3 Free eBooks – May 2017

I am enjoying the Hathi Trust collection of books authored by Robert Sweet – a botanist, horticulturist, and ornithologist that published in the early 1800s. They are all beautifully illustrated….and I like the botanical prints and bird depictions in books from the 1800s.

The British Flower Garden has drawings by Edwin Dalton Smith. London: W. Simpkin and R. Marshall. There are 7 volumes available from Hathi Trust: 3 in the first series and 4 in the second published between 1823 and 1838.

The ornamental flower garden and shrubbery was a work selected from selected from Sweet’s work and that of David Don and published by London: G. Willis in 1982. It is listed as volume 1 on Hathi Trust so there could be other volumes that are just not available yet online.

Cage and chamber-birds; their natural history, habits, food, diseases, management, and modes of capture listed Johann Matthaus Bechstein as the author, HG Adams as the editor and Sweet as the source for all information on warblers more than a half century after his death. London: G. Bell and Sons. 1892. The book is available online here. I was surprised that so many of the birds were consider viable cage birds during that time.

Cistinae. The natural order of cistus, or rock-rose was published by London: J. Ridgway, 1930 and is available on Hathi Trust here. Sweet is listed as the sole author on this one.

Geraniaceae : the natural order of gerania was published by London: J. Ridgway, 1930 and 5 volumes are available from Hathi Trust here. During that time period there were a lot of varieties of ‘geraniums’ that were developed and cultivated. I’ve only gotten through the 1^st volume so far….still have the other 4 to savor!

Gleanings of the Week Ending May 27, 2017

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

US life expectancy varies by more than 20 years from county to county – So many variables…lifestyle, healthcare, poverty. The result is a daunting public health picture.

Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week # 87 – The kingfisher is my favorite in this group of images.

17 Mummies Unearthed in Egypt – There could be even more. They appear to be from Egypt’s Greco-Roman period. Hopefully more details will be reported as the excavation continues.

Several articles about women’s health that came out reclently: 1) We’re Ignoring Women Astronauts’ Health at our Peril – The surprise is how little we really know about human health risk (there isn’t much even on men’s health although the Twin Study has provided an uptick of information) of long times in space. There is a lot to learn as humanity enters spacefaring. 2) Focus on infants during childbirth leaves US moms in danger – This one came out a few days before Mother’s Day. I was appalled that women are dying during or immediately after childbirth in the US that I thought were well within our expertise to prevent.

The most dangerous highways in America – I am on the one listed for Maryland often!

Mega trends and technologies 2017-2050 – a graphic to display in large form (if you have it up in a browser – click on it to enlarge then scroll up/down and left/right.

Chihuly’s Colorful Glass Sculptures Sprout Up in the New York Botanical Garden – They will be there until October 29, 2017.

Don’t Screen for Thyroid Cancer, Task Force Says – There is enough experience with the results of increased testing over the past decade or so to determine that the ‘harms outweigh the benefits’!

Photography in the national parks: Birds, Beaches, Blooms, and Bottles at Padre Island National Seashore – Padre Island looks like a good destination for a birding trip…maybe next fall.

How to Clean the Eiffel Tower – A 43 second video shows how it is done….approximately every 7 years.

A Walk Around Josey Ranch Lake – May 2017

I was in Carrollton, Texas last week and walked around the lake at Josey Ranch. This is the third time for this year (January and March posts). The coots, lesser scaup, and northern shovelers that were there during the earlier visits have left for their nest grounds in the north. There seemed to be even more Great-Tailed Grackles and I realized how different the females look than the males. My favorite picture was of a pair that were probably giving me the eye…keeping me clear of their nest.

The Desert Willow was in bloom.

The thistles were blooming in almost all the unmowed places around the lake.

Butterfly bush seems to be a favored planting and seems to be mostly contained my mowing except for this one near the bridge. It probably was not planted there.

People bring bread to leave for the birds. Sometimes there is a lot on the grass even after the people leave. The pigeons, grackles, and mute swans seems to be the biggest feeders. The ducks seem to prefer other food although they check the bread periodically.

The Mallard ducklings are about as large as the parents. In the picture below, the mother has orange in her beak…the others are her brood. The father was strutting between me and the group in the photo.

There were three turtles on a log. I thought they were all the same until I got home and looked at them on a larger screen. Two are red-eared sliders. The third one had so much mud and algae on its back that the shell pattern is hard to see; not sure what it is…but definitely not a red-eared slider.

