As of Tuesday (5/13/13) there were three empty nest boxes. The nestlings that had once occupied them have fledged. Take a close look at the nest below which is located at the Bungee Jump. The five nestling chickadees that were once crowded into this nest are gone, fledged. I didn’t have a chance to clean the nest box after the chickadees had fledged before a bluebird built a nest on top of the old nest. The left arrow points toRead more
Posts tagged: #greg dodge
Cicindela sexguttata
What is a Cicindela sexguttata? It’s a Six-spotted Tiger Beetle and if you’ve followed this Journal for the past several years you’d know that I usually start seeing them along the paths here at the Museum in March, and certainly by April. This is the latest sighting (5/8) of this emerald hued tiger beetle since I’ve been here at the Museum. I saw one at my home a few weeks back, but just one, a fleeting glance at one asRead more
Bluebird Update 4.30.13
Once again it’s time for the weekly Bluebird Update. All nests are progressing as they should, or rather as I hope they would, except one curious development with the nest in the infamous Sail Boat Pond nest box (we’ll get to that later). The “Cow Pasture” bluebirds have hatched. It’s difficult to see but it appears that only four eggs out of the original five have hatched. I can see only four beaks in the photo below but it’s possibleRead more
Bluebird Update 4.23.13
Tuesdays are bluebird days. As I do every Tuesday during this time of year, I checked the nest boxes on our Bluebird Trail here at the Museum and the news is good. All seems well on the trail this week, no predation, new eggs laid and some eggs hatching. The Cow Pasture nest has shown no change, it still has five unmolested eggs. They should hatch any day now. The Chickadees in the nest next to the Bungee are now parents,Read more
Bluebird Update 4.2.13
There are only two changes in the status of our six nest boxes since the last Bluebird Update. First, the nest in the Cow Pasture near the Train Tunnel has been completed. It was started by a bluebird, worked on by a chickadee and finished by a bluebird. Notice that the nest has pine needles as a base (bluebird), moss on top of the pine needles (chickadee), and finally it’s topped off with pine needles (bluebird). There were no eggsRead more
Shoulders Return
The headline above is a bit misleading. The Red-shouldered Hawks (shoulders) never left, they just haven’t been perch-hunting here at the Museum as they had in years past. I could pretty much count of seeing one of our resident shoulders at least every other day, if not every day, perched somewhere along the Trail either in Explore the Wild or just inside the woods along the path in Catch the Wind. Although I often hear them calling from above asRead more