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House wrens, brood two

These photos were taken Monday. For scale, that remaining egg is just slightly larger than one of those teeny gourmet jelly beans.

My first-ever hummingbird photo

Took this photo of a ruby-throated hummingbird a few weeks ago while visiting my in-laws in Ashe County, N.C.

Homegrown harvest

Left to right: Beet tops, chard, carrots ('Purple Haze'), yellow-stemmed and red-stemmed chard, eggplant ('Hansel')

Bye, bye birdies

Last day in the nest box. Come out, come out, says Mom.

Brown thrasher on nest

Look closely (click on image) and you'll see her/him giving me the evil eye. The male and female share the responsibility of brooding. I can't tell them apart. This nest is positioned in a tangle of crossvine. First egg was laid May 17. There are four in all. Incubation is reportedly 11-14 days. I feel something will happen soon!

Entomology one-oh-one

house wren with earwig


house wren with spider

Name that worm?

I went out this evening to watch the house wrens taking food to their young in the bluebird box. Would've gotten better photos earlier in the day but it was too bleeping hot. I was more interested in identifying prey than in getting glamour shots, but the lighting was too poor to get sharp focus necessary for positive ID.

Orange crush

Butterflyweed (Asclepias tuberosa)


Blanket flower (Gaillardia)


Hypericum 'Albury Purple'


Marigolds

Almost blueberry season

Catalpa tree

at abandoned homestead, ivanhoe n.c.

Rust

Poppy + rain

I can relate, little guy

Got attacked by the prickly pear cactus yesterday. I still have stickies in my fingers.

Rouge

Coral honeysuckle (this is the North American native—Lonicera sempervirens)


Opium poppy. Hard to get a good shot of it because the petals were already droopy.


Spirea. It was a passalong without a name, but it looks like 'Magic Carpet'.

More blues and purples

Love-in-a-mist


Unscented heliotrope. Weedy but pretty.


Perennial verbena and variegated liriope

Sunday dinner

Recipe
Ingredients:
• strawberries from roadside stand
• Hershey's Magic Shell
• whipped cream
• spatula

Directions:
• Combine all items (except spatula) in a bowl.
• Eat.
• Clean bowl with spatula. Clean spatula with tongue.


Before


After

Blues and purples

Bearded iris, unknown cultivar


Blue flag iris


Siberian iris


Clematis vine. Shouldn't every flower have its own bunny companion?

First poppies

First mosquito bite today. Drat. I thought it was way early, but I checked my notes and last year it was May 3. Missed it by a couple of days.

House wren in bluebird box

Nest construction began April 21. Saw my first hummingbird that day also. It was nectaring at the coral honeysuckle. First year it has bloomed!


In with a twig


Time to find more

Before the rain

Hellebore


Columbine leaves unfurling


Hellebore seedpods. Reminds me of some kind of carnivorous plant, eating a dead leaf (OK, I confess—I staged it).


Bloodroot. I'm obsessed with stamens.


Purple dead-nettle. Beautiful, but greedy, weed.


Toad trillium. Got a bunch of these on a plant rescue.

Species tulip

Redbud

Pear blossoms

Taraxacum officinale

Simple and fresh and fair from winter's close emerging,
As if no artifice of fashion, business, politics, had ever been,
Forth from its sunny nook of shelter'd grass--innocent, golden, calm as the dawn,
The spring's first dandelion shows its trustful face.

—Walt Whitman

Up and out, in the yard

Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis)
March 9, 2009


Trout lily (Erythronium americanum)
March 10, 2009


Narcissus 'Tet a Tete'
February 27, 2009


"Ugly camellia"
March 2, 2009