Frogs and toads are breeding, butterflies flying, groundhogs foraging, birds migrating and early season flowers are blooming. The white common blue violet in the above picture has been blooming for over a week on the path leading away from the Lemur House. There are also many of the blue form of violet along the same stretch of path. American toads and pickerel frogs were vigorously calling and mating on the warm afternoons of the second full week of March. ManyRead more
Posts tagged: #bird migration.
Purple Martin Migration
Purple martins, those large, iridescent purple, colonial nesting, flying insect eating swallows are on their way back home. They’ve spent the winter south of the border in places like Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Argentina. Scouts have already been seen in Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansa, Louisiana, and Texas. In fact, the first reported sighting was in St. James City, Florida on New Years Day. Purple martins are our largest swallow. In the east, they nest, almost exclusively,Read more
Go Outside and Look Up
Top Photo: Osprey. If you happen to peek out of your window today you may see some birds migrating by. For example: Have a look outside yourself. Let me know what you see. Enjoy! Read more
Purple Martin Update 2012
Believe it or not, Purple Martins, those large dark swallows with a purple sheen to their plumage, have already been spotted in our fair state. One martin scout was reported as being seen on February 9 in Godwin, NC. I wish the best of luck to all of those birds represented on the map as purple dots (above link), we still have plenty of winter remaining. The temperature drops as I sit here typing. It will be in the twentiesRead more
An Osprey’s Peregrinations
Back in February I attempted to steer you, the reader, towards a web site that follows the travels of a select group of radio-tagged Ospreys as they headed south in the fall of 2010 from their fledging sites here in North America. At the time, I had followed the route of an Osprey named Belle from her birthplace on Marth’s Vineyard to a reservoir in Rondonia, Brazil where she settled in for the duration. She’s still there and won’t return tillRead more
Early Nesters, Arrivals, Delayed Departures
It was a busy time for birds. Besides the Red-shouldered Hawks snatching frogs out of the Wetlands, Carolina Chickadees feeding their young in a nest in a Loblolly Pine between Catch the Wind and Explore the Wild, and the Red-bellied Woodpeckers sitting on eggs in another loblolly in front of the Lemur House, many new seasonal arrivals and migrants have been observed. After a seven-month absence, a Green Heron was back on station on 28 April. As if it hadRead more