Peter Follansbee, joiner's notes

I’ve been carving stuff in the shop, some panels and the beginnings of two more strapwork boxes, one white oak, one walnut. All sawn stock, my riven oak is just beginning to poke out from under the snow. Today’s post on the substack blog is free-to-all subscribers (paid & free) – there I talk about some period carvings and post a couple of carved panels for sale…
https://peterfollansbeejoinerswork.substack.com/p/more-about-carved-panels-plus-video

black walnut box front underway

But I’ve been wanting to work some recent bird photos into my everyday blog, just haven’t had much room. I have too much to say about the woodwork. The winter weather has brought some of the raptors in closer, some of them have a hard time finding food in the snow, so the bird feeders bring possible prey into view for them. That’s how I read it anyway. I know it’s true of the cooper’s hawk (Astur cooperii) – this one snatched somebody from around the bird feeders, then fed up in the top of the apple tree.

cooper’s hawk

While I photographed this bird from the open back door, I saw a larger raptor swing by – just turned the camera quickly, thinking “I’ll get this red-tail…” – turned out to be a bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) –

bald eagle

we don’t often see them here, but the river was open water – most of the ponds around here are frozen over. He was gone in an instant.

Another day another raptor. Thought I saw two more red-tail hawks flying over the house…they too were gone in an instant. Then half-hour later, saw two hawks perched in the sycamore tree next door – but they were red-shouldered hawks, not red-tailed hawks. (Buteo lineatus) – I couldn’t get them both in the same shot – this one posed more cooperatively than the other.

red-shouldered hawk

Down in the river one day saw these buffleheads – the smallest duck. (Bucephala albeola) –

buffleheads

these are females and for a little while I worked myself into a state of confusion by mis-reading Sibley’s book about the bufflehead. What I thought I read was that the male doesn’t show his breeding plumage in the winter…which is not the case. Doubly-so. Not what the book said, not what the duck does. I know I’ve seen many breeding-plumage male buffleheads over the years – but they breed far north & west of here. Far. Below is a shot from the same river, same backyard, almost exactly a year ago – one male, two females. These birds are pretty skittish, I can never get close to them.

male & female buffleheads

My birding mentor Marie helped sort me out. Momentary collapse of reading comprehension. It happens.

The red-tail hawks (Buteo jamaicensis) are around regularly – this one, a juvenile – tried to snatch someone from the feeder-crowd. Missed, then perched in the catalpa tree right outside the shop. Often you can get near juvys for good shots –

red-tail hawk, juvein

Every snowy winter we try to get a good photo of the northern cardinal male in the holly tree. I didn’t get it just right this year, but got a consolation nice shot of the female – (Cardinalis cardinalis)

female Northern cardinal

In the winter, there’s often 10-12 cardinals here at once, but I can’t seem to get a group shot that’s worth a damn…so here’s a male portrait from quite a few years ago – next to the holly tree…

male cardinal