Resetting the trail camera

I was nervous about leaving my husband alone to go water the oasis, but when I called to check on him, he was fine. That doesn't mean he's eating, and not living on pain pills, but nothing I could have fixed by being here.

The morning was calm and wonderful at the oasis, but got hot and windy before I finished watering. That hot south wind brought some early Lucifers. Neighbors three miles to the south of the oasis got their first one yesterday afternoon. No one was at the oasis at that time and I didn't have time to watch today, but I'm sure I heard one.

I moved the trail camera (GardePro E6) closer to the water drip/bath. I think it'll work fine now. Don't know yet because I didn't check the photos after I did it. The batteries were getting low and using wifi to check eats up the batteries. But I'm very optimistic. Here are a couple of video clips from before I moved it, so it'll surely be better than this.

New closer location...

Update on birds and surgery

My husband's hernia surgery went off without a hitch and we came home the next day, to our surprise! Glad that's behind us.

I had been whining to anyone that would listen that Cassin's Finches were being seen all over the Big Bend area but I hadn't seen one at my new bird bath in Alpine. Well, a while ago one popped in for a bath, so I'm pretty excited.

My sister got stem cell injections in her knees and if it works for her I'm going to try it. Five weeks to go on my Hep C meds and no side effects, so all good there. I got rundown from two days at the hospital with barely any sleep, but should be back to normal soon.

Winter hanging on

One day in the 70,° the next a high in the 40's, then a day or more of cyclonic winds, then repeat. That's how it seems. But, through it all, I steadfastly take my Hep C meds at the same time every day. In a few days I'll be a quarter of the way through treatment. No side effects, except, one day I ate a big spicy meal with my dosage and got nauseous. I researched the instructions and it said not to do that. But after a nap, I was fine. Won't happen again.

Birding is mostly done looking out the window toward the wonderful water feature.  

Female Ladder-backed Woodpecker

[Audubon's] Yellow-rumped Warbler 

About once a day a hummingbird stops by for a drink.

Probably female Rufous

I never tire of watching this Vermillion Flycatcher foraging for insects.

But the highlight of today was a quick visit from a Red Crossbill. Luckily, I was able to grab my camera in time to get a couple of decent shots. That doesn't happen often with speedy rarities.

The big challenge this month will be my husband's surgery to repair his incisional hernia next week. I'll keep everyone updated on how it goes. 

New game camera

I'm still tweaking the new camera setup. I had placed it near the back water drip recently to see if it would pick up birds coming to the water in IDable quality. Not so much. Gonna try to position it closer to the drip, yet safe from critter destruction. Here are a few of the clips I've gotten so far. On the clip with flickers you can hear a Green-tailed Towhee call in the background.

A taste of this winter's birding

You can see why I've been a happy birder this winter.

Photo by Michael Gray

https://www.marfapublicradio.org/show/nature-notes/2023-02-09/pinyon-jays-star-in-an-irruptive-year-for-west-texas-birds

And the new game cam (which still needs tweaking) shows how the quail love the new feeder. Notice they don't even have to use the perch. That's good for ground feeders, like they are.

I already can't imagine not having the new feeder. Feels like the oasis would be missing a key component, like a water feature or something, without it.

Feeder fun!

Couldn't wait to check the new feeder, and was delighted to see birds loving it. Especially species that are ground feeders and prone to avoid the hanging feeder. I hadn't seen much of towhees this winter until today.

Green-tailed Towhee

White-crowned Sparrows

It's so popular that I'm wondering if we should have made six feeding ports instead of four. LOL  The above  photo has a bird on every port. Love it!

We had put only 20 lbs. of seed in it, so today I added another 20. It'll still hold at least 20 more lbs. I'll never have to worry about it going empty between visits. All great!

I've never dared to feed suet with all the critters around, but now thinking I could attach a bag of suet to the top of the bucket feeder. Gonna try it and see what happens, since it's finally out of reach of bears. I greased the pole again today, out of an 'abundance of caution.'

I'm a happy camper! It feels rather strange to swallow $450 worth of pills every day in a matter of seconds. (Paid for by our insurance) Seems like at that price it should be painful, or take a long time, or something. LOL Well, they are difficult to get out of the packaging. 😁

I'm sure my husband's hernia surgery in two weeks will wipe the smile from my face. For a while anyway. Lucifers soon, spring migration, bird groups scheduling visits starting next month, gonna be fun! It feels like winter is as good as over!

A giant step

For someone who almost never takes meds, this is a giant leap. I started my first Hep C dose today. Over the next two months I'll be taking one box of these every week. And I'm so grateful to be able to.

After a month, I'll get another shipment of four boxes. 

Today I bundled up in the 30 plus degree temperatures, determined to get a better photo of the Pine Warbler that's been overwintering at the local park. A couple of days ago a birder friend, Judy Sims, got this awesome shot of it. 

I did get a couple of photos today, barely better than my previous one. (See post of Jan 27.)  But it was fun trying. 

Later I learned that Judy has an expensive mirrorless camera and top-notch lens. So I don't feel quite so bad. Not sure I'll try again though. Eager to go to the oasis and see if the birds are using the new feeder.

Bear-proof at last!

A lovely day at the oasis! We got right to work setting the post for the new feeder.

While waiting for the concrete to set, I discovered a big limb down on the biggest live oak tree. 

