a place where nature, photography and writing meet
For the past couple of days, it seems that wherever I go in the yard, an inseparable pair of Mourning Doves (Zenaida macroura) are perched together in one of the trees as in the above photo. They never perch more than a few inches apart, and are often much closer. They are so attentive to […]
Earlier this morning, in a discussion of yesterday’s post about Spring Azure butterflies, Wayne (from Niches), and I addressed the topic of all of the natural history data which is being produced on the web — much of it in nature-related blogs such as this one and many of those listed in my Blogroll. Add […]
For the past few weeks, I’ve been seeing quite a few Diurnal Fireflies, also known as Winter Fireflies, while making my “insect rounds” here at the farm. These beetles (for all fireflies are actually beetles) have dark brown elytra and an orange-marked pronotum, as in the above photo. Most commonly, I find them moving slowly […]
We’ve been seeing the odd Spring Azure (Celastrina ladon) around the farm for about a week. However, when I was out walking through the fields this afternoon, I met up with several singles and pairs bouncing and whirling along the trails. It must be true — Spring has actually arrived! Tags: Spring Azure, Celastrina ladon
After checking on the progress of the wood frog eggs, we were were surpised to see the Long-eared Owl perched in the top of a Poplar tree, illuminated by the late afternoon sun. It seems that this owl is becoming comfortable with our presence on the trails around the farms. Tags: Long-eared Owl, Asio otus
April 27th — I checked on the wood frog eggs while out for my evening walk here at the farm. During my last inspection on April 19th, I’d found the eggs developing into tiny tadpoles with miniscule tails. This evening, when I first arrived at the site of the egg mass, it was nowhere to […]
As the weather warms up over the next few weeks, night-flying moths will become a common sight around the lamps and windows of our place. We don’t do anything special to attract moths and, in fact, we don’t leave exterior lights on too much. However, even with this small amount of light, each evening a […]