Backyard and Beyond

The very red eye of an adult Eastern Towhee feeding its noisy, grey fledgling, well into a thicket but visible through binoculars, a caterpillar meal. A Cormorant sanding on the beach with its lower bill wedged into a hardshell clam. Who had who there? A Buckeye, keeping low, but unmistakable with that eyespot pattern.Low to the ground, too, the Prickly Pear, in bloom, and six feet off it, the Yucca filamentosa..
In a curl of milkweed, an Ailanthus webworm moth, cloaked in finery.And everywhere, the Tree swallows. Small bill, large mouth, all the better for scooping insects from the sky.