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applestar
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Re: 2016 Backyard bird and butterfly (and dragonfly too) wat

A few days ago, I said to my DD (about the house wrens in the birdhouse outside of the window) that, considering the amount of racket the babies are making, they are going to be fledging soon. The very next morning, I came across the wee baby house wren fledglings outside the Spiral Garden. The parents were taking the opportunity to clean house as well as feed the noisy bunch, but proceeded to warn them and scold me at the same time when I came around the corner to pick the peas in the Sunflower House.
image.jpeg

...I didn't want to end up affecting their first fledgling meal before flying off, so I relented and went back around the house to do some other things. They were of course gone later. And it has...had... been quiet for a while outside the window. But since yesterday, the male wren has been busy enticing another female or the same one ...or they've taken up house keeping in one of the other bird houses. He is back to incessant dawn singing.

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applestar
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We saw our first firefly (well I only saw one but DD saw three) of the season last night. It's been so dry, but we had a little sprinkle last night and another passing light rain is falling this morning, so this should help them hatch out. Image

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applestar
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I just looked out of the window thinking -- oh YEAH I'm going to say I saw a hummingbird this morning.... When I put my binocs to my eyes, I saw the hummingbird AGAIN :() Now, I can tell you it's a male Ruby-throat :wink:

I hope he sticks around -- this is about the time of the season when they come back for the rest of the season after June hiatus.

LIcenter
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Here is a baby bird, that I have only seen one adult here in sixteen years, which was last year. It's a Cedar Waxwing infant.
ImageImage
Here's a hummer, just because. :-)
Image

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applestar
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Perfect shot of the baby!

...and that's a great photo of the hummer, too :D

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Lindsaylew82
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AWESOME PICS!

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applestar
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Not as good as yours, @licenter :oops:

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Lindsaylew82
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We saw two Black Swallowtails today!


.......and a hornworm.

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applestar wrote:Not as good as yours, @licenter :oops:

Image
I was sitting outside yesterday, and saw exactly what you posted here. I did have my camera right beside me, but I was all encompassed with the cold one in my hand. :roll:

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applestar
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:lol: ...I've had those moments :>

...then there are times when the photography muse strikes you without your device at hand, and you will rush to go get it, hoping all the while that the subject will stay put until your return... Or that you will remember WHERE it was and HOW you were looking at it that made it so photo-worthy :roll:

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applestar
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This is a Hummingbird MOTH. Their mimicry is almost perfect. I've seen them with their black wiry looking antennae held together and pointing forward, which makes them look like the long slender hummingbird beaks, though this one wasn't doing that.

Image

LIcenter
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Great shot! Do you have any viburnum growing in your yard? It's a host plant for clear wings.

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applestar
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I have V.dentatum (arrow wood) and V.nudum 'winterthur'. I want to get a V.nudum 'Brandywine' :()

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applestar
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So much fun to watch a male Cardinal hunting in the garden -- cocking head from side to side, hopping along trellises among tomatoes, corn, beans.... He tried to jump on something in the elderberry flower umbel but the flower didn't support his weight! :lol:

Almost constantly seeing the male and female Cardinals, a female hummingbird (sometimes two), and house wrens in the garden now. :-()

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Last year was the first time ever seeing a Cedar Waxwing in my yard after living here 16 years. So I was quite surprised to see this little guy hopping along a narrow strip garden alongside my driveway.

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I noticed a hummingbird/clearwing moth loving on the dwarf butterfly bush. I was holding hose, watering pots next to it, and it not 3' away oblivious to me, just working the blooms.
In checking host plants, viburnum one of several. It is more likely eating the honeysuckle tangled up with other things in the yard. I also have cherry, perhaps cherry laurel mixed in some of the fence/hedge. I have noticed different butterflies hanging around them, so figured it is a host to several. No viburnum in my yard or immediate neighbors.

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Susan W wrote:I noticed a hummingbird/clearwing moth loving on the dwarf butterfly bush. I was holding hose, watering pots next to it, and it not 3' away oblivious to me, just working the blooms.
In checking host plants, viburnum one of several. It is more likely eating the honeysuckle tangled up with other things in the yard. I also have cherry, perhaps cherry laurel mixed in some of the fence/hedge. I have noticed different butterflies hanging around them, so figured it is a host to several. No viburnum in my yard or immediate neighbors.
The nectar plant is what it flocks to, as far as eating. The plant (host) is for the cat after the clearwing lays her egg/s. Clearwings love butterfly bushes for the nectar, but they will never lay their eggs on said plant. Just like Monarchs lay their eggs on milkweed, as opposed to sucking the nectar from a butterfly bush.