Belmont Field Trips

I didn’t get much photography done during the times I was at Belmont for pre-school  ‘Nature Tales’ and 7^th grade ‘BioBlitz’ field trips. I am so focused on the students while they are there….my primary picture taking time is the lull before they arrive or after they leave! The grounds are lush now even though I still miss the huge elm that used to dominate the lawn in front of the manor house.

The pond has a path mowed down to it but I like the taller grass everywhere else.

I took a picture of the horse chestnut in bloom early in May (one of my favorite trees…but this is not a healthy tree, unfortunately).

There were two pre-school field trips on the same day and I had a picnic between the morning and afternoon sessions…and took pictures of birds (mockingbirds and a robin) that came to the lawn in front of the nature center.

I brought of the end of the hiking group through the woods and hurriedly took a picture of a flower along the trail.

And the BioBlitz group found some brightly colored fungi on some rotting wood….while they made their entry in iNaturalist…I got a picture too!

Carrollton Yard

I was in Carrollton TX last week and took some photos of the yard in the lulls between family visits. It is hotter in Texas than in Maryland. The red yucca is a popular plant in the area now but my Mother had it in her garden for over 30 years and it propagates! It was blooming and there were green seed pods already on her plants.

There was a ceramic duck in the foliage – that has seen a lot of freeze thaw cycles and is deteriorating in place.

There were several plants I photographed because of the way the light made them ‘glow’

And others that were highlighted simply because they were colors other than green.

There was an American Green Anole on rooster sculpture! He stayed long enough for a portrait…and then turns so I could photograph the other side.

Mt. Pleasant Farm in May 2017

The Howard County Conservancy’s Mt. Pleasant Farm was a busy place in May: many field trips from elementary and middle schools and the flurry of construction on the education center expansion…trying to finish by the end of the month. There were the usual spring sights around the farm house: black walnuts leafing out and blooming,

Dogwoods in flower (this pink one is and near the rain garden).

And peonies.

The perimeter around the construction is mostly off limits – but the new sign in up.

Last week I took a walk out to the community garden to meet the buses for a 2^nd grade field trip and enjoyed the time before the other volunteers walked out doing some photography. There was plenty to see: dandelions gone to seed,

Water droplets in the grass,

Seeds of grasses and

Sturdy wild flowers in the areas no mowed recently.

The winds have broken some of the ties that held the fencing mesh around the community garden; I noticed it as I photographed goldfinches

And tree swallows. The tree swallows were in a nesting box near where the buses were going to unload. It sounded like there were already nestlings!

Gleanings of the Week Ending May 20, 2017

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Million-Dollar Prize Hints at How Machine Learning May Someday Spot Cancer – Hopefully this type of technology will reduce the number of false positives that have been so common as we’ve used advanced imaging to find cancer (too many times when biopsies have been done and it has not been cancer). Note that the winning team was from a Chinese university. No country – even the US – can rest on past innovation for their future.

How farmers put apples into suspended animation – 9 in 10 apples bought in the US are grown in the US. This article talks about how apples are stored so that we have them throughout the year rather than just in the fall.

Frosty Monarchs – This was a post from earlier in May…but it has great picture of the milkweed egg. We had some cooler temperatures here in Maryland after the milkweed came up; there was frost on the rooftops but the it must not have gotten to freezing at ground level since the milkweed was unscathed.

Antarctica’s Blood Falls Helps Unravel the Inner Workings of Glaciers – Briny water flows (i.e. in liquid form) flows under the ice of the glacier!

Golden years are longer and healthier for those in good health in middle age – When I read the headline, my first question was - what did they define as “middle age”? The answer was ages 40-59. It was a 40 year study with 18,714 participants. It makes the point that living healthy in mid-life is important to health later in life.

It’s Raining Blood and Feathers: Catching the Spring Raptor Show – There is so much going on in the spring…and it not just flowers and song birds.

Dragons on the Hunt – Komodo dragons bring down a water buffalo. (5-minute video)

Cost of Zika outbreak in the United States could be high – There is a lot of complexity….but even assuming a lower incidence rate that has been observed in other parts of the world and that only the southern tier of the US would be impacted…still results in high costs. Prevention costs money and treatment even more. The range from the models is $183 million to $1.2 billion. Another article on the broader topic of mosquito-borne illnesses: Researchers analyze what a warming planet means for mosquito-borne illnesses.

