Nature

Don’t forget to look up into the northeast night sky for the next few days, for the annual Perseids shower is here! It peaks on the nights of the 11th and the 12, but often you can still see a good number on other nights. The moon widget on my blog sidebar says the moon is only 41% full, unlike last year when it was entirely full, so I’m hoping to see quite a few. Right now the skies are entirely clear, and I’m hoping the clouds cooperate tonight!

I have been in our backyard many, many times in my life, and so it seems  to would be a reasonable assumption that I have seen just about everything there is to see there. Yet when I took a walk through the yard carrying my camera, it was almost as if I was seeing everything for the first time. As I looked for opportunities for a photo, I saw details I usually miss, and beauty I usually overlook. For example, I have never thought chives had exceptionally pretty flowers until I got up close:

Strawberry blossoms are also very small and humble, but delicate and lovely when examined closer.

Dainty columbines:

Carrying my camera also helped to show me how much more there is for me to see, if I would look more carefully. I was standing within six inches of this lovely mourning cloak and could have had a perfect picture, but I wasn’t paying attention and scared it away by nearly stepping on it. So I was only able to take this picture  against a fence at a rather awkward angle.

My camera also led me to a discovery I  would not have otherwise made. Trying to take a picture of a male robin, I found it odd that the bird was allowing me to come so close to it. It was chirping at me angrily, so I immediately started to look for its nest, and sure enough there was a mother robin sitting on her eggs.

The monarchs returned in a gigantic wave on Tuesday, and they were scattered liberally all over the neighbors’ bushes, along with several other species of butterfly:

This picture gives a good idea of the concentration of the butterflies.

A mourning cloak butterfly was also enjoying the nectar from the bushes.

There is a cute little pair of house finches that like to visit the feeder, and they almost always come together.

Three at a time!

The grackles that love to come to the feeders are not so cute. They are also greedy and eat twice was much as the littler birds. They don’t let any other bird on the feeder while they are on it, so while they are eating a line of four or five finches and sparrows forms on the swing set, waiting for the grackle to finish.

I got this bird feeder as a Christmas present from Mom and Dad. Even though Landon and I set it up immediately, all through the winter no birds came to it. But as soon as the weather turned spring-like, it became very popular quite suddenly. A combination of sparrows, grackles, and finches are on it almost all of the time, and often there are two or more perched on it. It has been very amusing to watch the birds’ quarrels over who eats first. Sometimes there is a line, with the larger birds on the feeder and smaller birds perched on the swing-set waiting for them to leave.

When I was taking this picture, a pair of cardinals flew into one of our trees. (The first cardinals ever in our yard!) They didn’t stop at the feeder, but I had the camera ready to take a picture:

A mother duck has chosen our backyard to build her nest, and she’s been sitting on it for a week or two. I counted at least nine eggs when she got off the nest for a moment, but I think there were more that I couldn’t see. Everyone here is excited for them to hatch.

This interesting and unique bird visited our backyard a few weeks ago, and he’s been showing up around our yard off and on ever since. I thought at first it might be a migrant since I had never seen it before, but then I found out it was called a Northern Flicker, and lives here all year round. It’s a member of the woodpecker family, but our trees are safe because it is the only woodpecker that uses its long beak to get insects out of the ground, which is what it is doing in these pictures.

I love the triangle on its chest.