The weekend...and another heatwave looms

The ducks are returning. A sure sign that cooler weather will soon prevail. In late Spring the female mallards go elsewhere to nest and raise their brood.  Leaving behind some very bord males.  They are funny as they appear to be very bored in thsi time and spend much time sleeping. Around the end of June they will disappear also, I assume to join everyone else at the Yellow Breeches Creek or Susquehanna River, now that raising the ducklings is about done. Now they start to head back to their home territory. 

They'll trickle, slowly the numbers will rise.  It started out with one female, then the next day there was 2 females and one male. This morning I counted 8.  But it won't get crowded until closer to October, when hunting season begins.

It's obvious that they have been here before. They know I have a food source for them, along with all the goodies they get from the stream. Though always a little shy at first, they still recognize me and don't fly off when I come home or outside. They just waddle a little distance away and stop, watching to see what I'm doing.   I usually have around 2 - 2 1/2 dozen regulars.  The number swells at time depending on weather conditions or who knows what else is going on.  One year I'd had about 2 dozen a day, but when I came out on one Xmas morning several years ago I got a shock when no less then 80 ducks filled my yard!

But they are fun to watch, see how their behaviors change, especially as cold weather or snow settles in.  And most years I get some sort of surprise visitor. One year it was a pintail duck, another  it was a stunning male wood duck. It was early Spring so he was in full color.  He was very shy.  Wood ducks don't quack, they whistle!  He stayed around for a few days.

This past year I had 2 female wood ducks visit.  Once for two days I had a goose visit. That looked so funny among the ducks.  He looked like a giant compared to the mallards.  he'd eat alongside them and if I came out he would stand right by me as though he'd always been there.

I'm anxious to see if "white duck" is back.  Though technically not white, she appears that way from a distance. She has a yellow spot on her throat, adn she's more ooff white and dusky grey then truly white.  But she stands out, so I've been surprised at her survival for 3 seasons.  Every year she seems to bring an odd duck with her.  Last year it was this one. He was big, and oddly marked.  I always say she's enticing someones farm ducks to join her LOL

Then there was also the blue eyed mallard last winter

So you see, I'm like the ducks as I am with the butterflies.  At least this way there's always something entertaining going on outside regardless of the season!

Some day maybe I'll share the story of my favorite and special duck who we called "Duck Duck" . It's a duck I'l never forget, despite his short time, less then a year, here.

Anyhow, here's the first of the seasons ducks Notice the male doesn't have his color yet.  Males have the solid yellow or orange beaks, while the females have the black and orange beaks.

Yesterday I picked a bucket of herbs to share with my house bunnies

HoneyBee                                                     Star

Despite a whole bucket of herbs, Star (black) and Sweetpea apparently think what the other has tastes better!

My black swallowtails on fennel and dill seems to be doing ok.  I found a new one on the rue but it's disappeared.  I may move the one on the fennel (in photo) to some fennel I just potted.  I'm undecided on the ones that are on the dill. I have a cover for the plant, but the black swallowtail has been spending a lot of time here and I don't want to cover a plant she may want to use for more eggs.   :)  Next year I'll make better arrangements for the butterflies!

Today I did find 3 tiny monarch cats on my swampweed.  I asked my sister if she had room for them so I took them to her place this afternoon.

The heat is unbearable today.  We have embarked on yet another heat wave.  The last I checked it was 91 degrees, the next 3 days it's to be 93 and then drop to a mere 88.  By Saturday things should be better. I hope because it's over 90 in the house with a window AC running. It just can't keep up in this old place. Someone was to come look at the central air unit to see abotu fixing it, but that fell through. I was hoping the big window unit I put in would hold me over. It's just not working!  But it's only a few days, or so I keep telling myself. 

One good thing is that it makes me look forward to going to work tonight. That AC works great!

Here is Little Dude.  I still think there's something wrong with him. He isn't getting any bigger and looks under weight for a groundhog. I took the picture through the screen door so lacks some clarity. I was surprised to see him over under the feeders.  I suspect that some of the bigger groundhogs around here are stil bullying him a bit.  But I know he's getting food every day at least with the corn I put out, and I've seen him eating grass, weeds, and nibbling on a few of my plants. I know there are at least two other, large groundhogs that live close by. One I know lives across the stream and he is teh grand daddy of groundhogs in size!  Which makes Little Dude look even smaller. And I've seen him chase L D away at least once.  I wonder if L D will survive hibernation this year if he doesn't gain more weight.

Time to nap before work.  Can't wait to cool off!

Friday - my sisters yard

Friday morning on my way home from work I stopped at sisters to check out her cats. Amazing how time flies when you are watching larva! Here are two already in the *J* formation to form their chrysalis.  One chrysalis already formed, and a smaller cat getting ready to shed his skin.

