Miscellany

One evening during the "golden hour", it was so lovely outside (in other words, not windy) that I wandered around snapping photos. Here are some of the things that caught my eye.

A robin's egg that didn't make it to the nest:

A maple leaf that was full of gall mite nodules:

A closer look at some more of them (kinda creepy, huh?):

An old empty milkweed pod, contrasted against the new spring growth:

Wild phlox Update: A very observant reader discovered that these are not wild phlox but "Dame's Rocket" growing in the ditch (thanks, Jenny!). In my reading, I found that they're an invasive species that crowd out natural wildflowers and should be removed. Hmm... I think I'll leave them there... I enjoy them. ;)

Half a moon:

Rolling hills of new crops:

And I didn't have to walk more than 50 feet for any of them.

Yesterday's sightings

I took my camera outside yesterday when I went to meet Courtney at the bus. Below is what I saw. The lilacs are just beginning to bloom. And smell wonderful!

Last week on the way to meeting Courtney at the bus, I discovered this robin's nest, but I didn't have the camera along, and I never got around to going back out there with it. It had 3 eggs in it.

Yesterday I peeked in again, and two of the eggs had just hatched. These little birdies were still pretty weak, but one had its head up with mouth open wide right after Mama hopped off the nest. Unfortunately, by the time I got the camera focused, it wouldn't do it again. So new and fragile.

Then Courtney arrived and immediately decided to pick Grandma a bouquet of dandelions. Notice that she's still using the backpack I made her a couple of years ago. She usually has it loaded with a LOT of stuff, and it has really held up well! The only place showing any wear at all is the corners of the blue outside pocket, and it's minimal. Tough fabric! And it was well worth my time making it.

She found one of very few (so far) dandelion puffs and tried blowing the seeds off as she made a wish. Everything is so soggy from all the wet weather we've had, though, that they didn't blow very well. I'm afraid she's not going to get her wish for a "Kit" American Girl doll (not sure if she wants her own Kit, or mine!).

As we got back to the house, we discovered all these mushrooms (toadstools?) at the base of our hackberry tree.

Quite a crop here. I don't think I'll be harvesting any, though. ;)

That's all the pics I took yesterday. We did visit the kittens, who are just getting cuter every day, but we didn't take time for a photo shoot. Maybe next time!

Beware - may be frightening!

Take care when viewing this first photo. You might not want to let little children see it unattended!

A couple weeks ago when Courtney was here, I was busy with something in the house, so she went out to visit the kitties by herself. She didn't stay out there very long (even though I'd told her I'd be out there "soon"). When she came back, she told me she'd seen a nest that had a face!

I asked her where this nest was, and she said it was way up high by the ceiling. I thought it sounded pretty intriguing, so we headed back out to the machine shed to take a look.

She sort of pointed it out to me, but she wouldn't look directly at it. It seemed to be too scary to look at!

I finally saw what she'd seen! A nest with a "face", indeed! Can you see it?

Pretty wicked-looking, huh?!

I assured her that it was nothing but an empty barn swallow nest, and that it only looked like a face. So she was able to then look at it a little closer herself. It also helped that a barn swallow landed in it for a few seconds. That was even more reassuring.

All in the eye of the beholder. :)

On another odd bird note, look what I found in the birdbath one day:

(Excuse the grossness of the bath. I've given up trying to keep it clean. I just scrub it with a steel brush occasionally when I change the water, and call it good. I did bleach it before I put it outside this spring, but that cleanliness didn't last long.)

It's a robin's eggshell. Have a closer look:

I wonder why. Weird.

Another sign of spring

While I was out mowing on Wednesday, I scared a couple of birds off their nests. The next morning I went out with the camera... and scared them off again.

Here's a robin's nest:

And a blackbird's nest:

Perfect, aren't they? But goodness... 5 eggs! Do blackbirds usually lay that many (Dale?)? It's gonna be a lot of work when those little beaks appear wanting food!

I hope the parents can keep those eggs warm! High temp is only supposed to be in the mid-40's today, and tonight there's that 's' word in the forecast. Ack! No accumulation, though... hopefully. And for tomorrow night there's a chance of patchy frost. Someone had better go out and put blankets on the corn that's peeking out of the ground!

Speaking of hatching...

I decided to check the robin's nest yesterday, a couple days early, just to make sure all was well, and that I didn't miss anything. Good thing I did... 2 of the eggs had hatched already! Mama Robin must've begun sitting on the nest as soon as she laid the first or second egg.

Not too cute at this stage, huh? ;-)

I didn't peek in the nest this morning. Since it was only 42° outside (aargh!), I didn't want to scare Mama Robin away from keeping her babies warm.

I found a web site with very interesting information about robins and their nesting instincts. Lots of stuff I didn't know. It's worth a read... check it out here.

Robin's egg blue x 4

I found this nest in an evergreen tree in our back yard. Of course Mama Robin wasn't too happy with me when I took this photo, but I was quick, so as to not disturb her for very long. The last egg was laid Friday morning, the 16th, so in 12-14 days from then, there should be babies. I will keep you posted!

Robin's egg blue

The birds must be having trouble getting their nests made this year or something. Maybe because of the weather? Anyway, in 2 days I've found 3 different eggs just lying on the ground.

This first is a robin egg, found at the base of a tree.

This next one's a wren egg, I think. The photo doesn't really give much perspective on the size. I should've held it in my hand to show how tiny it is. Compare it to the blades of grass, I guess. I found it under the edge of a bush right next to the house, with no nest in sight.

I think this third one is a blackbird egg. It was just out in the open. Poor birds.

Here's a beginning of a nest that I found in the old asparagus stalks that I was cleaning out of the garden. It's pretty tiny... maybe made by a wren, or perhaps one of those song sparrows I showed you a couple days ago. It has very fine hairs and stuff woven together in it.

In contrast, here's a big nest near the top of a lilac bush... probably a blackbird nest. It may be an old one from last year. It seems to be made of mostly twigs, "sewn" together with bits of twine string. I think it's amazing how birds can build their nests!

Note that the lilac bush is finally getting little green leaf buds!