Hanging Out at Home

Tiger Swallowtail

I have to keep updating this post because I can’t seem to finish it… I decided to stay home last Sunday. Originally I was going birding, but I had been to the Portage Saturday morning and subsequently needed two naps to get through the rest of the day, so I decided to stay home instead and see what I could get done around the house. I have only one more weekend before I travel. As much as I look forward to my trip, I start to feel like I never want to leave my crazy house.

So after feeding the birds and having breakfast, I grabbed the camera to go out into the yard, with the idea I would do some weeding and cleanup but have the option of taking some pictures if I felt like it. No sooner did I step out onto the back porch than I saw the only bird in the yard. It’s that time of year again, when the young Cooper’s Hawks come and sit in the middle of the yard, thinking their breakfast will come to them.

Certainly if I sit on the feeder pole…

He wasn’t there long. He flew to sit in the redwood tree for a moment but it was too dark already shooting through the window and the screen to capture a decent picture of him there. Then something caught his attention and he left. I just felt lucky to have happened upon him in that moment.

Is there another squirrel I can’t see or is that the same squirrel’s tail hanging all the way down below the wires?
Utility lines were a popular place to sit and wait for me to quit taking pictures.

The most numerous birds in the yard at that time were House Finches.

I was impressed with this squirrel’s technique. He can actually hang on the peanut feeder and eat a peanut at the same time.

The yard is in bloom, finally, after all that rain that made everything grow to towering heights. As long as the pollinators seem to be happy with it…

Wild senna…
Mother and child House Sparrows
Just as the first sunflowers are consumed, new ones bloom.

With any luck I will be back once more before I take off for my next adventure, but I’m making no promises. There were things I could have gotten done ahead of time, I suppose, but other real-time priorities seemed to obliterate the best of intentions. And why those thoughts of hating to leave my birds, missing the first week of choir or feeling guilty about flying start creeping in I’ll never know. It’s too late to turn back! Ambivalence won’t cut it anymore, I have to get ready! And I am looking forward to this trip. 🙂

Late Summer with the Goldfinches

AMGO Yard 8-18-18-7721The American Goldfinches are late breeders, so I haven’t seen more than one or two around until this past week. They are now returning to the yard to take advantage of the thistle socks again, but they are also helping themselves to the seed-heads forming on the flowers. I don’t think it ever occurred to me before that just when I’m thinking the coneflowers are looking like it’s all over, it’s just beginning for the goldfinches.

AMGO Yard 8-18-18-7725I watched this one male work on the “spent” flower he’s sitting on for so long I finally decided to take a video.

And then there’s the thistle socks. The second photo was through the porch window so it’s fuzzy.

The sunflower seed feeder is always popular with the House Finches and Northern Cardinals.

I haven’t seen the skunks for about a week. I was hoping they were keeping the cat below, photographed under my neighbor’s deck, out of the yard. I have never seen her attack anything but I am not fooled by her innocent-looking lolling around licking herself on the back cement pad.

Cat 8-18-18-7833The squirrels seem to be distracted from creating too much chaos by a steady supply of peanuts.

Squirrel Yard 8-18-18-7825There were not a lot of birds on Saturday’s first bird walk, and since they were difficult to see in the overcast I didn’t take many pictures, except in one or two cases just to confirm identification. So I’ll stay in the yard for this post. Below is an Agapostemon Sweat Bee gathering pollen.

We’ve had so much rain alternating with hot, sunny days this season everything in the yard is growing out of control. My Big Bluestem is well-established and as tall as I am. I like the fringed look of its flowering.

I haven’t done well with tomatoes for years, but I can grow peppers. This is the first time I’ve planted poblano chiles. They’re getting bigger. I’ll have to start cooking them soon.

Poblano Chile Yard 8-18-18-7912I really like the Mistflower and am glad I planted it in a shady spot between two trees where it’s filling in nicely.

Mistflower Yard 8-18-18-7908Below is a plant that introduced itself this year and up until a couple days ago, I didn’t know what it was. But I was reviewing the University of Illinois weed page looking for something else, and found its picture. I am happy to identify it as Toothed Spurge (poinsettia dentata). Although it has shown up uninvited, it is a native and rather attractive. The leaves are so thick they look almost like a succulent. I’m relieved it’s not an invasive, so I think I can let it hang out for the rest of the season.

Toothed Spurge Yard 8-11-18-7482The Wild Senna on the left below is pretty much gone, but the Tall Ironweed is still blooming, although a lot of it has fallen over.

In the front yard I discovered Nodding Onion which I think might be blooming well for the first time this year since it was planted by Art three or four or however many years ago it’s been now. And the one Cardinal Flower plant continues. I’d like to have more of it. Not sure I have a good red thumb though.

More regular visitors, of course House Sparrows, but I thought this one was a rather attractive little guy. And the female Downy Woodpecker below, on the peanut feeder, looks like this might be her first year in the yard.

