Vegetable Gardens are all in

The vegetables are all in the ground and in the City Pickers planting boxes. On the deck we have two City Picker boxes. 

The farthest one has leafy greens in it. And, I actually labeled the photo so I would know what I am picking! The parsley might be a bit of overkill with three plants growing...We'll see. It does get so big!

The nearest City Picker box (with the fencing)  has cucumbers, one row of Spacemaster Cukes, and one row of National Pickling Cukes. I forgot which row is which;-) No matter as they both grow very well.

I have potted a small Tiny Treats compact cherry tomato and have it at the end of the walkway (next to the False Indigo). My cherry tomatoes did very well in this location last year.

This year we decided to buy more tomato plants and put them in the ground in the front yard. It just gets too hot on the deck to successfully grow tomatoes. So, we have Celebrity and Early Girl tomatoes and will see how they do. The zucchinis are Burpee's Best Hybrid and Burpee's Fordhook Zucchini. If you look in the background, you will see that the high bush blueberries seem very happy this year. I have no idea what varieties they are, but one is earlier and the others are a bit later.

Dragonflies are hatching!

There are dragonflies all over the yard! They are hatching out today;-)

Whip-Poor-Will audio recording...Yahoooo!

 Neighbor Shannon was lucky enough to record audio of a Whip-Poor-Will the other evening! We haven't heard one in around 20 years! Now, I want to put our audio recorder back in the woods to see if this bird is over in our neck of the woods (5 houses down from Shannon.)

Yellow-shafted Flicker Video

Yellow-shafted Flickers nested in the ash tree behind our house. They worked on excavating this former hairy woodpecker nest hole in early May, and then moved in. The female laid eggs at some point. In the last couple of weeks, I started hearing their warning call at the far end of the neighbor's yard. This confused me because their nest was in our backyard. I guess that, at some point, they realized that our backyard was too busy, and decided to move to a new location. They made the move on May 22nd. We documented as much as we could without disturbing them. But, we do miss all the commotion...the loud calls from early morning to late afternoon. It is way too quiet now. Make sure you turn your sound on to hear their call.

Yellow-shafted Flickers

We had a Yellow-shafted Flicker pair nest in the ash tree next to our back deck.

Above, you can see the nest hole with the female at the opening.

Male Yellow-shafted Flicker

Here is the male Yellow-shafted Flicker. Notice the distinguishing characteristic black malar marking down from the hinge edge of his bill. And, you can see some hint of brilliant yellow coloring on the flight feathers and the tail feathers!
Unfortunately, this is a screen shot from some video that we took. I don't have any clear, actual still shots. This is because the birds have moved their nest elsewhere on May 22nd. You'll see this activity in the video. We are bummed.

Here is the female Yellow-shafted Flicker. She is a bit browner in coloration than the male, and she lacks the black malar marking.

The female is gorgeous! We didn't see much of her initially as she is the one to seemingly spend most of the time on the eggs. By the way, I took these photos from outside the fence using my Nikon P1000 at full zoom (3000mm), so as not to disturb the birds.

Here is a screen grab, from the video, of the female moving one of the eggs. Oddly enough, I think the birds have been creating a second nest hole for awhile as I have heard the male doing his warning call from the far side of our neighbor's yard. 

And, here is a screen grab, from the video, of the female flicker flying away with the egg. 

We decided to try to get images of the inside of the abandoned nest. Drew attached a tiny tripod to the end of a pole pruner, and then duct taped a camera to it. The camera was too big to fit into the nest hole entrance.

Then we remembered that we had an endoscope that we use to try to see into chipmunk dens, etc. Drew uses an old Samsung cell phone (thank you David) that our bro-in-law gave us years ago, that syncs up with the endoscope.

The endoscope was then attached to the pole pruner via the tiny tripod. Drew left a good length of cord so the endoscope could be dropped a ways down into the nest cavity.

The endoscope has lights on the end and can illuminate the nest cavity as photos are taken.

Here is what we saw... a nest of fine wood shavings! No downy softness for woodpeckers. They are made of tougher stuff than your common tweety birds!