The Art of Botanical Illustration, Scientific Botany – Some of these botanists/artists I have found before…I’m going to check what Internet Archive and Hathi Trust have in their scanned collections for each of them.

Serene Photos Highlight the Tranquil Beauty of 100 Japanese Gardens – Eye candy…even better if you have a garden near you to visit.

Brookside Gardens after a Rain

Before and after our session with the butterflies in the conservatory last week, I took short walks around a very wet Brookside Gardens. The stream near the entrance was flowing over boulders that have been added in past few years to control erosion. I took a picture up and down stream from the bridge. The vegetation has increased dramatically over the past month.

A squirrel enjoyed a nut on a low pine branch.

The old water garden has matured into a rain garden. I like the low growing plants spilling over the rocks.

The winds had blown a small branch of leaves out of a tulip poplar tree and into the parking lot.

There were wildflowers blooming along the boardwalk between the conservatory and the nature center.

My favorites were the Jack-in-the-Pulpit

And the columbine.

There were some very wet mushrooms growing on an injured tree trunk…covered with slugs.

Many of the ferns were already unfurled but there was a fiddlehead and unfurling frond that I couldn’t resist photographing.

There were some very wet irises in one of the formal gardens

But I liked the red poppies more.

Brookside Gardens Wings of Fancy – Part II

Continuing the post about our photography session at Brookside’s Wings of Fancy…..

The starry cracker looked like its name. I’ll remember this one from now on.

Now for two very similar butterflies. The first one is (probably) a ‘batwing’ from Asia – a red fuzzy body.

This one also has black wings and red on its body but it also has swallowtail-like lobes on the ends of its wings. It’s a Pink Rose and is native to the Philippines.

The malachite is a butterfly I’ve known about for several years from the Brookside exhibit. It is from Central and South America. Several of these images were against the glass wall of the conservatory. I liked the way the lights from outside highlighted the pattern of the wings.

The paper kite butterflies are large butterflies that seem to have extra flexion points in their wings. They flutter! It’s an Asian butterfly and well represented in butterfly houses around the world.

There were a few Monarch butterflies in the exhibit. I anticipate taking lots of Monarch pictures as my caterpillar(s) mature so I’ve only included on here.

The golden helicon is aptly named – note the gold tipped antennae.

The buckeye is surprisingly colorful upon close inspection. The powdery look on the wings makes it easy to imagine the scale structure that would be visible at higher magnification (and trauma to the butterfly). The wings were battered on this specimen. It is a butterfly I might see in Maryland!

The pipevine swallowtail is another than I might see where I live.

The next one is some other kind of swallowtail although the ‘tails’ are broader than we see on our local swallowtails. I thought the butterfly looked like it was yearning to be outdoors – even in the rain!

The brown tip is another one I’d seen before. When I found it on Wikipedia (Siproeta epaphus), I realized that there was considerable variability within the species so the link I provided for this one is to a more specific butterfly site.

The banded orange butterfly looks like its name – both from dorsal and ventral views. I like the ventral ones the best.

The butterfly with the orange dots is a male Grecian shoemaker. The female looks very different. It is from Central and South America…not sure why it is named the way it is.

A battered zebra mosaic butterfly – enjoying a banana. Even the body is patterned!

The leopard lacewing is another butterfly that has complex markings on the underside of the wing.

The golden birdwing is a butterfly in near constant motion. It flutters while it fees on flower – not resting it’s weight on the flower – hence the motions blurs.

The ruby-spotted swallowtail classification is a bit confusing. I found two references as seem to be conflicting but both look like the butterfly I photographed: Wikipedia’s Papilio anchisiades and Butterflies of America’s Heraclides anchisades. The common name is ‘ruby-spotted swallowtail’ in both cases.

I enjoyed the Focus on Butterflies session so much that I won’t mind doing it again this season. The call for volunteers to help with the exhibit is still on the Brookside web site so I signed for the next available training (in early June) and will volunteer thereafter. The exhibit continues until mid-September.

Brookside Gardens Wings of Fancy – Part I

My husband and I signed up for the ‘Focus on Butterflies’ session last weekend. It’s a 2 hour time in the Wings of Fancy exhibit at Brookside Gardens before it opens to the public for the day….tripods allowed. It was quite an experience. We went in through an employee entrance at the side of the conservatory and entered the conservatory which was much warmer than outside. We quickly shed our jackets. The butterflies were very active and we immediately started taking pictures. I had a tripod and my monopod – ended up using the monopod the whole time. My Canon SX720 HS is light enough that the monopod works very well and had the added benefit of being a lot easier to move quickly.

