2013 Backyard bird and butterfly (and dragonfly too) watching
24 posts
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Re: Backyard bird and butterfly (and dragonfly too) watching
Apple your photos are very good. What camera and lens do you use?
- evtubbergh
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Re: Backyard bird and butterfly (and dragonfly too) watching
iPhone 4.... 
Learning never ends because we can share what we've learned. And in sharing our collective experiences, we gain deeper understanding of what we learned.
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applestar - Mod
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Re: Backyard bird and butterfly (and dragonfly too) watching
Sometimes, it pays to wake up in the middle of the night.
It's 3:50AM and I started hearing a Great Horned Owl calling outside-- "wh-wh-who-whoo who whoo"
After about 5 minutes, a 2nd one started to answer, lower and farther away? And now, a third has joined the chorus.
...4am and they are done -- just an 8 min window of opportunity or you'll never know they were around.
It's 3:50AM and I started hearing a Great Horned Owl calling outside-- "wh-wh-who-whoo who whoo"
After about 5 minutes, a 2nd one started to answer, lower and farther away? And now, a third has joined the chorus.
...4am and they are done -- just an 8 min window of opportunity or you'll never know they were around.
Learning never ends because we can share what we've learned. And in sharing our collective experiences, we gain deeper understanding of what we learned.
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applestar - Mod
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- Joined: May 1 '08
- Location: Zone 6, NJ (3/M)4/E ~ 10/M
Re: Backyard bird and butterfly (and dragonfly too) watching
Wonderful! What a treat! They will begin their courtship season soon, so if you are awake very early in the AM, you may hear them more. Where I used to live on five wooded acres, someone had put a half barrel VERY high up in a huge old tree and the great horned owls nested in it every year. Otherwise they just use an old crows nest or something. Look for nests in a branch crotch near the trunk of a tree, very high up. They start nesting at the beginning of the new year.
Twitter account I manage for local Sierra Club: https://twitter.com/CherokeeGroupSC Facebook page I manage for them: https://www.facebook.com/groups/65310596576/ Come and find me and lots of great information, inspiration
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rainbowgardener - Super Green Thumb
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Re: Backyard bird and butterfly (and dragonfly too) watching
I've been seeing a flock of Yellow Rumped Warblers in the garden. They seem to go everywhere -- before we had the freeze that killed the garden, I thought they were trying to eat tomato blossoms, but then realized they were skimming them without plucking them. Maybe they are looking for bugs? They were out there again today, hopping in and out of freeze killed tomato vines, the honeysuckle arbor, apple and pear espalier branches....
The honeysuckle arbor is a popular hideaway. A small quick hopping bird turned out to be a Chickadee with a seed -- looked like a sunflower seed -- in its beaks, looking for a good spot to crack it open.
Today, there were new visitors -- a pair of Hairy Woodpeckers. I first saw one pecking at a long dead tomato vine -- it was dried up and had some cracks and holes... Then I saw the second one, and this one was going up and down a long branch I'd used to stake a tomato. So I started looking closer and sure enough, they were male and female. They stayed a while, going from tomato plant to tomato plant, exploring cracks in the bamboo stakes, etc.
One of our cats was on the windowsill, intently looking down with her forehead pressed to the glass. I couldn't get the same angle of view, so I couldn't see what she was looking at until a Mockingbird flew out of the Arrowwood Viburnum which still has quite a supply of indigo blue berries on it. I believe they taste better after a few frost and freezes.
The honeysuckle arbor is a popular hideaway. A small quick hopping bird turned out to be a Chickadee with a seed -- looked like a sunflower seed -- in its beaks, looking for a good spot to crack it open.
Today, there were new visitors -- a pair of Hairy Woodpeckers. I first saw one pecking at a long dead tomato vine -- it was dried up and had some cracks and holes... Then I saw the second one, and this one was going up and down a long branch I'd used to stake a tomato. So I started looking closer and sure enough, they were male and female. They stayed a while, going from tomato plant to tomato plant, exploring cracks in the bamboo stakes, etc.
One of our cats was on the windowsill, intently looking down with her forehead pressed to the glass. I couldn't get the same angle of view, so I couldn't see what she was looking at until a Mockingbird flew out of the Arrowwood Viburnum which still has quite a supply of indigo blue berries on it. I believe they taste better after a few frost and freezes.
Learning never ends because we can share what we've learned. And in sharing our collective experiences, we gain deeper understanding of what we learned.
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applestar - Mod
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Re: Backyard bird and butterfly (and dragonfly too) watching
Very nice AS. That is one of the main things I like about gardening; all the wildlife it attracts.
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PunkRotten - Greener Thumb
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Re: Backyard bird and butterfly (and dragonfly too) watching
moving INDOORS for the winter... 
-- Elsewhere, I posted about the Pickleworm caterpillars and moth that was found in DD's bedroom.
Today, I found this one -- another moth I believe -- on a chartreuse Cherkee Tiger Large Red tomato leaf:
I think it's the adult form of this inchworm caterpillar that was pretending to be a stick on my lemon balm earlier in fall:
...so I'm thinking it's a geometrid, but which one?
-- Elsewhere, I posted about the Pickleworm caterpillars and moth that was found in DD's bedroom.Today, I found this one -- another moth I believe -- on a chartreuse Cherkee Tiger Large Red tomato leaf:
I think it's the adult form of this inchworm caterpillar that was pretending to be a stick on my lemon balm earlier in fall:
...so I'm thinking it's a geometrid, but which one?
Learning never ends because we can share what we've learned. And in sharing our collective experiences, we gain deeper understanding of what we learned.
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applestar - Mod
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- Joined: May 1 '08
- Location: Zone 6, NJ (3/M)4/E ~ 10/M
Re: Backyard bird and butterfly (and dragonfly too) watching
Ah ha! I KNEW it looked familiar -- it's a False Crocus Geometer moth. 
Learning never ends because we can share what we've learned. And in sharing our collective experiences, we gain deeper understanding of what we learned.
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applestar - Mod
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- Joined: May 1 '08
- Location: Zone 6, NJ (3/M)4/E ~ 10/M
Re: Backyard bird and butterfly (and dragonfly too) watching
I like the blue and purple butterfly.
The things I do are an evolution and I am always learning. My way is not the only way of doing things, and I may and will change the way I do things as I learn better ways. So any advice that I give is in that spirit.
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tomf - Super Green Thumb
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