Baby red squirrel

Very cute!

sent from my Droid

sharpie

I got a great view of a sharp-shinned hawk today.  It was especially nice to see it when I did, as I had done a program earlier in the day with a broad-winged hawk.  Birds are so cool!

Also, the second nest of robins - two this time - fledged a couple of days ago.  I expect that's all we'll get this year.

mid summer

Yes, I've been busy and I've been away.  Here's a shot of a cat-tail and some joe-pye-weed from my morning walk.

It's not that I haven't been out and about, it's just that I've been focusing on other things, I guess.

blooming

hot hot hot lately, but the bee balm is blooming - and looking lovely

 

 I haven't had much activity at my hummingbird feeder lately, and I wonder if it is because these delightful flowers are blooming...

just some pics

This is the last of 4 robin hatchlings to fledge (5/23/10)

Bee Balm (Monarda didyma) bud

I put a big bunch of these in near my little pond.  I hope they do well.

new rain barrel and herb garden

busy

I've gotta get some new pics up here.  I have some, quite a few actually, but it's too much fun to be outside doing stuff.  I don't want to take the time to fuss around with this.  I'll try in the next couple of days.  I've got work to do out in the yard, though.  If I don't hop to it, you won't be able to get in and out of the house, the front walk is getting so overgrown.  I'm going to take some of the daylilies and move them out to the area by the road.  Clears the walk, fills an awkward gap that is a pain to mow - win-win, I say. 
I'm also trying to grow some more vegetables this summer.  The swingset has come down, in preparation for a new shed.  I've already got some tomatoes and peppers in pots growing out there.  We'll see how it works.  My long-term plan is to set up some raised beds, but I want to see if there is enough sun for veggies.  If not, I'll go for shade loving perennials.  That's the cool thing about gardening - if one thing doesn't work, something else will.
And I've got a new rain-collecting barrel.  We've had one for a while, in the back of the house, where it catches runoff from a crease in the roof.  The new one is connected to a downspout, and is in front of the house, where most of the plants that need to be watered are.  It's in the herb garden, under an overhang in the roof where no plants would grow.
I used to do a lot of vegetable gardening.  One year I made a lot of pesto - so much that it lasted until basil came into season again the next summer!  Here, my yard is fairly shady, so we'll see how things go.  I've done tomatoes and such in tubs on the front deck with some success, but I'm feeling more ambitious this year.  Wish me luck.

hungry

Those winter moth caterpillars I wrote about the other day have pretty much finished off the leaves on my witch hazel.  I hope it will come back - the leaves, not the munchers!  Interestingly, they've eaten the spring blooming shrub, but not the fall blooming one.  Coincidence?  Location?  I cheer every time I see a bird eating one of those worms.

supper

We've been inundated with winter moth caterpillars here lately.  They are little inchworm type critters, about 1/2 an inch long, and they are decimating the leaves on many trees.  The big, healthy trees will survive, at least this summer, but the weaker ones will be culled, and so goes the circle of life.
On the other hand, somebody's got to eat some of those caterpillars.  And I just saw a cardinal that was doing his darndest to get as many caterpillars as he could.  His mouth was just stuffed full, and he kept trying to grab more.  I suppose he's got a clutch of babies somewhere to feed.  Maybe I'll poke around and see if I can find the nest.  The birds can take as many of those caterpillars as they want - I like green leaves.

river

First kayaking of the season today - very nice, though a little windier than I thought it would be.  Saw tree swallows, red-wing blackbirds, a gull, a crow, a great blue heron, Canada geese, turtles (probably painted), and a beaver lodge.  This was on the Concord River.

cute

There was a red squirrel dashing around my yard this morning, and I managed to get a few pics.  It was pretty cute, and was clearly watching me watch it.  There are, as usual, lots of birds around as well, but I particularly noticed a flicker and a phoebe, neither of which stayed in sight long enough for me to photograph.  But really, it is enough to know that they are around.  Yesterday I saw a fisher on the stone wall behind the house, noticed first by my daughter, and a rabbit in the yard in the late evening, noticed by my son. 

coyote

On our afternoon walk today my daughter and I took different paths around a little stand of pines.  As we neared where they joined up again, she said "Mom, come here."  Then, when I got to where she was standing, pointed toward a rustling sound about 50 yards away.  A coyote pup!  We quickly called the dog back to us and after watching 'til the pup went out of site we headed in the other direction.  There have been coyotes around here as long as we've lived here, and I've seen them on occasion, but never a baby one before.  I'd guess it was around 6 or 8 weeks old, but I really couldn't say for sure, with the distance, short viewing time, and lack of knowledge about coyotes.  I can say for sure that it was cute.

birds

Some nice bird sightings on a morning walk today.  It was on the cool side - mid-40s, I'd guess, though I didn't check a thermometer - but bright and sunny.

I heard, and then saw when I followed the sound, a towhee.  They used to be called rufous-sided, but now are called eastern towhees.  It's not a big bird, but it has a loud and distinctive song.

And up in the field I saw a pair of tree swallows.  First I saw one flying around in the acrobatic way they do.  Then it landed in a tree.

Then I watched them fly around in the air some more.

I saw what might be their nest site.

And I watched them fly around some more, 'til they landed in another tree for a rest.

On April 4 there was a brush fire.  I don't know anything about when or how it started, and I'm thankful that we've had as much rain as we have this spring - the damage doesn't seem too extensive.  But several young pine trees got singed.  I'll be interested to see how they react over the long term.  One good thing I noticed that the fire did was to burn the buds off some winged euonymus bushes - we've got a lot of that invasive around, and I won't be sorry if some of it dies off.