Small moments

Late summer drones on for me...the girls are back to school, but the bird action (now that I have some time to get out and watch them) is still quiet.  Babies are grown, the fall exodus not yet begun....

I take what I can get, though.  Small moments of magic. 



I found a flower whose stamens are minuscule Pixie Stix.

(Please click on this to see it larger...)


Glowing Morning Glory.




Did not know an inchworm was also noodling his way through the thistle blooms alongside the skipper.
(This skipper was the size of a quarter.)





A delicate, tiny white flower in the underbrush...



So small and fragile-looking, I held my breath as I took its picture.



Watched water striders' shadows chase them under the water.



I found water so clear, it held the sky inside.



Just the right patch of shade gave me a star.



Stumbled across a bird finally, a solitary sandpiper eating a small fish.



A small moment that was huge for me....
I've always wanted to see this.  A damselfly freshly emerged from its nymph skin. 



Zero defining marks.  Just opalescent translucence.

I've never held a dragonfly or damselfly.  They are too smart, too fast for that.  I've always wanted to, but never had the chance.

And then he climbed onto my fingernail. 

A post without birds

Migrants are flying in all over the state, but I haven't had the opportunity to go see any.
My time has been spent doing all those boring yet necessary things that keep me from birding: Parenting, programs and sleeping. Well, programs aren't boring, but it does tend to cut into my prime birding time.

Some pics from the past few days:


She insisted on wearing this daring ensemble to the grocery store. A high-end dress from an uppity boutique, with red rubber boots. Well, could I argue with that?


The accidental redbud in the yard is in full bloom. This is "accidental" because it looks like the previous owners of our house found this growing along the property line and bracketed it with boards. We almost chopped it down years ago, but we stopped when we saw tiny buds. A dogwood is right next to it, also bracketed by boards. Two of only a few native plants that existed when we bought the place.

When I showed Isabelle how close the chipping sparrows allow us to get, she devised a plan:

...she disguised herself as a tree. (Holding dismembered honeysuckle branches)

While I was tearing out honeysuckle in a native-loving fit, she brought over a few new friends:

Baby centipedes. Great. Now put them back before Mommy has a seizure.


My wisteria, having sat there for 4 years, is almost ready to bloom. Last year, I got to enjoy a few blooms (strangely, in July) for about 12 hours before the flippin' Japanese beetles ate them.
(And Nellie sneaked into the photo, too)


The first tree I looked up in books and actually identified myself:

A hawthorn. I found it 2 years ago while tearing out the honeysuckle in a native-loving fit. It was covered by a huge patch of honeysuckle, and I might have torn it out too, but I got stuck by one of the thorns. The flowers are reminiscent of apple blossoms, and in the fall, are replaced by
golf-ball-sized fruits. I'm not going to hazard a guess as to what kind of hawthorn it is...there are a bazillion different species.

During a walk with Lorelei today at Kelley's Nature Preserve, we were treated to a carpet of wildflowers. (For a very nice, informative post on Ohio's native and non-native wildflowers living at the Cincinnati Nature Center, go see KatDoc here)


Wild blue phlox...a huge flower compared to the Creeping Phlox I planted in the flowerbed a few years ago.


It was nearly 80 degrees today. Sitting by the Little Miami was a pleasurable experience that even Lorelei couldn't find fault with.

The backyard interlopers:

Slugs. Lots and LOTS of slugs. I'm not well-versed in slug ID's, but Ohio has both native and exotic types.
They seem to be enjoying the dandelions, so I can't complain. And I mean, they are on EVERY. Single. Dandelion.


Ever look a slug in the eye? There's intelligence there...I swear it.


This one is shy...."Blushing Slug". Sounds like a bad rock band.


Just to make this picture more enjoyable, imagine this slug singing "Weekend in New England".

And for my Boston-philes out there:

Holy Dinosaur Bones, Batman!

