New Arrival

The Red-bellied Woodpeckers have been very busy at the sunflower seed feeder in the last few weeks. Looked outside yesterday and saw an unusual mostly gray woodpecker on the suet. Took a closer look and realized why the Red-bellies have been so busy- it was an immature Red-belly, so that explains why the adults have been so busy. Many mouths to feed.

Dancers in the Yard

Very small ones, that is. This is a Variable Dancer damselfly- about 1 1/2" long. There's at least three species of damselflies in the yard right now, this being one of them. The males are a beautiful violet shade as seen here. They're a ferocious little predator for their size- I was out by the pond one day and saw a little gnat or midge of some kind flying across the water. A damselfly appeared out of nowhere, grabbed the bug in midair, and flew back to a leaf to eat its prey.

Lots of things in bloom right now- Echinacea, Yarrow, some of the Hostas, Shasta Daisies, and the big stand of Monarta up at the top of the hill. The Monarta has a tendency to get carried away and sends out runners; last year I pulled a bunch of it up and this year it looks as though I didn't do anything at all to it. The Joe Pye Weed is up to eight feet or so, maybe a little taller, and is about to bloom.

Backyard Songbird

Ever been sitting in the backyard on a nice humid evening and had a really loud bird of some kind start trilling? And you can't for the life of you find the culprit? Well, I was doing some pruning in the backyard and found the usual suspect. This is a Gray Tree Frog, seen here (if you click on the picture) a little bigger than life size. This one was probably about 1 1/2" long. The sound they make is out of all proportion to their size.

Send Us Some Rain, Please

Lots of mudflats at Huntley Meadows this afternoon, as rainfall has been a bit absent. As I was on the boardwalk I heard a person remark that Huntley "was in the summer doldrums". Things I saw: Heard a crunching sound from the Cattails. Looked over and saw some moving vegetation, and then a Muskrat appeared, chopping down a Cattail. The stalk disappeared, and then the Muskrat appeared directly below me, probably only three feet away, dragging the Cattail off somewhere. This was the fourth one I'd seen today. There were turtles all over the place- Eastern Painted, big Snappers moving through some shallow water, a few Red-eared Sliders, and one tiny Snapper moving through some mud in search of something. Dragonflies were hawking about- Common Whitetail, Needhams, Blue Dasher, one huge unidentified one, and the first Great Blue Skimmer I've seen this year. Frogs all over the place- as there's so little water, the Leopard frogs really stand out- they're attractive in their green or brown phases. Several species of swallows- Rough-winged, Barn, and Tree. Four or five Great Egrets, and to top it all off, what I thought was a possible Anhinga, an extremely rare visitor (thanks to Kevin Munroe, who went out with a scope later and confirmed that it was actually an immature Double-crested Cormorant). These are the doldrums?

Today's News

The Daylilies are coming into full bloom on a beautiful spring morning. We've had a string of 90 degree or higher days thrown at us and to make up for it yesterday barely got past 80 or so with very low humidity. The Stella D'Oro lilies have been in full bloom for a few weeks; the regular ones shown here are just getting there. The ornamental beans over near the fence have grown a foot in a few days and are starting to wind their way around the string I just put up for them. All the tomatoes have really taken off- several of the earlier planted ones are now at about three feet and climbing. I'm trying to keep them pruned and have been removing suckers- as we have eight plants there is going to be a good supply of tomatoes.

All the Purple and Indian Milkweed seedlings that were growing down in the basement under plant lights have been repotted and moved outside, and appear to be doing well. Some of the Purple Milkweed seedlings will be donated to Meadowlark Gardens when they've gotten a bit bigger. The Elephant Ears have all sprouted and in a few more weeks will be displaying their three foot long leaves at the plots near the driveway and beside the pond. They make the yard look very tropical.

On the ornithological side of things, we discovered a Cardinals nest with two eggs in it near the deck. Checked on it this morning and the eggs have disappeared- possibly a Crow or a Blue Jay found them and decided they'd have a snack.

Send me a Sign? Certified!