                     

Not positive it was a bear, but there were a couple of acorns on that limb and no other acorns anywhere else at the oasis that I could find. Coincidence? It's possible it was a result of the recent ice storm, although only little twigs were broken from that. If it was a bear, it didn't get to the hanging bucket feeder, so that's finally out of reach. 

Next photo is waiting for the concrete to set before placing the feeder on the post. Since the feeder has a steel sleeve welded under it, Lee had to dig a temporary foot deep hole in order to place the feeder on the ground. Probably a  waste of effort for such a short time, but I was so excited to see it finally sitting there.

After it was done we didn't have time to wait for birds to discover it. That might take a week or more, but I was a happy camper to have it installed. BEAR-PROOF! And Lee put up the new game cam. I don't know if it'll capture birds at it, but it will show if a bear messes with it. Next time I'm there I'll be able to see if birds have started using it yet.

Filling the feeder felt like gassing up a plane or boat in preparation for its maiden voyage.

Lee is a bit worried a bear will push and pull on it before the concrete is set. That couldn't do more than crack the cement. It still couldn't get to the seed, but we're sure hoping that doesn't happen.

Hard to believe Lucifers will be arriving back in three weeks!

Guess what?

I made it through the gauntlet of red tape! It was a crazy journey, but my Hep C meds are scheduled to arrive Feb 7 (Tues). Here's today's drama. (Feel free to skip.) 

I had been waiting patiently for insurance approval, since my Hep C guardian angel had told me it might take up to two weeks, and it hadn't been two weeks yet, when my husband got a nonhuman generated phone call saying his meds had been approved. He doesn't understand on the phone well, so he called me to his phone. I got on just to hear the recording hang up. Since he didn't have any meds pending approval, we assumed it had to be mine. I had given them my cell phone number specifically, but our accounts are surely joined in some way, such as insurance policy, credit card number, or whatever. 

So I was fired up and called the Specialty Pharmacy. Went through recordings and finally got a human who checked and told me there were no recent prescriptions in my account. He transferred me to someone else, who after long waits, eventually told me there was a hold on it until they could reach my doctor. She assured me they were trying. So while I was on hold with her, she called my doctor's office. After nearly 30 minutes of being on hold, we got cut off. 

So I called back, eventually got a different human, and went through it all again, answering all the same questions again. But I was dogged. What were my options? Ultimately, this representative did some checking and said there were six holds on it. When I expressed my shock, she explained that it was normal and she'd check further and see what she could do. She said they'd talked to my doctor yesterday, although the prior rep said they hadn't. (This is just a condensed recap.) The delays and confusion went on for at least another hour.  

Finally, the rep said she got all the holds removed but one, and that one was because they had duplicate prescriptions for the same medication at the same time. Somehow, she eventually worked through that, with me still on hold, and scheduled my meds to arrive Tuesday. I had to answer lots of questions and listen to lots of repeated instructions, but, whatever it takes. 

A while later my doctor called to tell me the good news, but I blurted it out to her before she had a chance. She assured me she had done all that was needed of her in a timely manner (not her exact wording), and I'm confident she did. It's just the big bureaucratic machinery. Glad that's over! Now I can relax and enjoy! 

It's funny how three months ago, before I knew I had Hep C, I wasn't this excited, (although birding was good and I was having a great time). Life is all about perspective. Now I'm thrilled to be able to take heavy duty meds for two months.

And I'm very excited about going to the oasis Sunday and getting the new feeder installed.

Recent internet photo of my mountain (background) taken from highway, looking east.

Ta-dah!

New feeder is painted, and hopefully we're going to install it this weekend. Of course, it won't be a success until I see birds feeding from it. No reason they won't. Bears won't be able to get into it, but it remains to be seen if they can manage to get any seed out of the ports.  Surely, not as much as birds or bees shovel out. But if they do, we have ideas for preventing that. Didn't want to do any unnecessary welding if not needed. This was my first painting experiment with camouflage. I'm satisfied with it. I wanted the pattern blurry so photos of birds on the feeder perches will have good bokeh (background blur)!

The ports look small because of the largeness of the tank, but they're the same size as standard feeder ports. We can always add more perches if it looks like they're needed. To speed up birds getting used to it, I'll probably temporarily put little trays below the ports with seed on them. Always a work in progress. I'm excited!

Made it through January

January always seems to be hard for me. This year was no exception. Plenty of cold weather, besides nursing my husband through Covid. (My case was very mild.) Then of course there was the misery of trying to get Hep C treatment. Hopefully, Feb will be better, but who knows, what with my husband scheduled for hernia surgery in three weeks. With his fragile health, we could be stuck in the Odessa hospital for a week. At least it won't be during summer like last year where we pretty much lost the month of June, two weeks of which was spent in ICU.

One thing that helped make January bearable was having the new water feature outside the window. Plus seeing some nice birds elsewhere. One of the best January birding ever.

Ladder-backed Woodpecker at water feature yesterday

Lincoln's Sparrow in water feature yesterday

Vermillion Flycatcher outside window yesterday

Allen's Hummingbird yesterday at frozen feeder (molting)

A week or so ago, I started these Turk's Cap seedlings. Originally collected the seeds with the intent of planting them in my new planter box by the water feature, but now thinking I don't want something that large in it. So I found a good potential spot in the yard to plant them when danger of frost is past. 

UPDATE: Here's what it looks like this morning at my sister's place near the oasis. Looks like at least .2" of moisture on the ground. That's great!