sky above. .
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