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In brief, I do know something about pollinators, nectar flowers, butterflies, host plants, insect life cycles etc. I mentioned the hummingbird moth/clear wing and host plant as I needed to check on what may be in my yard. I grow a variety of plants from seeds, and sell plants at the farmers market, now doing 2/week. Plants include culinary herbs, perennials, pollinator magnets, natives and more. One section is devoted to monarchs -milkweeds (and of course talking about their life cycle). As I had last season, have an overload of tropical milkweed starts, so you get one free with purchase! I don't claim to be an expert, but know more than the average person on all of this, and am on a constant learning curve as we all should be.

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It's true. We have some knowledgeable members here that really enjoy "butterfly gardening" :D

-- love hearing reports of sightings. :wink:

Today, I saw a Tiger Swallowtail and a black one which I assume was a Black Swallowtail but I sometimes wonder if it's the black form of Tiger because it seems such a coincidence that they appear together like this so often each year. Two different kinds of skippers, too, though I wasn't able to ID -- all I can say is neither were Silver Spotted Skipper.

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Early this morning, I happened to look up above the house and saw two Monarch butterflies in territorial fight. So I only saw this one male on the milkweeds later. But there were two Tiger Swallowtails nectaring on the Button Bush already swarming with bees and wasps. :D

Image

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applestar
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I keep seeing a male Monarch doing a territorial sweep -- mostly of the East garden where the milkweed patches are to the side fence and just over it, loop and come back in, around the garden to the house, then along the house and over the front fence... I don't see it for minute or two while he loops around and goes back and forth in the font -- I see a glimpse of him as he turns around to do a second sweep in front of the house, then comes back and along the side of the house under the window again....

It would be so neat if I had a way to track his flight pattern because visually, it looks like he is flying the same exact pattern over and over. In my mind's animated sequence, I'm picturing that he is leaving a trail of his pheromone from his scent pouches.

Twice I've seen him chasing off another male Monarch :roll: Probably more often than that... I'm just not watching all the time.

There no way to be absolutely sure, but I do think this is a single same male.

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I'm so envious of your monarch and his antics! I have both swamp milkweed and butterfly weed and have yet to see a single monarch in my garden... ever :(

I did see a monarch cat on a neighbor's butterfly weed last year and was so disappointed when she didn't seem to know what the plant or caterpillar were. Here I am intentionally trying to draw some to my garden and she got one without knowingly trying lol. Oh well, maybe one day!

I did catch a praying mantis on the prowl the other day. I love seeing them! I also have a seen a few swallowtails, but much fewer than in past years. There are always a lot of white sulfur moths though :)

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I have seen on Monarch forums where some posters say Swamp milkweed is the preferred species in their area, but I believe there is a regional preference. In my area -- and perhaps yours, too? -- and in my garden, I find majority of the cats and eggs on the common milkweed A.syriaca. (I have saved seeds from previous years or can send you fresh ones later this year if you need them.)

They prefer damp areas with some shade though can grow in full sun in or by a ditch (or a swale), and will spread aggressively via underground rhizomes once established, but the shoots and plants are easily pulled out. I pull and toss them on the ground where I want to make a path through the wildflowers before the Monarchs arrive. After they are here, I'm stuck with them for the remainder of the growing season :> established plants grow to 6-7 feet tall though you can top them and let them grow side shoots. I find it convenient to have several patches in differently shaded/sunny micro-climates. This way, when the sunny area plants are dying, the shady area plants still have lush green leaves.

We've noticed that cats found on on swamp milkweed will take a few days to recognize common milkweed as food, but ones found on butterfly weed will switch over gladly. I find a small number of cats on the honeyvine milkweed as well, but mostly later in the season when the other milkweeds are drying up. Honeyvine leaves stay green until frost and can sustain the late hatchlings. Whorled milkweed is first to bloom and first to go to seed, and first to yellow, but I do occasionally find cats on them as well. I have yet to see cats on Purple milkweed.