Well, the blue bud is now a blue bloom.
Is that a perfect blue or what? I think I will plant Bachelor's Buttons every year. Such happy little flowers.

The marathon of programs began today.
The first was close to home, and also close to the B&N where Geoff will be signing copies of his book. I stopped in the store and took a sneaky picture of the BIG sign right inside the door:

The second program was across the river in Kentucky. A large, loud storm cut it short and I drove back to RAPTOR dripping.
Let me tell you about a conversation I had as I was packing the birds back into the car after my first program:
A woman began talking to me about RAPTOR and our programs, etc. She took one of my brochures and said that her church would love to have us. Great.
Then she started talking about the giant statue they have at their church (the largest Horseshoe Crab in the world or something like that) and it's covered in Scripture. Okay. Great. If that's your thing.
She also mentioned The Creation Museum and "Answers in Genesis" ( I was a bit confused at this turn in topics...weren't we talking about birds of prey a second ago?) and then she dropped this bomb:
"You know, that museum that shows us that God didn't create the dinosaurs."

Exsqueeze me?
She then proceeded to tell me how dinosaur bones couldn't possibly any more that a few thousand years old, because the world is only about six thousand years old.
Oh, dear. One of those.
You can imagine the trillion things that ran through my mind in that nanosecond.
But all I did was put the birds in the car faster, thank her for her interest in RAPTOR, and
Got. The. Hell. Out. Of there.

I am teaching the girls the concepts of "acceptance" and "tolerance", and I try to live those concepts myself. But sometimes it's hard, isn't it? I almost bit through my tongue.

It's scary to think that children who go to this museum and are being raised by parents who think this museum is a great idea (A $50 million idea, at that!), will think that science is full of BS, and swallow this humongous spoonful of crap they are being fed. These are the type of people who voted for Bush. Twice.
:)

A colonic for your brain:

We got lots of wonderful, cold rain today, and the hummingbirds were zipping merrily through the yard and perching and preening. Look at his gorget in these two pictures. Those red feathers look black unless they are turned just so.

And they were full of **ss and vinegar, giving me the raspberry.
"Pbbbpbpbpbpbpbpbp...."

You may not be seeing me for a few days...Harry Potter and Owls will be my life this weekend. I will be back when I have finished the book and recovered from the zillion programs I will be doing.

An outing...and the Odd Couple

After my praise of the Cincinnati Museum Center yesterday, I decided that I needed to take the girls there.

Its official name is the Cincinnati Museum Center, but I still call it Union Terminal.
I bet Trixie has been here!

We went to two of the museums, the Children's one and the Natural History one.

Neil Armstrong's space suit is there.
(Did you know that Geoff interviewed Mr. Armstrong for a book? His first book was about a local business man who was also a friend of Mr. Armstrong's)


The Natural History Museum is full of so many cool things...caves, simulated glaciers, fossils, reconstructed skeletons of mastodons, giant sloths.
And a passenger pigeon. What a beautiful bird. Stupid humans.


And speaking of birds...
John James Audubon worked here back in 1819 as a taxidermist, with the predecessor of our current museum.
Cool!
(We Cincinnatians find any, ANY tie-in we can)

The Rotunda ceiling.
Word has it that the huge entry way has perfect acoustics, and that you can stand at one end and whisper, and a person can hear you all the way on the other side. I have never been able to do it, because it's always so loud in there.


Maxfield Keck’s bas-relief figures symbolize Commerce and Transportation.
Big, beautiful murals made of tiny pieces of ceramic. The sister pieces to these are hanging in the Greater Cincinnati Airport.





Pigeons don't know how to tell time, but they hang out on the clock anyway.

No matter where you go outside the exhibits, you can't forget you are in a train station.

These are some of the old rail entry points, where the trains came into the platforms.
And trains still come into this station, but in the back instead of the front.
You can grab an Amtrak from here.

"I'm livin' on the air in Cincinnati....
Cincinnati, W K R P."

News from the yard:

The new batch of swallowtail eggs have hatched and we have new babies to fawn over.