I took over 400 pictures! I picked out the best when I got home and tried to group the ones of the same species together. Then I used the photographs I’d taken of the information board in the exhibit to try to identify the butterflies; it was a little difficult. I’ll do a better job of identification if I do another session later in the season. This time I prioritized magnified views of the heads and interesting features of wings.

The black and white butterfly was one of the first that I took. I was experimenting with how to get the clarity and magnification I wanted.

I took a picture of a blue morpho with its wings closed very early in the session not realizing what it was until later when I found one with a torn wing that was resting on a ledge…and was easy to photograph. Usually these butterflies are moving all the time and when they do sit they tend to show their ‘eyes’ rather than their blue wings.

An orange proboscis!

And orange tips on the antennae!

A Julia longwing with the distinctive arrowhead mark on the wing.

One of the volunteers for the session point out some Costa Rican clearwings. They are hard to see since they are small – and not colorful.

I always notice butterflies that have red – anywhere. These have streaks coming from the attachment site of the wing. The proboscis was very tightly coiled.

The Sara Longwing is metallic blue with two bands of white on the forewings. When I looked it up on Wikipedia I discovered that underneath it looks very much like the butterfly above with red streaks. Hmm…maybe those were Sara lacewings too.

There were two Atlas Moths that were in the same place the whole time we were in the conservatory. They do not have mouths and only live a few days.  

I’ll post about the other butterflies I photographed tomorrow!

Our Neighborhood Water Retention Pond – Update 1

I posted last week about the work to clean out our neighborhood water retention pond – about the muddy mess of the banks. Since then, straw has been placed over the mud. I noticed it when I was heading out to a day of volunteering for pre-school nature field trips. When I returned in mid-afternoon, it was raining. I stopped, rolled down the passenger side window, and took pictures of the pond.

Some of the straw has already started to sluff down into the pond from the slopes; the rain was too much for the straw to hold…and some of the soil was probably going down to the pond as well. If there had been seeds put down with the straw, many were probably also in the pond. Hopefully something will start growing on the slopes quickly. I noticed some birds on the far side of the pond -probably some ducks, I thought, based on their size and the way they were moving.

I used my camera to zoom in on the ducks and was surprised; they were wood ducks!

There were 4 males and 1 female. They seemed to be finding a lot of tidbits in the straw and around the edges of the pond in general. I wondered if they had been to our pond before but had not been visible because of all the dense vegetation. With the condition of the pond now – there is probably not a good place for them to nest in our neighborhood this year.

I was so pleased to see the wood ducks – but will be happier when the pond does not look like a muddy construction zone.

Great Crested Flycatcher

There was a bird sitting on the support of the old weather instruments at my house a few days ago. It was something different than I had ever seen before. I took quite a few pictures through my office window hoping they would be good enough to identify it.

I used the Merlin app to help me identify it (size between a sparrow and a robin, colors yellow, brown and white, and on a fence or wire). And then browsed through the possibilities to figure out what it was. It was easy! Maybe next time I will try providing the picture to Merlin and letting it give me fewer possibilities.

I hope the Great Crested Flycatcher decides that the support is a good place to perch looking for insects. It seemed to spot something but then flew away at the same time some house finches few away from the bird bath that is located below. It would be an interesting bird to watch hunting insects all summer!

Gleanings of the Week Ending May 13, 2017

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Sounding Off on Noise – I’ve been thinking a lot more about noise since I started driving an electric vehicle. I notice and enjoy the quiet of the vehicle even though the noise from the well-maintained gasoline powered cars was something I accepted as ‘white noise’ for all the years of my life up to 2017. I would rather hear natural noises (birds singing, wind in the trees) that noise from a highway or airplanes overhead.

Albatrosses counted from space – Even nests inaccessible to humans (on the Chatham Islands off New Zealand) can be seen in satellite images from the WorldView-3 satellite. The numbers of nesting pairs were lower than expected. Several more years of observations will be needed to determine if it is just a poor year or the numbers of birds are indeed declining.

The Nature of Americans: A national initiative to understand and connect Americans and Nature – There is a lot on this site. I started browsing with the Major Findings and then Recommendations. It is well organized and intended to be actionable.

Foods that Lower Cholesterol – No surprises…but the review is good.

