Zooming – May 2017

I used the zoom on my camera so much in May that almost every picture was a candidate for this post. I picked some images that were no previously included in posts for the slide show below:

• A fly perched on a tiny yellow flower covered in water droplets
• New leaves at the tips of the maple branch – and a fly that I didn’t see until I looked at the picture on a big screen
• A butterfly head and shoulders…the zoom is enough that the individual yellow scales show in the darker part of the wing.
• New leaves on the sycamore. The size variation of sycamore leaves is very large: small fingernail to dinner plate.
• A resting butterfly
• Peonies: flower and bud
• An insect that looks like dried leaves
• A monarch caterpillar
• A butterfly – again the individual scales can be detected as ‘powder’ over the darker markings
• A chipping sparrow making a mess at the feeder
• A butterfly wing collage

Enjoy!

Photographs through my Office Window – April 2017

There has been a lot of activity through my office window this month. The squirrels are feasting on the tender samaras in the maple – early in the month

And then a couple of weeks later when the leaves are unfurling.

The squirrels have a pathway around our yard via trees and fence…rarely on the ground.

The robins are around but don’t seem as numerous as previous years.

We now have two kinds of sparrows: chipping sparrows and

White throated sparrows (with the dash of yellow above their eye).

The blue jays are still frequent visitors to the bird bath.

I haven’t seen a lot of grackles but there was one that visited our yard long enough for a picture.

We have a pair of cardinals again this year – probably nesting nearby.

Mourning doves like the birdbath and the roof line of our covered deck. This one seemed to want its picture taken!

The Juncos are Gone

Our juncos left for the Canada (or the Appalachians) last week. They are frequent visitors to our bird feeder here in central Maryland during the winter. It seemed that they did not all leave at the same time…but within just a few days. There were the usual number one day…the only one or two the next…then none at all.

They are only here in the winter and then go to their breeding grounds for the late spring and summer. They overlap with the chipping sparrows for a few weeks in the spring in Maryland – the sparrows coming north to Maryland for their breeding season. The birds are about the same size and do not share the bird feeder gracefully.