Well spotted

On a hot morning a few weeks ago, I spent an hour walking along my road with Kelley Nunn, who knows more about birds than anyone I've ever met. She has an amazing eye and could spot a hawk or a kestrel long before I could, just by noting a slight shadow on a cloud. She could identify each call in a jumble of songs ("like picking out the oboe in a symphony," she said) and shared mnemonics for many of the calls (for the Red-Eyed Vireo, it would be "Where am I? Here I am. In the tree!"; the Phoebe says its own name).
I've lived on my road for a good many years and until she showed me, I didn't realize that there are actually two ponds along one stretch, one of which you can see only from the very top of a steep bank.
She kept track of what we saw and heard and sent in the completed checklist to eBird: 45 species in one hour! She wasn't surprised; actually she said my road is something of a mecca for birdwatchers.
Kelley leads bird walks at the Bucktoe Creek Preserve on Sunday and Monday mornings (free and open to the public). She is amazing, and I hope to take another walk with her soon.

Garden pix

I'm hoping your gardens are

doing as well as mine this year. Only a few of the phlox have mildew, which is amazing considering the amount of rain we've had. And yes, I know how corny the yellow swallowtail-on-pink Echinacea photo is, but it was fun taking it anyway.
The pumpkins, which as you'll recall I had to replant back in May for lack of germination, are relentlessly taking over the garden. And the sunflowers, even though they started blooming a month ago (very early!), are still doing so, and beautifully.
(Yes, I do take my phone/camera with me everywhere, even while working in the garden. Except, of course, the other night when my brother's bicycle had a flat about a mile away from here and he needed a rescue. D'OH!)

Township meeting

There's a West Marlborough Township meeting on Tuesday, August 6, starting at 7 p.m. I'm not sure what's on the agenda for August, if anything, given that so many residents are either in Saratoga or on Mount Desert Island this time of year. However, as my regular readers know it's rare that I don't find something interesting to report on from a meeting. Well ... "interesting" to us locals, that is, even if it's only a washed-out gravel road or somebody building a new turn-out shed.

Form and movement

Over the winter a friend of mine had her right knee replaced at Christiana Hospital and spent quite a lot of time doing rehab at the physical therapy place in Willowdale. We had breakfast the other day and it was great to see a much-slimmed-down version of her walking into Perkins without pain (she still has a little limp, but that's due to plantar fasciitis). She said that three months after the operation she went to the Grand Canyon on a family trip and was utterly thrilled to be able to walk 3.8 miles (she measured!) along the Canyon rim.

Open and shut

Last week I wrote about the annual shutdown weeks at our local YMCAs. Now these additional closures have been announced at the Kennett Y to enable the workers to finish the expansion:
August 12th-August 25th – CLOSED AREAS: Main Gym, Cycle Room, Indoor Track, Main Pool, Sauna/Steam Room , Holistic Health Studio.
August 12th-August 18th – OPEN AREAS: Cardio and Weight Room, Wellness Studio, Warm Water Pool, Family Activity Center, Childwatch/Kids Zone, Locker Rooms
August 19th-August 25th – Entire Facility is closed.
By the way, I visited the newly completed "Wellness Studio" at the Kennett Y for the first time the other day and it is gorgeous: spacious but not cavernous, nice light, clean floor, good mirrors. I took a great class with Marta, too!

Our national bird

Bayo Nichols of the Unionville Saddle Shop was kind enough to share this adventure with me:
"Was on Mill Road going into Kennett late this afternoon [July 24], near the old Gaebel farm, when I rounded the bend to see flares on the side of the road. A few cars were pulled over on either side, a State Trooper was there, as well as a security guy from New Bolton, & what do you think was going on? A young Bald Eagle was standing in the middle of the road! Don't know if he was injured or just having teenage bird angst. Wish I had my camera."
Adds a West Marlborough friend and neighbor who read this story:
"There has been a nest of Bald Eagles residing along the Red Clay Creek between 926 and Baltimore Pike for almost two decades. When we lived near there, we would regularly see one, and others spoke of it too. Don't know where the nest is, but the family has been "in residence" for many years."

Walkin' after midnight

What a summer we've been having weather-wise. Just a few nights after that amazing heat-lightning display there was an absolute gully-washer (literally, in terms of our beleaguered gravel roads!). The intense rain and the thunder woke me around midnight. I immediately checked the weather map on my phone and saw the storm wasn't going to lighten up anytime soon, so I got dressed and went outside to explore. The lightning allowed me to see that the tiny creek in front of the house had become a torrent, flowing over the road. I turned back when the water started getting in my Bean boots.
When I went back inside and dried off I checked Facebook and found that several locals, including the Sharp-Eyed Friend, had been rudely awakened by the 12:27 a.m. Flash Flood siren on their phones and had taken to Facebook to express their displeasure. How they managed to sleep through the downpour in the first place is anybody's guess.
When I got up later that morning, the creek was burbling along in its channel as usual and the driveway and road were already drying up. The only sign of the flash flood was that the grass and weeds along the creek were flattened.
And people are still talking about that heat-lightning storm we had back on July 20. One kind reader took the time to write to me and said she was in her backyard during the storm watching both the Longwood Gardens fireworks and the heat lightning: "It was an amazing display of man vs. nature. As always, nature won!"