[nnasnet] Summer birds & butterflies
- From: "joandboys" <joandboys@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "nnasnet" <nnasnet@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 28 Jul 2012 16:17:44 GMT
Hi,
Here are a few observations from summertime hikes...at Sky Meadows SP, I
noticed a gratifying number of juvenile bluebirds and blue grosbeaks with adult
birds and at Wilna, more summer tanagers than I thought I'd ever see, along
with a female Baltimore oriole feeding in the treetops with orchard orioles,
common yellowthroats and yellow-breasted chats and a phoebe taking a series of
splash baths from fishing pier to water and back again. It's been the year of
the wood thrush for me, with several good sightings, especially at (of all
places) the base of Little Round Top in Gettysburg. Surrounded by tourists, I
looked up to see a female wood thrush guarding her nest on a horizontal branch
just about 3 feet above my head. And at Hutchinson, I watched my first singing
dickcissel for about 20 minutes near the shelter, swaying atop the long
grasses. Butterflies included red-spotted purple, spicebush swallowtail, male &
female Diana fritillaries, monarchs, Eastern tiger swallowtail, cloudless
sulphur in lovely shades of pale yellow and pale green and lots of skippers
(moths but still very pretty!)
At home, our improved snake baffle worked, and our bluebird pair managed
to fledge their second brood in July, along with mockingbirds and robins in the
tulip poplars. A Carolina wren scratched out several piles of soil from our
hanging plants before building a nest elsewhere, and a male hummingbird whom I
can only describe as a bully guards the feeder all day long.
Joanne C, Wicomico Church
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