Guggenheim Museum Releases over 200 Modern Art Books Online for Free – I am enjoying browsing this collection on the Internet Archive.

Saber-Tooth Cats, Dire Wolves Found in La Brea Tar Pits Show Wounds from Ice Age Battles – Based on analysis of just under 2,000 bones that revealed signs of trauma sustained in combat….events of lives etched in bone.

2-ingredient no-sugar date caramel sauce – Yum! I made this in my small Ninja – very easy and yummy. I’ve used it as a dip for apple slices and spread on toast. A great treat and counts as a fruit and calcium.

Moose hair and birch bark – Taking a close look at an artifact that will go into the Native American Voices gallery at the Penn Museum later this month – after a bit of treatment in The Artifact Lab.

A first-ever find in Egypt: 4,000-year-old funerary garden at tomb entrance – Before now, this type of garden was only known from illustrations on tomb walls.

The secrets of the Coke and Mentos Fountain – A fun experiment….and chemistry lesson.

Monarch Caterpillars Saga II

It was about 40 degrees on the morning I went out to look for the caterpillars again and decide which milkweed plant to cut (the one with the most caterpillars was my criteria). I didn’t find any caterpillars! I decided to wait a few hours for the temperature to climb a little. By early afternoon it was in the 50s and I found a caterpillar on one of the plants.

It was near the base of one of the leaves, close the stem. I couldn’t tell that it had munched nearby but the caterpillars do go through cycles of eating voraciously and then resting as they develop…and it had been cold during the night.

I carried the fish tank out to the front flower bed. I’d found a glass flower arranger that I planned to use to hold the stalks of milkweed upright and their ends in water.

The stalk turned out to be a little bigger than the hole so I trimmed it around the edges enough for it to fit. Then I took the whole thing back inside and covered it with netting.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the caterpillar becomes active and thrives in my Monarch Caterpillar nursery.

Monarch Caterpillars Saga I

Last weekend, my husband commented that we had milkweed coming up in our front flowerbed (milkweed plants circled in white in the picture below) and I needed to cut it down. Once milkweed is established it comes up year after year from the roots.

I decided to check for Monarch caterpillars on the plants first. Sure enough – I found caterpillars. The first one I found was tiny. I almost didn’t see it. It was less than a quarter of an inch long!

The other two were a little further along. The yellow, black and white stripes typical of Monarch caterpillars were more evident.

I decided I would try raising the caterpillars in an old fish tank that was previously gathering dust in our basement. I’ve cleaned it up and purchased the netting to cover the top. My next post will be about my adventure cutting the milkweed with the caterpillars on it and setting up my Monarch caterpillar nursery. I have plenty of milkweed to nourish the caterpillars until they make their chrysalis. When they hatch – I’ll release the butterflies near a good patch of milkweed so they can lay more eggs and continue their northward journey.

Our Neighborhood Water Retention Pond

The water retention pond that is supposed to slow down water run-off from our neighborhood was not working and there was flooding occurring with more frequency. Earth moving equipment was brought in by the country and turned a pond with lots of vegetation for wildlife around it (picture from last December)

Into a mud pit with very little vegetation around it. We had a day of heavy rain right after the vegetation was scraped away and the water than accumulated looks thick with silt and has already developed a green scum.

Here it is from a different angle. No one will be sitting on the bench enjoying the antics of red winged blackbirds in the cattails or frogs crocking in the pond anytime soon! One of the neighbors commented that she’d seen a large owl looking at the pond from one of the neighboring houses. It’s likely that it’s home was destroyed. Hopefully, the project will enable the pond to function as it should for water retention. The pond needs some grasses or other vegetation planted on the slopes or this clean out of the pond is going to be short lived.

The only positive thing I saw on my walk around the pond was a single solitary sandpiper. With the heavy vegetation that was around the pond previously, the bird would not have been visible even if it had visited.

On the back side of the pond there is milkweed coming up but the plants are on the edge of the area not previously mowed. Hopefully they will survive for the Monarch Butterflies this season.

Gleanings of the Week Ending May 6, 2017

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Meditation: Which type is best for you? – So many choices…it doesn’t take long to choose and tailor one that fits your needs. I feel better when I have a meditation practice almost every day!

Sea-Level Rise Will Send Millions of Refugees to Inland Cities – A study authored by a demographer at University of Georgia about how the US will change as people move from areas that are increasingly flood prone over the next century. The state by state graphic shows Louisiana and Florida losing the most; Texas and Georgia gain the most. Maryland – where I live – gains a little.