From the prairie...
I cannot WAIT to see this when it opens!


We have a balding cardinal:

"I'm not just the president, I'm also a client."

You know, I have seen bald cardinals in other people's yards, but never here. I was starting to get insulted.

The usual culprit is feather mites.
Eventually the feathers grow back. but not before the poor guy gets a lot of grief from the other birds.

In honor of Mary's post yesterday:
We have our own love affair going on in the yard.
A bi-species affair.
Duh duh dum!


Her: It's not going to work, Jay.
Him: Come on, baby. Ain't I sexy enough for you?

Her: You're too pushy, and my parents don't approve of you. We have such different lives.
It' s time to move on.
Him: .....Huh? Did you say something?


Her: See?!? You're looking at the feeder! All you care about is sex and food!
Him: Hey. That human put out peanuts.

I hate Japanese beetles......and some birdy delicate parts

I have declared war on the Japanese beetles.
And in the light of my post on the RAPTOR blog, I had to find something that would get the Japanese beetles and nothing else.
The easy way out would have been to get some all-purpose insect killer, and end up killing all the bugs in the yard. Did you know there is a product called Bug-Free Yard? WTF?
I chose the difficult way out. I had to go to three stores until I found the Japanese beetle bag traps with the pheromone/floral lures. I even went to a store I despise. I won't say the name...but it's two words, the first word begins with an "H" and the second word rhymes with "creepo" They didn't even carry the bag traps. So I finally found some at Lowe's, which is a store I love. Helpful staff, clean, bright.
The other one is like a big scary warehouse you would find in a horror movie.

I was horrified at the selection of pesticides. I watched a very obese woman choose a "snake remover" chemical ( I couldn't help but notice her, because her rather large ass was in my way) and I can't imagine snakes being such a problem here in Southwest Ohio that someone would NEED a chemical to get rid of them! Mice and rat traps, I understand. Indoor ant poison, I understand. Indoor flea and tick spray and powder, I understand.
(I had to get some of that today...forgot to give Nellie her Advantage and she brought them in. Bad pet owner! Bad! Bad!)
But mole traps? Skunk/rabbit/possum/whatever repellent or poison? Full spectrum insect killers???
I say again, WTF?


My Bag O' Beetles.
I went out before sundown to check, and there were already about twenty beetles in there. YES! That will teach you to eat my first wisteria blossoms! I was able to enjoy them a whole 12 hours before they were eaten.

I love our prairie. Every day, there is a new thing to marvel at:

I don't know what it is, but I like it.

I tried to get a few good pictures of a pair of goldfinches sampling our ginormous sunflowers, but they kept turned their butts up in the air.
I almost deleted this one, but I noticed a "small" tidbit...

This is another way you can tell male songbirds from female ones.
During nesting season (and goldfinches are in theirs right now) the male's naughty bits swell up enough to be noticeable. I knew the basics of their reproductive systems, but this is the first time I got a peek at the package, know what I'm sayin'?



I haven't been able to find a single pipevine swallowtail caterpillar for 2 days. I assume they are pupating and are just hiding very well.
But I found a whole new batch of eggs to watch!

A very colorful Friday the Thirteenth

Lots of color today...I would really like to see some cool birds, though.

I saw purple:

(Skippers on bee balm, Lake Isabella)

(Bachelor's Button at home)

(Inchworm on chickory)



Pink:

Did you know that before she is a Queen, Anne blushes?



Orange, brown and green...with a touch of more pink:

(Clearwing moth on bee balm, Lake Isabella)

(Sycamore tussock moth, Lake Isabella)


(Look how Lorelei is trying to keep her dress out of the water...like it's anywhere near it!)

(Monarch)



Silver:




Gold:





And touches of yellow:

(Remains of a swallowtail)

(Our sunflowers in the back yard...see that window? That's our second story bathroom.
We don't consider the sunflowers a success unless we can see them out of that window)