Top Photo: Eastern towhee sings, “Drink your Te-e-e-e-e-e.” The towhee above is a local breeder and resides here year round. The tree swallows below have just returned from their wintering areas along the gulf coast and Central America and have claimed the nest box for their own (it was built specifically for them). The hermit thrush pictured here spends the winter with us but will be departing for points north within the next few weeks, if not days. Early seasonRead more
Posts tagged: #pawpaw
Some Outdoor Goings-on
Top Photo: Two adult red-tailed hawks silhouetted against the clouds as they soar above Butterfly House. Note that each bird is molting. The two red-tailed hawks above successfully nested on the museum grounds. They’re regular nesters. I rarely see eastern cottontails on our 84 acre campus, until this year. I’ve seen more this spring and summer than I have in perhaps the last 14 years of hiking the museum’s trails. Predator numbers must be down. Besides the red-tailed hawks above,Read more
Keep Watching the Spring
Top Photo: Pipe vine flower. Spring keeps rolling along in typical fashion, flora and fauna reacting and adjusting to our hemisphere’s slow tilt towards the sun. The days are getting longer, the temperatures warmer. Here, in no particular order, are things I’ve come across in my walks around campus. The painted lady in the photo is a worn individual with scale damage and fraying on the wings. Blue-gray gnatcatchers are small but noisy birds. They arrive in our area earlyRead more