HOSP Yard 8-18-18-7808DOWP Yard 8-11-18-7508One more of my too-hungry-to-be-camera-shy goldfinch. Saturday I “lead” the group on another bird walk, and I hope this time to see some migrants to write about.

AMGO Yard 8-18-18-7761

Meanwhile Back at the Bungalow

Monarch Front Yard 07-29-17-6854

Monarch Butterflies have not been many, but I’ve had at least one visiting my yard every day I’m around to witness it. Glad they like the Tall Ironweed below.

American Goldfinches have been taking advantage of seed abundance everywhere.

I don’t know who will care for the Wild Senna seed pods but this is what the plant has produced below. The flowers are all gone.

Wild Senna Yard 07-30-17-2475At least one Black-Capped Chickadee is on hand to remind me to keep the sunflower seed feeder full.

BCCH Yard 08-05-17-2676The Northern Cardinals are in various stages of molt.

NOCA Front Yard 07-29-17-6823

Female Northern Cardinal

NOCA Yard 08-05-17-2660

Juvenile Male Northern Cardinal

AMGO Yard 08-05-17-2656

American Goldfinch

I was sitting outside on my front porch waking up from an afternoon nap after the past Sunday’s outing to Big Marsh and a beautiful female Ruby-Throated Hummingbird zoomed in to check out my front wildflower garden. Of course I didn’t have the camera with me. But I hung a feeder on the front porch. I live in hope for a future photo opportunity.

Bees, Butterflies and Birds in the Backyard

Bee on Wild Senna 07-15-17-1468Have I ever said I adore bumblebees? If not, now I am proclaiming it, and they are some of the friendliest creatures in my yard. Last weekend the one in these pictures was definitely enjoying the Wild Senna, making me take extra notice of the brown spots on the blooms which make the flowers almost look like bees themselves.

I’ve managed to spend some time the last two weekends in the yard, which is more an exercise in discovery and meditation than it is management of what decides to grow there. With all the rain we have had this year everything seems determined to grow tall and abundant.

At first the most common butterflies were the Red Admirals above. Below, a Milkweed Beetle on its namesake plant and what I suspect is a Soldier Beetle on the Rattlesnake Master. I was just happy to see somebody else enjoying my first season for Rattlesnake Master in the yard.

Saturday I was graced with the first Tiger Swallowtail that spent some time in the yard while I was out there. For whatever reason, the butterflies seem to be attracted to my field of Echinacea more than anything else.

Tiger Swallowtail 07-15-17-1688And just as I had had enough and was about to go inside, this lovely Black Swallowtail showed up. I had seen one in the yard before but leaving, not hanging around.

Black Swallowtail 07-15-17-1746Black Swallowtail 07-15-17-1747I had a staring match with the Fox Squirrel. The sunflowers growing from spilled seed are too numerous to photograph, so here’s a close-up of one.

Not sure if I have more female House Finches or if half of them are immatures. It was nice to see a Black-Capped Chickadee too. In general, when I’m in the yard, the birds aren’t.

The moon was still visible.

Moon 07-15-17-1514I’ve discovered one or two Snow on the Mountain flowers in the yard, not where it was coming up for years, but now scattered, after it disappeared entirely. Glad to have it back.

Snow on the Mountain 07-15-17-1539And if you made it this far you might recognize the flower below as the invasive monster I was trying to eradicate earlier. I discovered the name of this nefarious plant yesterday while scrolling through the Audubon Wildflower App on my cell phone. The app isn’t new, but my use of it now is a new diversion. I’ve decided to scroll all the way through everything from A to Z to find things that I can’t remember, can’t identify otherwise, or discover new. So far, this was a fortuitous decision because I was close to the beginning of the alphabet with this one. And it is every bit as terrible as I suspected. Well, maybe not where it belongs, but it’s from Europe, and here’s part of the description from the app: “spreads by underground stems and forms sizable colonies. The plant contains poisonous sapnonins (soap-like substances) that inspired the genus name (from the Latin sapo, meaning ‘soap’) and the alternate common name Soapwort. Lather can be made from its crushed foliage. The common name Bouncing Bet is an old fashioned nickname for a washerwoman.”

I think maybe I’ll start calling it Soapwort.

Bouncing Bet 6-24-17-0419

Bouncing Bet, or Saponaria officinalis

So with those roots running under the soil I’m never going to get rid of this stuff, I’ll just look upon it as a nasty plant on which to take out all my frustrations every spring. And I’ll be sure never to eat it. I wonder if it’s as poisonous to wildlife. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the bees attracted to it. They’re pretty smart.

Bumblebee and Wild Senna 07-15-17-1751Still wishing for a Monarch Butterfly and/or a Ruby-Throated Hummingbird or Sphinx Moth to show up on a weekend when I’m in the yard…with the camera. 🙂