Note: I know it may seem callous, but we have maintained normal activity throughout the entire nesting process figuring that if the birds weren't comfortable with us, they wouldn't nest there. Our fenced-in backyard is where our firewood is stacked, our equipment shed is, and where Toby has a safe place, being a blind dog, to roam, to snooze, and to play. And, it is a safe place for us to physically distance ourselves while socializing with friends and their dogs. At no time did we disturb the woodpeckers on purpose. And, Toby had no interest in them whatsoever. Please do not judge us harshly...

Overnight temperatures reached into the 30's

What???? Every week I continue to think that we are out of the 30's at night, and every week I stand corrected. I don't know when we last saw overnight temperatures this low in late May! We have one more night in the 30's and then we really should be warmer at night...I hope...

Robins

Here is Mama Robin on the nest, today. Look how high she is sitting on it. Do you think that the chicks may have hatched?

Here she is 6 days ago, snuggled much further down onto the eggs.

And, here is proud papa Robin keeping a watchful eye on his territory and nesting partner. His breast is a darker red than his mate's breast is.

And, papa Robin has to keep an ear out for earthworms...to feed young chicks.

Our 30th Wedding Anniversary Pandemic Celebration...say what?

Gee... how do you celebrate 30 years of marriage? I don't know about you, but during the pandemic we thought it appropriate to visit our favorite cemetery in the woods. Hix Small Cemetery has grave stones dating back to the early 1800's. And, this time of year it is covered with wildflowers.

These pink and white flowers, commonly called Moss Pink or Ground Phlox, (Phlox sublata), are commonly seen blanketing the ground of cemeteries! These little flowers like rocky or sandy soil. And, this cemetery land is absolutely perfect to support it.

There are also Bluets, aka Quaker Ladies, (Houstonia caerulea), covering wide swaths of the ground around the grave stones. Thick carpets of the white variety give the appearance of snow on lawns and fields in our neck of the woods.

The Bluets occur in blue varieties as well. They are very tiny and so beautiful.

But, wait! There's more...I saw my first ever Eastern Pine Butterfly (Incisalia niphon). Yahooo! It's not much of a photo, but it was enough to identify it. And, it was flitting close to the ground supping on the tiny bluets. The upper wings (that you see here) are brown chocolate colored. You can see the edge of the wing is white with black striping.

The underwing (seen here) is patterned with brown, white, and black. These butterflies lay their eggs on "new growth of young pines..." Their larvae "favor both native and ornamental pines." "Late emerging adults feed on wild plum, dogbane, lupine, everlasting, and other wildflowers."
Nelson, Cyndi. Painted Ladies Butterflies of North America. Edited by Millie Miller, Johnson Books, Boulder, Colorado, 1993.

Scarlet Tanager

It is a good week in our neck of the woods. Today, I saw a Scarlet Tanager for the first time this spring. I was looking back in my old posts on Maine Nature Diary, and we had one arrive on this same day in 2014!

Spring like weather...finally!

We've finally turned the corner and are experiencing spring-like weather. I must say that I am relieved that we are done with below freezing temperatures until October! Yay!!!

Chippy Chatter: I got an earful from The Chipster!

I was just sitting on my birding bench, behind the hummingbird feeder, when I heard a lot of chittering to my right. I looked over, and there was "The Chipster" giving me an earful of disgruntledness! Of course, he tolerates Drew and hangs out quietly nearby when Drew fills the bird feeder. Watch his/her behavior in the video below.

Thunderstorm

What? A thunderstorm in May???? Weird weather for us as it is still cool, with the temperature at 49F, at almost 10pm. When we moved here 20 years ago, you could count on one hand the number of thunderstorms we would have in a summer. Now, they are much more common...

Purty Birdies

I had a short period of time to go out and photograph birds in the vacinity of the bird feeding station, today. Since it was so warm, I sat out on the deck and quietly waited for birds to appear. I had my Nikon P1000 (which takes rather noisy photos, but allows me a lot of range) at the ready. And, here was the result.

Yup, you got it right! The Ruby-throated Hummingbirds arrived today! I took this shot early in the morning when the hummers were zipping around to gather food.

We also had Brown-headed Cowbirds flock in. The sun was in a perfect position to highlight this one's beautiful feathers. He was singing at the time of the photo.

