Watching The Birds

[manitou]

We're keeping the car because it has a real nice hydraulic lift for Joe's geezer scooter.  Cars up in the snowy states tend to rust out a lot in the undercarriage because of the snow and salt on the streets - actually, the transmission itself is okay, it's everything around it that's bad.  thanks for asking...

 

Okay, now back to nature.

[Marblehead]

Yes, back to nature.  I did get some rain yesterday.  Yea!!! 

[cold]

Moving slow has its own rewards.

 

Before exiting a barn I try to peruse the views to the North, West and South.

If I remember I'm usually rewarded.

 

We grow pole beans on concrete reinforcing mesh which is five feet tall and enjoyed by all manner of birds.

Today perched on the top of a row of the mesh was a Red Shouldered Hawk, and less than three feet away was an American Goldfinch. The openings in the mesh are 5 inches by 5 inches and smaller birds often fly thru the holes avoiding larger birds.

 

After a few moments I tired of the view and opened the door causing the hawk to take off and soar 50 or so feet to a line of tree's. Doing so the hawk alerted or spooked three deer (not dears) who fled to the edge of the woods. Later cultivating some ground I attracted some swallows with the tractor. And their activity feeding on insects (Yeah!) flushed by the tractor attracted a Baltimore Oriole, another bug eater (Hurray!).

[Marblehead]

... attracted a Baltimore Oriole, another bug eater (Hurray!).

 

A couple years ago I saw a Cardinal in my front yard catch a butterfly on the wing.  He must have been really hungry.

[cold]

I have mostly pest butterfly's this time of the year. The caterpillars are called cabbage loopers and are a major pest in the U.S.

Introduced to Canada from Europe they quickly spread thru out the U.S.

Pieris rapae are really fascinating (as all nature is!) but pests and their predators in particular to me!

 

Watching the blue birds swing or hunt (using a baseball metaphor)  I am making a wag when I suggest they are only successful  1 out of 10 swings. And the bats ballet at dusk. Oh my!

[AussieTrees]

King parrots don't often visit and they let you get closer.

[Kar3n]

This is not exactly a bird, but it could pass for a baby hummingbird under the right circumstances.

I fished this guy out of my pool this morning.  I present to you the Cicada wasp (thanks, Trish). 

It is a monster!!

[cold]

7 minutes ago, Kar3n said:

This is not exactly a bird, but it could pass for a baby hummingbird under the right circumstances.

I fished this guy out of my pool this morning.  I present to you the Cicada wasp (thanks, Trish). 

It is a monster!!

 

They love eating Asian Pears! And as mouth parts are inside the pear the business end is sticking out to zap the careless!

[silent thunder]

dang!  Does that thing bark? 

[blue eyed snake]

looks like this one ( from europe), they scare me with there big body's and the noise they make while flying.

they like sweet juices and once they visited my garden regularly because i had pruned a willowtree too late in spring, it was weeping sweet juices for them, brrrrr

 

 

 

[Kar3n]

Just now, silent thunder said:

dang!  Does that thing bark? 

 

[Kar3n]

Lunchtime...

[silent thunder]

I seem to recall Godzilla facing off against her in one episode...

[cold]

Here in Maryland the cycles for the locusts have accelerated due to an increase in soil temperatures, however slight.

The development that has occurred over the past almost five decades has resulted in a tremendous increase in paving a majority of which is black top. And of course a decrease in fields and forests is another result of increased development.

[Kar3n]

We typically have them every 2-3 years in Arizona according to U of A, though I swear I see at least one dead on my patio and hear them every year.

<shrug>

[Marblehead]

Yellow Jackets are a regular here.  In the Spring when they first start making their nests I tell them that I won't mess with their life if they don't mess with mine.  That's been working out well the past few years.

 

[cold]

I have heard they will pursue a person whom has disturbed them up to two miles! They can get very touchy in the fall... I once escaped their wrath by bailing off the tractor in the direction of its (the tractors) exhaust a full half an hour later they were still swarming the tractor.

 

I had disturbed the nest in a pile of compost with the tractor.

We turn the piles regularly now , I cant run like I use to

[Marblehead]

Yep.  One should not get a bunch of Yellow Jackets pissed off at them.

 

[cold]

Earlier today my brother called me over to a group of trees stating there must be 50 humming birds up there. There were at least that many, all waiting their turn at the milkweeds flowers. Which is a great source of nectar not only to them but many other critters too.