This is a cat of the black swallowtail butterfly. He was on the move, looking for a place for his chrysalis.

My buddy Snoopy.  He was feeling a little neglected as we kept watch over the caterpillars.  But don't fall for this act.  I'd fussed over him and already had given him treats I brought along just for him!

Here is the smaller monarch caterpillar shedding his skin.

Another big monarch catepillar. Friday my sister had one already in a chrysalis (she'd had another but gave it awayto a neighbor)
Today she had 6 Monarch chrysalis, and a few black swallowtail chrysalis!)

When we finally got away from the table and stood up, a butterfly came fluttering into the yard and landed on my shirt.  Visited for a few moments and went on her way, without hanging around in the yard, so I couldn't get a photo. It was the first time, outside the butterfly house, that I'd seen a question mark butterfly (or comma - we couldn't see the markings). But sweet of her to chose me to land on!

Then we had another breautiful surprise as an American Lady paid her yard a visit.  My sister pointed out the eyespots explaining that was how to tell it was an American Lady and not a Painted Lady. (two versus four)

Most of the morning was over till I left!  not a productive day for me.

if you need a laugh...read to the end

This morning I did dig up my irises. What a challenge, trying to dig through all the silt and sand the flood had piled on it. Though easy to move, it just kept sliding back into the hole I was digging. You know how it is at the beach and the sand keeps washing out from under your feet? That's what kept happening to me, while I was kneeling. After several close calls of falling flat on my face in the plants, I gave up and sat down in the dirt like a kid and got it done.

I was a little surprised at how solidly rooted these were.  Thankfully there are plants that thrive in the crappy Pennsylvania soil!  Here you either have sand/silt, or heavy clay.  I have heavy clay with lots of rock and stone in one garden, and the silt/sand at the other.  Now if they were all combined equally, that would be the perfect loamy soil!  hah  that's not going ot happen so we work with what we got.  I seem to be having better luck though with the silt. 

The house sparrows and cowbirds are relentless. Today it was reminicent of 'The Birds" (for any of you old enough to remember the Hitchcock film)  Easily over 75 of the 'little bastards'  as my Sister calls them. (Funny she also calls stinkbugs 'those bastards'!)  They aren't cautious where they fly at all. Other birds, butterflies and even the hummingbird had to use diversionary tactics. Zooming up or down as needed to avoid mid air collisions.
They were gathering in both gardens, along the stream and on my awning, which is aluminum, so you kept hearing their feet scraping against the metal while they were all chirping and whistling. It got eerie at times! So many birds!

The hummingbird still enjoying the bee balm.

One of the 'little bastards'  sitting on a brick, among the rocks that were washed up the other week.

Did you know that house sparrows, and starlings at the only two birds not protected by law?  

 They make such a ruckus, that the goldfinch would stop eating and look at them when they were particularly noisy, or all flying about.  I don't think they appreciate their low-life neighbors either!

When I was done working, I sat at the table with the idea of enjoying some pink lemonade and reading a book. The weather was absolutely gorgeous today. Sunny, mild temps, though breezy.  We've had no rain again, despite weather reports saying we'd get some, and with the wind today the garden is bone dry. Tomorrow out comes the hose. There's no choice!  I had noticed a few of my plants were celebrating the cooler temps by having a growth spurt. My fennel, swamp milkweed and rue all had very obvious growth. Some others too, btu I can't remember off the top of my head.
Of course I had my camera with me at the ready.  Just in case!  My momma squirrel did come to visit for peanuts:

She's still cautious but she knows I have the goods!  One of the other squirrels was coming down the tree to their feeder. This is how he looked when he realized I was right there:

Stopped in his tracks, weighed his options and scampered back up the tree.  Earlier the two of them were having a chase all around the tree, and then they were oblivious to my presence.

Another buckeye came to visit. This one in perfect condition

So are you getting the idea that I wasn't getting any reading done?
I have top include this, such a pretty marigold.  I'm surprised it's still blooming, since it was uprooted by the flood. This will be a tasty treat for my house bunnies.

So I'm sitting there, camera actually in my hand, while I was watching all those sparrows and cowbirds. And I keep wondering how is it that cowbirds keep laying their eggs in other birds nests. I mean if they are being raised by other birds,  birds that don't parasitize other nests by leaving their own eggs in it, that the cowbirds wouldn't do it any more?  :) If it were that simple. But mother nature has her own ways I suppose and human logic doesn't apply.  At least they aren't like a cuckoo hatchling that will boost other eggs out of the nest.  One study I read about shows that cowbirds actually fare better having 2 nestmates. That the begging of 3 hatchlings gets better food results from the parents. The parents will tend the nest better. But the cowbird hatchling will get 50% of the food, not 33% so reach their potential faster and more often then if they were a lone hatchling.  So that's where my thoughts were today, watching the young cowbirds that were interspersed among the sparrrows.

