National Audubon Society Puffin Webcam - Chicks are hatching!

'Tis nesting season for the puffins on Machias Seal Island. See the dark fluffly chick under the right side of the bird? Check out the National Audubon Society's Puffin Cam!

This webcam is of a ledge on Machias Seal Island where puffins often hang out with a decoy!

This webcam shows the exterior of some puffin burrows! It is a very dynamic social scene here.

A Snappy Lady Lays Eggs in our yard...

Finally, somebody got around to laying some eggs in our yard! That lump near the edge of the road is a good sized snapping turtle photographed at 6:30am.

At first, Drew thought that this was the grand dame of the pond due to her size. But when I photographed her, we found her to be somewhat younger. Her shell is quite worn, so she is getting up there in years...

Here you can sort of see her using one of her hind feet to scoop dirt out of the nest hole. I was up on the front deck using my zoom to almost its full extent.

She ended up not liking the road location and moved her egg laying operation to an area next to our front walkway. The reason I did not get any photos/video of her digging this hole and laying the eggs is that I had to go to school! Darn!

We'll put a homemade turtle cage around it in the hopes that some baby turtles hatch out in September. Snappers can lay up to 80 eggs, but 20-30 is more typical of what we should find in the nest. The turtles would be all males if the sand temperature is in the mid 70's all summer long. Cooler temperatures, in the high 60's, would yield females. A combo of male/female turtles occurs when the sand temps. are in the low 70's. We'll measure the internal nest temp. over the course of the summer to find the average temp. The baby turtles should hatch out between Sept. 3rd - 23rd for hatching dates between 96-116 days.

Note: Back in Sept./Oct., 2011, after only 96 days in the nest, we had 16 hatchlings emerge from a nest on Sept.18, and 1 more emerged two weeks later on Oct. 3rd. Generally, the hatching time seems to be about 113-116 days in our neck of the woods.

Stump Gardens, Chipmunks, and more

The original stump garden with Dame's Rocket and Poppies in bloom

The stump gardens change week by week, from March through November. At this point in their transition, there are few flowers blooming. Chives, Poppies, Dame's Rocket, Azalea, Petunias, Irises, and Columbine are the sum total of the blooms. This sunny garden will soon have stunning daylilies, a huge peony, and a low growing, ground cover-like astilbe in bloom.

My "newest", but most rapidly disintegrating, stump garden has azaleas and petunias in bloom. Soon it will have some gorgeous daylilies, spirea, and a tiny, newly planted peony in bloom.

The triangle has three stumps of maple trees with slow disintegration, although next summer I will take advantage of the hole in the middle of the nearest stump. This shade garden has astilbe and hostas that will bloom in July.

As we meander from the triangle, we find that Ernest P. Mowerbird has decided to claim a nearby stump as his own.

This cheeky bird proudly sports mower parts as his body components.

Gee, we sure do have a lot of chipmunks running around. In the wood pile behind Ernest P Mowerbird, there are three chippies who have taken up residence. They keep us thoroughly entertained with their antics.

Of course, their food source, the bird seed feeder, is just a chipmunk hop, skip, and a jump away! If  you look closely enough, you will see another chipmunk on the ground under the seed feeder! Of course, the stumps here support the bird bath and seed that gets sprinkled into the cracks and crevices of the stumps.

The wood in the woodshed has been stacked, and is dried and ready for the upcoming winter and spring heating season. It is a tall stack, three rows deep, that tends to bow outward a bit. Hence the X bracing to keep it stable.

Flowers nourish insects

I think this is a Snowberry Clearwing moth on Dame's Rocket flowers

Besides the fact that I find flowers and gardening to be one of my main passions in life, I love the fact that flowers nourish insects. Here you see what I think is a Snowberry Clearwing moth (Hemaris diffinis) also known as a bumblebee moth. In fact, I thought this was a bumblee at first glance!

Here is the moth with its curled proboscis, ready to probe the next flower for nectar! They also love phlox flowers which will open in the next month.

Bees and ants love the nectar of peony flowers 

The more flowers I have, the greater the variety of insects that get attracted to our yard. The peony plants have lots of buds which attract bees, wasps, hornets, and ants before the buds even open! The nectar must be highly sought after. I often find small holes drilled into the buds where I think hornets suck out the nectar.

Celithemis elisa skimmer dragongly

I find dragonflies resting on the foliage of the flowers. The dragonflies feed on insects and I welcome their presence in our yard. This is a Celithemis elisa dragonfly, aks Calico Pennant.

Celithemis elisa skimmer dragongly

I hope this dragonfly eats lots of mosquitoes as we are getting swarmed!

Here is another species of dragonfly. This pair is mating and the female will soon be dipping her ovipositor into the water of Caesar Pond to lay her eggs.

Purple is my favorite color...

I love the color purple. It signifies royalty, and purple flowers are my favorite!

The Blue Flag irises are starting to bloom, although I think the color is more of a bluish-purple than pure blue!

I had to go over to my neighbor's house to see her purple columbine. 

Talk about royal flowers. The curved spurs (modified petals) remind me of a jester's hat.

I covet these flowers and hope to get some to grow in my yard.

A Poppy Palooza!

Oriental Poppy

I have a love affair with poppies, and the oriental poppy flower is luxurious. 

Poppy with sepals just opening to give a glimpse of what is within...

I love all parts of the poppy flower, and it is so exciting to see the sepals of the flower bud starting to separate to reveal the flower within. The sepals are hard casings with spines that protect the delicate leaves. I took this photo yesterday, and had to wait patiently until this morning to see the result because, unfortunately, the poppies tend to pop their sepals overnight.

Lo and behold, the poppy still had one sepal attached, although it should pop off sometime today.

Detached sepal

Here is a detached sepal I found sitting upside down on some leaves below the flower.

Sepal

And here is the topside of the sepal.

The morning light was perfect for photographing the poppies.

They are such a brilliant orange color against the purple of the dame's rocket flowers.

Browntail Moth Risk Map Comparison

2019 Browntail Moth Risk Map

Itchy, itchy, itchy...Yowzer, the browntail moth numbers have risen in our area this year as compared to last year. Check out the map above for this year, versus the map below from last year. the "Hot Zone" aka "The Mega Itchy Zone", as I call it, has expanded.

2018 Browntail Moth Risk Map

Here is the 2018 Browntail Moth Risk Map. We were affected by the moths later in the season last year as the moths gradually moved into our area.

Here is a good article about the Browntail Moth invasion of Midcoast Maine.

Here are some remedies that different friends swear by to lessen the reaction to the hairs that get embedded into our skin. Good luck to everyone:-)

1. Take duct tape and put it onto the welted areas. The duct tape will pull the hairs out of your skin.

2. Mix equal parts Benedryl Cream and Cortizone Cream. Then add Witch Hazel to make a consistency similar to Calamine Lotion. Spread this onto your skin to relieve the itching.

Tips for feeding backyard birds

Here is a great article from the Bangor Daily News for feeding backyard birds!

And, Cornell Labs Project Feeder Watch has great tips as well!

Beaver pups vocalizing in lodge

June is the month for baby beavers to become active in the lodge. Their vocalizations sound like little whispered voices from far away. In fact, in order to hear them you have to sit very quietly (on a calm day), for long periods of time, and be very patient... By the way, Drew had to amp up the baby beaver sounds as they were so quiet compared to the rest of the pond inhabitants you hear.

Did you know that beavers mate between January through March? Their gestation period is somewhere around 106 days. The pups are born during Mid-May through early June and they are weaned at two weeks of age.

Young beavers stay in the lodge until they are two years old, whereupon they leave to build their own homes elsewhere.