 

The group of trees have several different clumps of milkweed within 50 yards or so and I kind of take it for granted. Every once in a while I pull my head out of the work at hand, harvesting summer squash this morning, and am reminded of how incredible the natural world is.

 

Early one summer Sunday I was walking the perimeter, (an organic farm is required to maintain a border between land the manage and land they don't) I began regretting a row of salvia I had planted for cut flower sales. I hadn't harvested a single stem!  Then I noticed the humming birds. The hundreds of humming birds enjoying the salvia.

Still enjoy that memory .

[Marblehead]

I haven't seen a hummer lately.  Yesterday I had a pair of young dove, probably their first year mating, and just a short while ago was a beautifully healthy male Cardinal.

 

 

 

[manitou]

On 7/18/2017 at 3:33 PM, cold said:

Earlier today my brother called me over to a group of trees stating there must be 50 humming birds up there. There were at least that many, all waiting their turn at the milkweeds flowers. Which is a great source of nectar not only to them but many other critters too.

 

The group of trees have several different clumps of milkweed within 50 yards or so and I kind of take it for granted. Every once in a while I pull my head out of the work at hand, harvesting summer squash this morning, and am reminded of how incredible the natural world is.

 

Early one summer Sunday I was walking the perimeter, (an organic farm is required to maintain a border between land the manage and land they don't) I began regretting a row of salvia I had planted for cut flower sales. I hadn't harvested a single stem!  Then I noticed the humming birds. The hundreds of humming birds enjoying the salvia.

Still enjoy that memory .

 

 

Is that the same salvia.....?

[cold]

19 hours ago, manitou said:

 

 

Is that the same salvia.....?

 

I grew Salvia spendens  as a cut flower not Salvia divinorum.

 

I'm real careful as the farm is a direct neighbor to a Head Start Center ( with very serious federal protocols for whom can enter) ) a high school, and a religious day care center.

 

One day I looked up and two very heavily armed people dressed in camo were leaving the wooded border in the South of the farm moving roughly North towards the high school. It was part of the swat team doing a drill where in the high school had a hostage armed intruder situation. The police caught holy heck from the synagogue day care after alarming both the kids and their caretakers! They had the drop on me, but identified themselves and explained it was a simulation, not for real.

 

Another time the local peace officers went under cover at the farm hanging out and in our walk in cooler as the watched a neighbors house for her son. He was a convicted felon and wanted for homicide  or some other such nonsense. 

 

It truly is a funny farm !

[manitou]

3 hours ago, cold said:

 

I grew Salvia spendens  as a cut flower not Salvia divinorum.

 

I'm real careful as the farm is a direct neighbor to a Head Start Center ( with very serious federal protocols for whom can enter) ) a high school, and a religious day care center.

 

One day I looked up and two very heavily armed people dressed in camo were leaving the wooded border in the South of the farm moving roughly North towards the high school. It was part of the swat team doing a drill where in the high school had a hostage armed intruder situation. The police caught holy heck from the synagogue day care after alarming both the kids and their caretakers! They had the drop on me, but identified themselves and explained it was a simulation, not for real.

 

Another time the local peace officers went under cover at the farm hanging out and in our walk in cooler as the watched a neighbors house for her son. He was a convicted felon and wanted for homicide  or some other such nonsense. 

 

It truly is a funny farm !

 

 

Sounds like a funny farm.

 

Some years back I tried the S. Divinorum and it caused me to shape-shift within my vision into a huge tarantula, wherein I slid off the couch onto the floor, and on my back skedaddled across the floor with only my elbows and heels touching the ground.  I'm sure the S. spendens is a lot less dramatic.  Sounds like a nice situation you have there -

[cold]

16 minutes ago, manitou said:

 

 

Sounds like a funny farm.

 

Some years back I tried the S. Divinorum and it caused me to shape-shift within my vision into a huge tarantula, wherein I slid off the couch onto the floor, and on my back skedaddled across the floor with only my elbows and heels touching the ground.  I'm sure the S. spendens is a lot less dramatic.  Sounds like a nice situation you have there -

 

Not having experience ingesting either, my cursory look into research about their respective effects it would seem to confirm that the S. spendens is pretty benign. On the other hand with just a few molecules difference the S. divinorum is quite a spider of another color

 

As a farmer spiders and snakes are natural allies, but I do my best to give them both wide berth. And certainly would not want anything to do with a shape-shifted tarantula. In my youth I might of considered such an encounter a fun challenge not so much now. I suppose I have gotten a bit of wisdom with age. Not enough but some...

[Marblehead]

I saw the hummer this morning.  And then, as if by magic, it was gone.