No, not that kind of certified. Got this sign a few weeks ago from the "Audubon at Home" program. We had a visit from an Audubon at Home Ambassador from the Audubon Society to look at the backyard and tell us what we needed to do to become certified. Requirements for the program are that you provide food, shelter, water, and have a certain number of target species visiting the yard. After a tour of the back yard and going over the checklist of target species (certain birds, amphibians, butterflies, etc.) it was determined that the visit was mainly a formality. A nice moment during the visit was when a male Common Yellowthroat (a warbler) landed in the yard minutes after I explained that we didn't see warblers in the yard very often. More information on the Audubon at Home program can be found here: http://audubonva.org/

In other news, my last post mentioned that feeder activity had lessened. Well, the last few days it's really picked up- the Hairy Woodpeckers that came back one at a time decided they like the new suet cake I put out this morning and both of them showed within minutes of my putting the cake out- I watched the male break off a chunk of suet and feed it to the female. Also liking the suet yesterday was a large male Common Grackle who did something interesting. Perching on the suet feeder spinning around like they usually do (the Woodpeckers seem far more stable) he broke off a big chunk of it, ate a few pieces, and then took the remaining portion down to the pond where he swished it around in the water for a bit before flying off with it, probably to feed a baby.

Also noted were quite a few visits by Hummingbirds- I was standing near the feeder at one point and heard the whirring sound of one of them coming to the feeder not more than three feet away. For something that small they're pretty fearless.

Mother Nature...

...can always surprise you. From the last post: "The Hairy Woodpeckers that were visiting the suet feeder regularly didn't appear to like the construction, and haven't been back since."

Well, we were eating supper last night and I looked over at the suet feeder. Hmm. That Downy Woodpecker looks a little big, and a little too dark. It was a Hairy, not a Downy, on the suet. Maybe they just wanted to make sure the construction had definitely stopped.

Anybody Seen Spring?

Yesterday as I was driving down Gallows Road the car thermometer indicated 102 degrees. That's not far off what the actual temperature was- it hit 98 yesterday. Today is a bit more moderate- humidity is down and we actually have the windows open. Spring seems to have vanished. We had a new deck put in during some rainy weather, and some areas of the yard turned into a mudhole. A little first aid to some of the spots has been necessary. Of course, right after the deck was put in we've transitioned to near-drought conditions. A lot of the rainstorms have gone right around us, so I've been doing some watering, especially for the tomatoes.

The Hairy Woodpeckers that were visiting the suet feeder regularly didn't appear to like the construction, and haven't been back since. Visits to the feeder have slowed down- I'm assuming that there's more food available elsewhere. On the other hand, there's a Mourning Dove nest next to the house in an evergreen next to the heat pump with a dove sitting on it. Catbirds are still regular visitors to the yard- even if you can't see them their odd calls still resonate in the bushes. I suspect they like the Forsythia for the dense cover it provides.

The pond got cleaned out last week- you couldn't see the bottom due to algae growth and the leaves and other debris (oak flowers among other things). As the Cattails are now well over six feet tall they're competing with the algae for nutrients and the algae is losing, so the water is going to stay clearer. While I had the pond drained I took inventory of the fish in it- we still have the big white Koi, two Goldfish (one big, one small- something got the other bigger Goldfish) and four or five Green Sunfish, which have picked up a good bit of size. They were put in the pond to control the Goldfish population. It's amusing to throw worms into the pond- sometimes the Goldfish get them, but most of the time there's a flash of a sunfish darting out from cover and inhaling the worm. We put three Water Hyacinth plants in the pond recently and one (seen above) has bloomed. When it gets warmer in July and August the Water Hyacinth will grow so fast it will cover the entire pond if we don't keep hauling bunches of it out and throwing it in the compost pile. Damselflies of at least two species have reappeared in and around the pond, and one female Blue Dasher Dragonfly has put in an appearance. Last week as we came home there was an Ebony Jewelwing (see above) flitting through the front yard- they're occasional visitors.

On the land side, the Joe Pye Weed is now up to about six feet. Two years ago when I planted this it only reached about four feet, so I thought it was a dwarf version. I came back from Iowa last year in July and it was at least eight feet tall, covered with pink flower heads, and had at least twenty Tiger Swallowtails feeding on it. I've also succeeded in raising two additional milkweeds from seed- Indian and Eastern Purple, so if the seedlings survive there will be additional attractions for the Monarchs.

By the way, if you click on the photos above you get a bigger version.