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I have often said to my DD's that "they" know when I'm at the window and try to outdo each other in providing me with a show :()

Just now, I copied an image link to post, then out of the blue, felt compulsion to go look out of the southeast window, and there was a pair of Tiger Swallowtails fluttering around and around in a mating dance. They would disappear past the family room roof, then come back, fly around for a while, then they separated for an intermission... Female resting atop a purple coneflower, male flying off somewhere...

In the meanwhile a squirrel was hopping, then digging around in the grass and came up with something unusual that it proceeded to eat. I had to watch a while before recognizing a long white stem and brown cap of a mushroom.

When the squirrel was done and hopped away, I looked for the Tiger swallowtails again, and they had come up to the patio, right under the window by the container Petit Nigra fig loaded with fruits, then they flew in a dizzying dance up to the level of the 2nd floor window and above before going around the corner. :D

So I went to the northeast window and there they were, going back and forth still graceful in their dance flight along the path beyond the Arrowwood viburnum, so I could only catch glimpses, and just as they passed out of view, up hovered a hummingbird out of the viburnum to just below the window and flew to the gate arbor of honey suckle, sipping here and there before flying off to the front yard and around the corner of the house..... :clap: Bravo! :clap:

LIcenter
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applestar wrote:I have seen on Monarch forums where some posters say Swamp milkweed is the preferred species in their area, but I believe there is a regional preference. In my area -- and perhaps yours, too? -- and in my garden, I find majority of the cats and eggs on the common milkweed A.syriaca. (I have saved seeds from previous years or can send you fresh ones later this year if you need them.)

They prefer damp areas with some shade though can grow in full sun in or by a ditch (or a swale), and will spread aggressively via underground rhizomes once established, but the shoots and plants are easily pulled out. I pull and toss them on the ground where I want to make a path through the wildflowers before the Monarchs arrive. After they are here, I'm stuck with them for the remainder of the growing season :> established plants grow to 6-7 feet tall though you can top them and let them grow side shoots. I find it convenient to have several patches in differently shaded/sunny micro-climates. This way, when the sunny area plants are dying, the shady area plants still have lush green leaves.

We've noticed that cats found on on swamp milkweed will take a few days to recognize common milkweed as food, but ones found on butterfly weed will switch over gladly. I find a small number of cats on the honeyvine milkweed as well, but mostly later in the season when the other milkweeds are drying up. Honeyvine leaves stay green until frost and can sustain the late hatchlings. Whorled milkweed is first to bloom and first to go to seed, and first to yellow, but I do occasionally find cats on them as well. I have yet to see cats on Purple milkweed.

I have to agree with the "regional" thing. In my case tuberosa is never a consideration of the monarch cats, where others I have talked to is the only plant the monarch will lay her eggs on. This year is the first year I have common milkweed planted, so we'll see how that goes. Tropical milkweed and swamp weed has been the go to plant thus far. My understanding also with common milkweed is, if the monarchs arrive early they prefer to lay their eggs on the young, and tender leaves of this plant. Monarchs are quite scarce here this year, which could amount to a total bust for me this time around. Maybe August will show better results, but I'm not gonna hold my breath on it. :D

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This was fun ;):

The Uppermost Aristocracy of the Hoverfly Society

The audio program was more fun but reading the synopsis gave me some of the words I'd missed.

https://www.npr.org/programs/weekend-edition-saturday/

Steve :D

LIcenter
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digitS' wrote:This was fun ;):

The Uppermost Aristocracy of the Hoverfly Society

The audio program was more fun but reading the synopsis gave me some of the words I'd missed.

https://www.npr.org/programs/weekend-edition-saturday/

Steve :D
That was a great read. You could feel their excitement, but I especially liked this part.
The two got together to form a little club. They meet every once in awhile with a few other collectors, drink expensive wine, eat good food, and talk about the experience of catching rare flies.
:roll: I'll have to dig through my pics to find some of the ones in my yard.

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Image

Monarchs! I have my very first monarchs!!! I practically jumped for joy in my driveway lol. They're munching away on my butterfly weed. So far no sign on my swamp milkweed, but maybe they'll move on at some point.

I'm so excited!
Last edited by pinksand on Thu Jul 28, 2016 10:06 am, edited 1 time in total.

