mthew

Two male American Kestrels. The lower one, whining incessantly, was a begging juvenile. Who’s your daddy?

The color of these pollen bundles! Not sure if the pollen is all from these mountain mints, in bloom now and virtual crack for pollinators, or a mix of flowers, but the pattern is delicious.

First one I’ve managed to photograph this year, I mean. This is the second I’ve seen this year. With the other female I saw today, that makes three! And, right next to the meeting place for today’s Green-Wood member’s walk: A Monarch egg on the underside of Common Milkweed.

Parancistrocerus leionotus. Euodynerus hidalgo ssp. boreoorientalis. These potter wasps are licking up nectar produced by American Trumpet Vine buds before they bloom. Such extraflora nectaries are a huge hit with wasps, bees, ants, beetles, and other critters. Find a good patch of this wall-covering plant, and appeal of sugary carbohydrates will never again be obscure. Great Golden…

Canada Greese, European Starlings, Pond Slider, Wood Duck. Missing here is a fishing Great Egret and a permanently teed-off male Red-winged Blackbird diving and yelling at it. Orange Bluet males: above recently emerged from exuviae; below in full adult coloring. Amberwing and snapper…

A pair of mating Hibiscus Sawfly/Atomacera decepta. Well, maybe. They are on a hibiscus…. Sawflies are pretty hard to ID by photo. And this, I suspect, is one their larvae, defoliating another Malvaceae family plant. Sawflies are not flies; they’re akin to wasps. Note the two pairs of wings seen so well in the adult…

I’ve been waking up around sunrise to the sound of crows in the neighborhood. This red-mouthed fledgling was in this London Plane for at least three hours one recent weekend morning. Sounded like Fish Crow, but then don’t they all when they’re young?

It’s lean times for raptor-viewing.