A high distraction rate today. (ok it's like this every day)
So I'm sitting at the table, book untouched, watching all the activity to the right. I glance to the left and see....a groundhog...charging across the yard, right at me. At first I sort of sucked in some air and said ...oh!  Now the groundhogs are usually a bit skittish. I'll see a groundhog run a couple feet, stop and look around, run a little, stop and look, etc, until he reaches his destination.
Not this one!

This was not Little Dude btw, this was one of the full sized groundhogs.  So here he comes, barreling along, within several feet of me. I make a small noise and he keeps coming.  Unlike me he wasn't distracted. I suddenly had a vision of him attacking my legs as he was going to go right under my chair. I was startled and I screamed.  Now I don't scream readily. Unlike Sister. ( she'll appreciate that comment) Her motto is ...scream first, ask questions later.

Anyhow, I pick up my feet and let out a scream, the groundhog stops dead in his tracks and tries to backtrack. He's can't get traction in the pile of dirt right next to me at first, then he runs onto my patio and gets to the bottom of my steps and stops. By this time I'm laughing and laughing. At both my own reaction and that of the groundhog.  He's so confused, standing there and he's whipping his head left and right trying to figure out what to do, where to go. Finally he squeezes past a piece of skirting and runs under my home! I happen to look across the stream and see another groundhog running for his life.  I look around and there's no birds, no butterflies, no hummingbird, no squirrels.  Nothing. It went silent in my yard. Everyone took off when I yelled.  It took them a good 15 minutes to start coming back. Then it was business as usual.  Of course 15 minutes later I'm still thinking about everyone freaking out, and laughing, outloud.  If anyone would have seen me after the incident, sitting there, alone, laughing...

I think they'd be very concerned about my stability.

I have been so pleased with all the cats in my yard.  But now they keep disappearing. There had been 5 on my rue.  As of this morning I could only see one, then a couple hours later it couldn't be found.  There are two more tiny ones though. Out of 7 on the dill I could only find 5 this morning. They are still very small but at least are eating well! Looks like next season I need to set up my own little butterfly housing. the second photo, shows the black swallowtail cat sticking out its stink horn at me..you can see he whipped his head around too, as I just barely touched the end of the abdomen. Yes I touched his butt.  There is also supposed to be a nasty scent with that is to repel predators.

A female black swallowtail. So beautiful!

A purple aster.                                 

This is a new ant deterent on top of my hummingbird feeder. I really didn't believe it would work.  But apparently ants travel in one direction, even though it leads to certain doom.  It's quite a trip just to get to the inside, where there is water to drown them.  Anyhow, what I couldn't figure out at first is why all the ants end up in one big dead clump. Then I realized the one on top of the heap was still alive. Sooooo it appears that they try to climb onto other ants to try to save themselves?!   And there aren't any ants in the hummingbird feeder.  woohoo!

And here's the beauty of the day. A red spotted purple!   This was much more fun then the raking and shoveling of the silt covering part of my yard, and carrying buckets of sticks.

Another hummingbird moth photo. I can't help but be fascinated by them! Oh speaking of hummingbirds, while I'd not seen the territorial male for awhile, I have seen a female the past two days.  She doesn't hang out as much, but she quickly makes her round over the yard, taking quick sips at the flowers and the feeder.

A grackle. I get a few of those. I don't mind them as much as the DAMN startlings, cowbirds, and house sparrows.  Ugh. Sparrows...I've had flocks of sparrows, especially house sparrows in the yard lately. With a few young cowbirds among them.  

A goldfinch feeding on coneflower seeds. I've had these for a few years now, and they haven't always grown as well as they should. I think I'll plant more next Spring since the birds like them so much (and they ARE pretty). But I'll have to do more work to the ground, I suspect, for them to grow more reliably. And protect them when they are young from the other animals.  Seems some of them, like the groundhog, likes the tender leaves when they first start out of the ground. I had a few in the butterfly garden I'd planted this year that never got beyond the first few leaves because someone kept eating them.

Hate to tell this one that the punk look is out!

Even the birds give me attitude

A cardinal looking a bit ragged.  I think this is a young one coming into his colors. There's been a whole family of them visiting, usually in the afternoon and several of them look raggedy.

The other morning on my way home from work I happened to look up and saw a turkey vulture on a highway light, hsi wings spread out, catching the early morning sun. It was an awesome sight.  I wish there would have been a place to pull over and get a photo of it. 