Underdiagnoses of age-related macular degeneration, findings suggest – Evidently early stages of age-related macular degeneration is under diagnosed by both optometrists and ophthalmologists….something to talk to your provider at your next eye checkup if you are over 60.

Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week #85 – Birds….always great eye candy. This set contains an American Oystercatcher near the bottom (a closer view than I captured near the Dupont Nature Center.

For Some, Pre-Hospice Care Can Be a Good Alternative to Hospitals – Palliative care at home…happier patients and saving money…win-win. Hope these types of programs become available nation wide.

The Essential I.M. Pei – The architect recently celebrated his 100^th birthday. This article from the Smithsonian includes pictures of his most iconic works.

Welcome to the Poison Garden: Medicine’s Medieval Roots – A description of the garden at Alnwick Castle that contains plants with poisonous properties.

Behold the James Webb Telescope in all its Unfurled Glory – It’s still under construction…but will succeed the Hubble Space Telescope (launch projected in 2018).

35 Years of American Death – An interactive US map with color coding to show mortality rates for different diseases from 1980 – 2014. The one for ‘mental and substance use disorders’ shows the impact of the opioid epidemic – more pronounced in some areas of the country than others.

3D printing of glass now possible – A new way to work with glass from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (Germany).

Dupont Nature Center – Part 2

We stopped along the road that connects the Dupont Nature Center to the road on higher ground since it was a place that clapper rails are seen frequently. Our guide played the call of the bird…and we heard a response! We did see peeps on the mud flats that were studded with snails; I took a few pictures as we waited for the rail to show itself. But the bird did not make an appearance.

Our group caravanned to several beaches near the Dupont Nature Center. The red roof of the Nature Center was visible from the first one. 

The tide was going out…not many birds around since it was too early for the horseshoe crabs to have laid their eggs. I photographed the debris at the high tide make…welk egg cases, pieces of horseshoe crab shells and broken or conglomerate shells.

On another beach, there were gulls (probably juvenile ring-billed gulls) finding dinner! The clouds were thickening and the lightning was not very good for photography by this time. We called it a day and headed home.

Dupont Nature Center – Part 1

Last week, my husband and I attended a day of the Spring Delmarva Birding Weekend; I’ve posted (part 1, part 2) already about the birds I photographed at the Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge near Smyrna DE. The second destination was The Dupont Nature Center at Mispillion Harbor Reserve. The Nature Center itself was closed while we were there but we used the outside deck for the first half of our bird watching. Double-crested Cormorants were on pilons just out in the water from the nature center and on a sandy spit.

Zooming in on the sand spit that would be under water at high tide – Horseshoe Crabs are visible. Soon they will be laying their eggs – a feast for migrating short birds that need the burst of high energy food to complete their trek to the far north.

Tree Swallows and Barn Swallows were both flitting around near the Nature Center too. The Tree Swallows have white breasts and the Barn Swallows are rust colored; the Barns Swallows seems to be preening their feathers every time they sat on the pilons – hence the almost comical poses in the photographs below.

There was a female Osprey on a nesting platform.

Two American Oyster Catchers flew in and landed on the jetty.

A Royal Tern watched from near the fishing boats. The black feathers always look like a bad toupee to me!

A Black Skimmer swooped down low on the water…I didn’t quite catch the bird skimming.

This European Starling looks a scruffy but the iridescence of the wing feathers shows up with the bright sun.

Tomorrow I’ll write about a beach we visited near the Dupont Nature Center.

Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge – Part 2

Continuing yesterday’s blog post about our visit to the Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge near Smyrna DE….

There were quite a few Great Blue Herons – none were very close.

There were four way out in one of the ponds. When I zoomed in I discovered there were Northern Shovelers (ducks) and a Black-Necked Stilt.

Also further out – near the limit of my camera’s zoom – was a Great Egret and a lot of smaller birds. The ones with the black breast are Black-Bellied Plovers. In the second picture below there is one flying; the black belly with very white rump and black armpits are clearly visible.

Then something startled the birds and they flew up – curtaining the egrets behind them!

In another area, there were two mute swans. These are not natives. Many states try to control their numbers because they are aggressive and have such voracious appetites that they disrupt local ecosystems and displace native species.

I got several pictures of Yellowlegs. The ones with the longer bills are Greater Yellowlegs and the short bills are Lesser Yellowlegs.