Top Photo: Eastern bluebird eggs (from previous season). Not much has changed since last week’s nest box inspection. The same two nest boxes have been active, though one in a negative manner. There is definitely interest in both boxes. The Cow Pasture nest box holds a near complete bluebird nest. The bluebirds have been busy. Too early for eggs? The Explore the Wild and Into the Mist nest boxes are untouched. The nest box on the east side of theRead more
Posts filed in: Birds
Early Spring Things to See
Top Photo: Balancing act by yellow-bellied slider. The unusually warm February has brought out early baskers, bloomers and animal hormones. If you haven’t seen turtles basking in the wetlands you haven’t been looking very hard. Every available perch is occupied, with no room to spare. Normally heavy sleepers, I even saw a snapping turtle the other day. Red buckeye, one of the earliest shrubs to open up, is doing so now. There are a dozen of them planted along theRead more
Immature Plumage
Top Photo: Adult male hooded merganser. The next time you’re down in our wetlands, scrutinize the female mergansers. One of them may be a male. Adult male hooded mergansers (photo above) are easy to pick out in a crowd. Their chestnut sides, black back, black and white breast, black and white crested head, and amber eye stand out, for sure. Females are a bit more cryptically plumaged. They’re the ones who will be incubating the eggs inside a tree-cavity nestRead more
The Cooper’s Hawk
Top Photo: Cooper’s hawk in courtship display flight over museum. While spying on hooded mergansers in our wetland here at the Museum of Life + Science, I noticed one of the ducks tilt its head to the side and glance skyward. Reasoning the merganser was eyeing something potentially hazardous to itself, I too craned upward, thinking it perhaps an eagle or other worthy raptor. There, way up high against a severe clear sky was a Cooper’s hawk. It’s stiff postureRead more
Nest Box Update 2.14.2023
Top Photo: Eastern bluebird eggs (from previous year). Official Volunteer Sammie and I went around to all six of our bluebird nest boxes this morning placing new berry baskets inside each as we went. The birds have been singing a bit more than in previous weeks and we wanted to get ahead of them. Though not surprising, a pine needle was found in one of the nest boxes (bluebird?). The nest boxes have all been cleaned and exteriorly coated andRead more
Spring Already?
Top Photo: Male hooded merganser swims past a bale of turtles out basking on a warm February afternoon. Basking turtles, excavating nuthatches, blooming honeysuckle, sunning anoles, and mating hawks, all a part of the spring to come. Sliders come out on every available sunny winter day to bask, but they were out in force on a sunny 70 degree day this week. Brown-headed nuthatches commence cavity construction in soft-wood trees each February. They excavate many more holes than they useRead more
Holly Berry Time!
Top Photo: Cedar waxwing surveys the area for berries. Keep your eyes open for cedar waxwings and American robins raiding the holly trees and bushes around campus. Each year the two species flock in and often pick clean the American and yaupon hollies of their fruit. Even the eastern red cedars take a hit. The fun usually starts in February. It’s February now! American robins can be seen locally in every month of the year. Waxwings are nomadic and mayRead more
Spring?
Top Photo: The pollen flies as I tap hazel alder’s male catkins in our wetlands. February is the time of year hazel alder blooms in our wetland. The plants are monoecious, having both male and female flowers on the same plant. The wine-red female flowers stand above the amber male catkins and are pollinated via the wind, or through the tap of a naturalist’s finger. The shrub is also called smooth alder, common alder, tag alder, or Alnus serrulata inRead more
How Close Can You Get?
Top Photo: Ranger Patrick (lower right) photographing one of the local red-shouldered hawks (beyond and to right of pine tree – large tree trunk on left). Our resident red-shouldered hawks are quite used to human activity. When they’re hunting they seem to pay little or no attention to folks passing by. In the heat of the breeding season the birds seem even less concerned. They often allow close approach by photographers like Ranger Patrick in the photos here, as heRead more