Someone finally gave me some input and suggestions on what to do about the yard the eroding bank after the flash flooding. A few things I'd already figured out, but it's even nice having ones own thoughts confirmed.  And  some times having someone else's opinion really is helpful.  Now I need to figure out a way to talk some people into 'wanting' to help do some heavy duty manual labor.  Yea that'll happen, right?  But I've got to get a lot of rock moved.

My irises are still rather buried in sand and silt.  I wasn't sure if I was going to try to dig them up, and decided this morning to give it a try. It's near impossible since they are under more then a foot of sand/silt/pebbles, and as I dig around the plants, it all slides back into the hole.  Frustrating. Thought about giving up, and wondering if it was way too early to try this. But reading up on it seems like time is actually running out to do this as they should then be put back in the ground with a couple months before the first frost.  I promised my boss some of these so I guess I should try again!  :D

Seems the squirrel has the same problem. I was watching the female trying to bury peanuts today.  While squirrels generally aren't picky about where they bury their goods, and are known to do a poor job of it, this new layer on the yard seems to concern even her.  She'll dig a hole, look at it, and scamper to another area, dig again, and abandon that one.  Usually by the third time she'll bury it.  Poor overworked momma squirrel!

dragonfly, Buckeye, and new cats, oh my!

A few days ago I posted about the black swallowtail egg I found on my dill.  It hatched today and it's even more tiny then I thought possible! I watched as it ate it's egg. It's too small to get a clear photo, though I could still make out the white saddle.  Now the really amazing thing is...I found several more of the same size on the plant. I can't believe I had no idea I was getting all these when I kept looking for eggs. The more I looked at the plant, the more minuscule cats  I found!  Good stuff.  Except I'm not so sure there is enough dill for them. It's been dying off too.  So I may make a trip to a local nursery and see if they have a plant.  I hesitate to transplant them to a different host, like the fennel or the rue. 

Yesterday while taking photos for the fire company at York County Fire school, I managed two butterfly photos.  A red admiral and an Eastern Tailed Blue butterfly.  They were attracted to the water on macadam.

I can't get over how beautiful some of the yellow tigers are right now.  They've been even friendlier then usual.  I was watching them by the butterfly bush and one female kept flying right up in my face. I put my hand out, palm up, next to a flower head and she landed, then stepped onto the flower.  Didn't even tickle she was so light weight.

One of my favorite birds that visit.  The Carolina wren.  Often times there's a pair traveling together.  The enjoy the peanuts I put out and I think they have caught on to the fact that I will open the peanuts for them to make it easier for them to carry off, rather then them sitting there beating a hole in it to either carry away to get some piece of nut out. :D Especially in cold weather they will let me know they are out there and waiting for food.

Somehow the best photos i get of the goldfinch are often the less colorful females.

One of the black swallowtail cats getting bigger!  When I first discovered these guys, they didn't move at all. So I could touch them on the rear, and they'd react by showing me their orange "forked gland", and it looks like a snakes tongue. Actually to me it looks like they pucker up for a big very orange kiss. But when this happens it's supposed to emit a foul smell to repel predators. 

This is some sort of moth cat on my bee balm.  I looked it up while it was green with stripes, now I can't remember what kind I thought it was :)  Now that it's turned brown I'm not sure anyhow.  When I get a chance I'll have to look it up again.

This is my great find of the day!  I was on the phone with my sister as she was telling me that once again she saw a buckeye in her yard.  and as usual I called her a not nice name that starts with the letter 'b'. Lovingly of course.  I'm still on the phone with her, walking outside and look what lands on the burning bush!!!  That's the second time it's happened...envying someones yard find and then it appears in mine.  I LIKE that. Thankfully I have the camera to prove I really was seeing a buckeye.  Isn't it amazing how it looks like a snake when looking down on it to scare away potential prey?  Mother nature is impressive.

But there are always exceptions.  Here's one of them. 

Dragonflies aren't normally attracted to flowers...unless it is for insects.  He looked dead to me.  No movement. I took lots of photos. He looked like he was hugging the flower, but hanging straight down.But after about 10 minutes a Tiger Swallowtail decided he wanted the same flower, startled the dragonfly (and ME!) and it flew deeper into the plant.  While he's pretty cool looking..in that ugly sort of way...they will eat butterflies. They'll eat any insect they can catch.

Check out this face full size.  It reminds me of a monkey face!

While talking to Sister I happen to look over by the tree and saw this partial egg shell that hadn't been there earlier. I've no idea what it is. it's bigger then a robins egg. All white, no markings, not glossy. But without seeing a nest identification is almost impossible I think1

I wonder what I'm forgetting.  I know I'll remember...later...at work or something :)