The Yard: May 2019

The shot above of the back yard was taken about a week ago, and the photo below of Pam's roses was shot last Sunday.

 

I took this last picture of the front yard today:

 

 

Paint Branch Stream in early May

Visiting goats

In a still rural part of Howard County, there is a farm open to the public where parents take their children to see horses, cows, chickens, lambs, and especially goats. A few weeks ago, our neighbor Paul and I took are wives who both have a fondness for goats.

The open fields of buttercups and dandelions caught my attention:

Trip to England and Wales

At the end of April, Pam, Greg, my sister Elaine and I flew to London. Rebecca joined us a day later, and we had a wonderful trip.

 

Elaine took this shot of Pam and me on the first day in St. James Park.

Elaine also took this one of Pam, Rebecca, Greg, and me with the Tower Bridge over the Thames in the background.

 

 

One day we took a side train trip into Llangollen, Wales where my grandfather was born. Pam took this photo of Rebecca, Elaine, me, and Greg, all grandchildren and great-grandchildren of David Jones. The setting was a bridge over the River Dee which runs through the town. The day was cold, wet, and windy, weather which I believe is not unusual there.

 

Still some trees blooming

 

With walking partner Stan

I walk everyday in the park and usually with Stan, and we carry on a continual conversation during the walk. Here we are about a week ago:

Non-blooming trees are pretty too

Blooming trees

Student Jazz

Wednesday night I attended the chamber jazz performance at the University of Maryland.

 The students performed compositions by Wes Montgomery, Thelonius Monk, Ornette Coleman, Charles Mingus, and others.

 

For me the highlight was an original by one of the students written to honor the head of the jazz program, Chris Vidala, who died earlier this year.

Fellow students in performance

I have sometimes written here of my involvement in a program at the University of Maryland for retired people called Golden ID. Today I attended a Cabaret performance by another Golden ID student at the Clarice Smith Center for the performing arts.

Here she is on the right singing a duet with another student:

The songs were standards and many from musicals. Below are two students singing "Bess, You is my Woman" by George Gershwin.

An evening with Rosanne Cash

Last Friday night we saw her with her five-piece band at Strathmore in North Bethesda. Her husband, John Leventhal, plays lead guitar.

Rosanne wrote most of the songs, but she had some interesting covers including the folk standards "500 Miles" and "Long Black Veil," plus Bobbie Gentry's "Ode to Billy Joe," and one Beatles' number.

We enjoyed her performance.

Women's basketball

Pictured above is the opening tip-off with Maryland playing Minnesota.

The visitors got off to an early lead and were ahead by as many as 16 points. They held on to the lead until the last second. The Terps went on a 9-0 run in the final minute of play.

Above is Kaila Charles shooting a free throw earlier in the second half. Kaila made the winning basket with one second remaining after making a steal.

Snow melted quickly.

This picture was taken yesterday morning at about 10 am with about three inches of snow on the ground:

About six hours later I took this one from approximately the same spot:

Recent snow

Will only be around briefly because temperatures are going up fast.

Two of Pam's recent pictures

First one is of my favorite cat, Clarence:

The other is of the crocuses that emerged just before the recent snow:

A Sunday afternoon of Irish music

Pam and I went to an Irish bar in Bethesda yesterday because a friend of mine was playing there.

The band is Swampoodle, named after an Irish neighborhood in DC that once was in the area where Union Station now stands. The show was a fundraiser for next year's St. Patrick's Day Parade, and it was the band's first public performance. My friend Dan Costello is on the left playing the accordion in the above photo.

The afternoon's entertainment also included Irish dancers, and below is a shot of some of the younger dancers:

This last picture is another one of the band when Dan put down the accordion and played guitar. He sang on this song and also played harmonica on a few numbers. The songs were a mix of Irish and rock.

We were joined by some other friends: Dan Porter and Eric Rickford. The beer was good and the food acceptable. Everyone had a good time.

