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Purple finch
Has he been pilfering the spider web beneath him? Or is he just enjoying the diverse and interesting sights from my in-laws’ back porch?
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Something there is that doesn’t love a wall
My husband took us for a walk in the woods he played in as a child. There were several of these old stone walls converging in the middle of “nowhere.”
Once, it was “somewhere.” Someone’s fields. Several someones’ fields… Three walls met at this ancient oak, which still had rusted barbed wire emerging from its bark at several points. “Good fences make good neighbors.” Or so one man in Robert Frost’s poem says.
For perspective, here it is with the dog…
How old must it be? It’s lived through many years there — long enough to see at least this group of neighbors building and mending their walls. But now the forest is reclaiming this ground.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast…And yet, something there is that does love a wall, too — loves being reminded of a larger order that we’re all a part of, and loves, always, to be reminded of good poetry and meditation.
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Leaf Litter Secrets
Can you find the butterfly in this picture?
It’s there. Honest. Here, I’ll move a little to the left. See it?
An utterly ravaged question mark butterfly. I posted a brand new one here. This one has obviously weathered some storms. So fragile.
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Bathsheba
My daughter named this titmouse Bathsheba. It seems always to know when I change the water in the birdbath, and it comes to bathe. We watch from the window — like King David watching Bathsheba bathe.
Well, okay. Maybe it’s a little different…
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Recent Butterflies
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My brother’s woods
My brother took us on a walk through a tract of woodland that had several sections with several different characters. I heard many birds I never saw in the denser areas.
He pointed out lots of clues pointing to the land’s earlier life and uses, and he did a great job getting my daughters to hone their observational skills.
Jack in the pulpit Looks like wild lily of the valley, but bigger, and with different leaves Red-winged blackbird nest Not all the sights were wildlife…
This guy won my younger daughter’s heart for life. -
Pond Walk
My dad took the girls and me for a walk around a different pond yesterday. These are some of the sights.
Pearl crescent butterfly Supposedly the underside of the hind wing has a crescent, though I confess I have a hard time seeing it.
There were LOTS of polliwogs — enough that we ended up taking some home in a goldfish bowl to observe.
The Wog Whisperer — my younger daughter This photo shows an adult frog chilling on the bottom while the younger generation swarms over it. Feeling watched? The fields around the pond were filled with red-winged blackbirds and bobolinks. The bobolinks sang a two-note song, then a long string of gibberish that sounded exactly like R2-D2.
I haven’t tried to identify these caterpillars yet.
Near the car, Older Daughter spotted this tiny moth — and I do mean tiny!
When we got home we identified it as an eight-spotted forester moth.
The day was complete when we pulled into the driveway at home to find some great crested flycatchers. They’ve been around the yard for the last couple of days but they’re hard to get a good look at till they’re on their way out. My youngest spotted this one.
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Seen here and there…
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Gray Day Grosbeak
Such a handsome bird.
We have two grosbeaks out back. Maybe it’s a territorial thing, but one of them seems to be singing nonstop. He sang all day Saturday. He sang all afternoon yesterday. He started just before 4:00 this morning, singing again.
Unlike some of the warblers and other birds who throw their heads back and open their beaks wide when they sing, he doesn’t open his beak very far. But his throat puffs out, and he turns his head from side to side.
For the first time, I really get it — the description of a grosbeak’s song as being “like a robin who’s had voice lessons.” It certainly cheers me to hear him in this run of overcast days.
I’m trying to think of suitable words for his song. Occasionally, when the robin sings just before it starts to rain, I can hear in its song,
Betterget
IN-side —
Hurryup!
Hurryup!
I’m not sure what I hear in the grosbeak’s song, though.
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Mrs. Oriole
She’s more quietly colored than her husband, and a quieter feeder as well. But she was a welcome burst of color on an overcast day.
*Edited to add: Thanks to Peggy for pointing out in the comments that this is in fact a first-year male!