I do love the coloring of the Rose-breasted Grosbeak male's breast. And, check out that beak! They eat seeds, fruits, and insects.

Speaking of common, but lovely birds...Check out this female Purple Finch! For such a small bird, their beak is rather robust;-) The shape is considered "conical", and it is larger than the beak of any sparrows. These birds love sunflower seeds!

And, the Downy Woodpecker gave me a good view of its tail. I enjoy watching how much birds use their tails for balance. Downy woodpeckers can be differentiated from Hairy Woodpeckers (that are a bit larger) by the black spots on the white outer tail feathers of the Downy Woodpecker. The Hairy Woodpecker does not have these spots.

Of course, I saved one of my favorite birds for last! I can't get enough of the Baltimore Orioles, and can't wait for their chicks to start visiting the feeding station.

Oh wait, I almost forgot... The "mewing" of this bird reminded me that he has also arrived. The Gray Catbird is another favorite bird. They love to sup on the jelly feeder and we'll have lots more photos of these cute birds as the season progresses!

Robin Redbreast

We have had robins nesting on both sides of the wood shed for several years. They have successfully raised lots of babies. And, this year is no different.

This nest was built last year and improved upon this spring.

I am assuming that there are eggs in the nest because the robins are causing a ruckus every time we get near the woodshed. This one gave me quite an earful. And, I said "You wouldn't have this nice roof over your nest if we hadn't built the woodshed, so quit your squawking!"

Bursting Buds - Red Maple Trees

As I continue on my mission to examine Bursting Buds, I am intrigued by the Red Maple trees. I have found that the Red Maple tree stem in the bird feeding station has only male flowers. Most of the flowers have fallen off, although you can see a few remaining. The leaves are now developing.

While the Red Maple tree in the triangle garden, off the front deck, has only female flowers and now has winged seeds developing. I also learned that Maple trees can have both male and female flowers on the same tree, although that isn't the case in the two trees that I am studying.

Magnolia Flower Anatomy

The magnolia is an ancient tree. There are fossil magnolias dating back to 58 million years ago. 

"...the most primitive of all living angiosperns belong to the subclass Magnoliidae. This subclass contains several primitive plant families, including the water-lily family (Nymphaeaceae), buttercup family (Ranunculaceae), and magnolia family (Magnoliaceae)" 

Armstrong, W. P. “The Magnolia Family (Magnoliaceae).”
https://www2.palomar.edu/users/warmstrong/trmar98c.htm.

The flower bud is protected by tough bud scales that are quite hairy. The bud scales are pushed outward to reveal the flower.

The anatomy of the flowers is different from trees that developed later in Earth's history. The flowers are considered to be primitive as they don't have true petals. They have tepals (which are a combination of a sepal and a petal.) These tepals are tough and they are designed so as to protect the inner parts of the flower from beetles, which were the original pollinators of these ancient flowers. As the flower matures, the bud scales are shed.

As the flower opens up, it reveals a tight bundle of rose and yellow-colored, striped stamens that surround the stigmas on the ovary. You can just see a hint of yellow pollen on the inside of the stamens. And, the stigmas are sticking up like a bad hair day!

Stamens are attached to the base of the ovary and are arranged in a spiral pattern. As they mature, they spread outward. The stigmas are attached to pistils and capture pollen that eventually fertilizes ovaries. 

Eventually the tepals fall off revealing the green receptacle housing the ovaries. The stamen whorled at the base of the receptacle are the next to be shed.

Each pistil is attached to its own ovary. And the ovaries are housed in the green fingerlike receptacle. The stamen have fallen off as have most of the stigmas.

"Once pollination has taken place, these pollen-producing bodies are shed, revealing the cone-like ovary where seeds will form." 

https://homeguides.sfgate.com/magnolia-flower-61031.html

And, the end result of all this fabulous development are the beautiful, red aggregate fruits that contain seeds that develop in autumn. These fruits are...
"just like blackberries--except that blackberry fruits are fleshy, while magnolia fruits are dry."   Conrad, Jim. “Magnolia Flowers.” Https://www.backyardnature.net/fl_magno.htm.