Morning After - 06/20/2009

Recently, alot of my birding has been done in my own backyard. This weekend past weekend wasn't any different. Friday, as the weather started to make its changes throughout the day I watched the birds in my yard hang on to the feeders as the winds picked up and the rain began to fall. After awhile I got distracted by my son telling me that water was coming into the basement - thankfully it wasn't the sewer and it was a small amount. I did however, pray that it would stop raining soon. The next morning with latte in hand and camera I decided to sit out in the backyard and just watch the activity after the storm.


I still have a backyard of at least a dozen pigeons that seem to take flight at every sound and/or movement. There are about five mourning doves that stay to the back of my yard and one that likes to be with the smaller birds. Six House Finches still frequent my black oiled sunflower feeder (four male and two female) and there's still a Goldfinch couple that likes the thistle feeders. Two Downy Woodpeckers scale my back fence waiting for the activity to stop at the suet feeder. House Sparrows fly in at out making their way through the Grackles, Pigeons, Doves and Starlings on the other feeder.


There are three squirrels that live in my maple tree at the back of the my yard as well and they're out there too, chasing each other around the tree. It takes a peanut butter sandwich to keep one of them out of the feeders, the other two go off to other places.

I started a small flower garden in the northeast corner of my yard. There are orange, pink, and bright yellow lilies, a lilac bush which has started to take off, other plants that bush and give kind of a ground cover and a few rose bushes with trellises behind for the birds to perch on. This is where a majority of the birds that come to my yard hang out. I guess if they visit my yard it's not a bad place to be. Til my next post.


"To find the universal elements enough; to find the air and the water exhiliarating; to be refreshed by a morning walk or an eening saunter; to be thrilled by the stars at night; to be elated over a bird's nest or a wildflower in spring - these are some of the rewards of the simple life." ~ John Burroughs

Backyard Photographing - 05/31/2009

Tonight while I was redoing a park bench in my backyard I happened to glance up at my lilac bush (which is a late bloomer) and caught the fluttering wings of a Black Swallowtail. When I came in for the night I suddenly remembered the photos that I took last weekend. Last weekend was a weekend of no birding - a funeral on Saturday and a day spent with my sister on Sunday took up pretty much of my time. But Sunday - late afternoon as I walked out into the backyard to get the lawnmower out of the shed a yellow flutter caught my eye, I ran into the house to grab my camera and take a few hundred shots of a very pretty Tiger Swallowtail.

While I sit here writing about what happened a week ago and this evening I am watching two Goldfinch eat out of the thistle feeder. My kittens Bailey and Peanut sit in the window and watch the birds - every now and then they cry a little because they can't have them but they are content to just sit and watch.

It's beginning to get late and time to catch up on a few more things before I go to sleep. So I say "goodnight" til my next post.