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When I went around the house to the side garden this morning, there was a monarch butterfly floating above my head. When it finally landed, I was able to see that it was a female, so I told her to go ahead and lay eggs on any of the milkweed she likes, and she DID – reaching under the Common Milkweed leaves to oviposit

Image

When I went around to the OTHER side garden, I looked up to see a dragonfly atop a bamboo pole, so I started taking pictures, and it struck a funny pose. I didn't realize it until I looked at the enlarged photos, but there was a prey that I think I distracted it from catching….

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:-() I think I saw a dark morph of a Tiger Swallowtail. :-()

It was languidly floating around near the top of the plum tree, crabapple tree and tulip poplar. It was dark looking but not quite black, and too big for a black swallowtail. It wouldn't come down and I was trying to see past the canopy against the bright sky so it was impossible to tell for sure, but I really think that's what it was. :D

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Saw a Red Admiral butterfly fluttering in the SFH nettle patch -- probably laying eggs. Looks like no more harvesting for the rest of the season. :D

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I haven't managed to get a picture of it, this is from the internet, but there's been a dragonfly in my yard pretty much all the time lately. Looks about like this, with the black wingtips:

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Yesterday I saw 3 immature Carolina mantises. 1 green, 1 brown, 1 brown with green legs.

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applestar
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I haven't seen mantises lately -- not since they scattered, but I know they are there. Sometimes I run into them but they need to be able to hide well because Ive seen them being carried off to be some baby chick's lunch. :|

I was just looking out the window, hoping to see the rain clouds we're supposed to be getting, and there was a catbird sitting on the front fence... Just a hop and a flutter from the Elderberry in full fruit in the Front Yard Fence Row. I expected it to go after the berries right away, but it was obvious something was distracting it and even blocking it from getting to them -- it kept looking up, turning head to right - left - right -- reminded me of stereotype tennis spectators -- shifting weight as if to launch then sitting back down.

...then I saw them-- two hummingbirds in a furious aerial swooping display, cutting right across the gap between the fence and the elderberry. :lol:

LIcenter
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This is only my fourth sighting of a monarch this year. I cannot believe how low the numbers are this year on Long Island. This one is roughly half the size of a mature monarch, so at the very least there are some laying eggs in my area.

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I saw a baby dragonfly yesterday. It was very much enjoying my California Lilac. I watched for a while but didn't have my camera on me. I'm assuming it was a baby dragonfly because it looked just like an adult dragonfly only smaller. It was a shimmery blue color. I hardly ever see dragonflies so it is a big deal for me to see one in my yard.

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BirdLover wrote:I saw a baby dragonfly yesterday. It was very much enjoying my California Lilac. I watched for a while but didn't have my camera on me. I'm assuming it was a baby dragonfly because it looked just like an adult dragonfly only smaller. It was a shimmery blue color. I hardly ever see dragonflies so it is a big deal for me to see one in my yard.
We have pint size ones here also. Couldn't tell you what their proper name is tho.
This guy has, what I think is a gnat, just to give you an idea of how small they really are.
Image

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As in every gardening season, I'm enjoying the Song Sparrows here.

The other day, I saw something brown moving quickly through the neighbor's tomato patch. "Oh no! The mice are that brave, they are out in daylight? Maybe it was a rat! Oh no, rats here?!" A few minutes later, I see it again ... trying to peer through the tomato foliage ... it's just a Song Sparrow. ~ sigh ~

I'm pleased that native birds can fit into human landscapes. Fit in when they are confronted with invasive bird species. Doesn't always happen.

The Collared Doves showed up here on their invasion of the continent, just a few years ago. (I'm olde enuf to remember seeing the first Starlings.) I have worried about our native Mourning Dove. Would it survive? Retreat?

I think it's doing okay ... I see them often. My first thought is usually "Robin!" They are quite a bit smaller than the Collared Dove. Look again ... nope, Mourning Dove.

:D Steve

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However:

"Song Sparrows are widespread and common across most of the continent, but populations declined by over 30% between 1966 and 2014, according to the North American Breeding Bird Survey. Partners in Flight estimates a global breeding population of 130 million with 88% spending some part of the year in the U.S., 42% in Canada, and 6% in Mexico. The species rates an 8 out of 20 on the Continental Concern Score. Song Sparrow is not on the 2014 State of the Birds Watch List. These birds have vanished from two islands off Southern California, the result of more frequent fires and introduced hares altering the sparrows’ habitat. Wetland losses in the San Francisco Bay area have meant declining populations of a saltmarsh race of the Song Sparrow in that area." LINK



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