mthew
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Egrets in Trees
Two Great Egrets at the same small pond. Lots of guttural grumblings and retreats to the trees as they contested for… …the rights to the water.
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Winged Critters
Yesterday I pictured some warblers enjoying winged termites, which kept fluttering through the air. Here are some of the termites on the ground. Birders often call these eruptive spring events “hatch-outs” as all sorts of birds come for the feasting at ground level or close to it. Both male and female reproductive caste members of…
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Warblers
Sometimes they land right in front of you. Magnolia Warbler. Other times, most times, not so much. Bay-breasted Warbler. Rather more typical view… Wilson’s Warbler, named after pioneering ornithologist Alexander Wilson. And sometimes, termites reproductives, the winged ones, emerge, and the songbirds fly right overhead hawking them out of the air. (As I was trying…
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Tanagers
As the light hits this male Scarlet Tanager… Too much light in this case. That’s a ground Yellowjacket, one of the Vespula wasps. A female, hunting in the same area. Perching at eye-level or even below, looking all around. Zipping after Hymenoptera. The male virtually crash-landed getting his prey. Piranga olivacea is actually named for…
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Small Flowers
One of the cinquefoils. Two different wood sorrels (Oxalis), I think. Two different Brassica. Corn speedwell (Veronica arvensis). Tiny. Little mouse-ear, Cerastium semidecandrum. A little bit bigger than the speedwell.
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Raptor Wednesday
Two years ago, this London plane tree had a dead, vertical branch on it that was a regular American Kestrel perch. It broke off in a storm in November, 2018, and, ever since, this tree has not been as blessed as a place to see the locals. But yesterday evening, the male was preening here.…
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Vireo gilvus
Warbling Vireo. The species epithet gilvus means “yellowish.” That’s very light-dependent from our modern view, that is, a live bird not in hand, rather than the dead bird such taxonomic nomenclature is based on.
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Neck
This Great Egret came in for a landing, but there was another one on the shore. The two of them flew into a tussle. Not sure which one won. The other circled a few times and flew off.
Backyard and Beyond 