Neighborhood Fox

For the past few months we've often seen a fox in our yard, next door, or across the street. Today our neighbor Jim called to say that the fox was relaxing in our back yard.

It seemed perfectly at home laying in the bright winter sun. The fox scratched a lot, and when it left we noticed that its tail was not full and fluffy, a sign that it probably has mange.

Pond after a late January snow

Bald Eagle Sighting

At one point during yesterday's walk, I heard what sounded like a hawk. I was along the Paint Branch trail, and shortly after hearing that sound I saw a hawk-like bird flying away from me towards the stream. A few minutes later as I continued my walk, I looked up to see a very large bird perched high in a tree, and the bird's head was clearly white. I believe the bird was a bald eagle.

The Chesapeake Bay is one of the areas of the country where bald eagles are commonly found, and I remember seeing one years ago sitting in a tree along a highway. That sighting was to the east, so it was much closer to the Bay than Silver Spring, but I have heard from a knowledgeable source that eagles sometimes nest this far from the Bay. That source was a ranger at Triadelphia Reservoir who described to a friend and myself the location of an eagle's nest, and I believe we spotted it while canoeing that day.

After walking out of sight of the eagle yesterday, I once again heard hawk-like calls which seemed to come from different directions at the same time, making me wonder if there were two birds. I circled around in the woods to retrace my steps in hopes of getting another sighting, and this time I saw sitting on a tree limb a smaller hawk whose head wasn't white.

I consulted some of our bird books when I got home, and I think that I saw two Bald Eagles. The second smaller eagle was likely an immature bird. I'll never know for certain if I'm right about what I saw, but that's my story. On the way home I stopped to take this photo of the pond:

The Park: January 19, 2019

 

 

House: January 19, 2019

Got a couple of more inches of snow the night before.

Tuesday's view of frozen pond

Sunday's snow

Snow started Saturday night and continued until it totaled 8-10 inches. Went walking Sunday afternoon while it was still coming down.

Calm morning at the pond

Maryland basketball last night

They beat Radford.

Anthony Cowen shooting free throws:

Annual Christmas tree picture

Pond iced over during a cold week

 

I took this picture on Monday when the pond was about 3/4 ice. Other mornings during the week it was almost completely ice, but by Friday the temperatures warmed up and the rains came, enough rain to make 2018 the rainiest year on record.

Swan visits pond

Saturday I watched a large white bird land in the pond, and my first thought was that it was a mute swan, a species I knew to be considered an invasive nuisance in Maryland.

 

 

I continued to follow the swan around the pond and took a number of pictures with my phone. Soon I noticed two large yellow tags with inscriptions on them. I'm not certain how well these tags show up in these photos.

 

 

When I got home I spent time on the Maryland Department of Natural Resources website to learn about swans. Apparently, some tundra swans also winter here, and the two species look very much alike. Googling swan tagging brought me to a website in Ontario, Canada that described an effort to reintroduce the trumpeter swan which had once been common throughout North America but whose numbers had been to reduced to only a few because of market hunting. According to the website the Canadian group used tags which were described as looking exactly like the tags I had seen on the swan in the park.

 

 

I returned to the pond twice in the afternoon, and looking through binoculars I could make out the letter "T" and the number "8" on the yellow tag. There was a third number or letter which was obscured by the bird's feathers.

 

 

I spent much of the day looking through the bird books we have, and although the three species of swans look much alike I believe this was a trumpeter based partially on the dark beak and size of the bird but most importantly on its yellow tags. Based on what I've read I believe the swan's presence in Maryland is unusual because most of the trumpeter swans in the U.S. are out west in Wyoming and Montana.

 

After my initial sighting I e-mailed the Ontario website to tell them of the swan sighting in Maryland. If they answer my e-mail I'll tell them about the letter and number I saw. The swan was still there at the pond Sunday morning but flew away as I watched with my friend Stan. I haven't seen it since.