Cedar waxwings and bluebird
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Late this afternoon in the Garden, I saw a large group of cedar waxwings swoop around and settle in a flowering hickory. Taking a few shots (without a good zoom lens), here's a view of a couple of cedar waxwings and a bluebird.
There was also a mockingbird in the group, but they were largely cedar waxwings.
Walking iris
I normally don't pay a lot of attention to indoor plants, but a dancing iris (or walking iris, Neomarica gracilis) given to me by a friend has bloomed away this winter and spring.
It's a lovely member of the Iris family native to Brazil, and hardy only to about zone 8 outside, but is a very adaptable houseplant.
Each flower lasts less than a day, but has intricate markings, and is delicately borne at the end of stems. It's easy to propagate from the young offshoots that appear at the end of stems after flowering, so there are always plants to share.
One Bold Turquoise Home
Bee flies and syrphid flies
Monday, April 21, 2008
I was fortunate enough to be on a birding excursion this afternoon in a class that I've been taking. We saw all sorts of interesting things, thanks to our instructor, a great birder, but also an experienced entomologist.
We saw birds, of course, and we're in the midst of peak spring migration, but I think my favorite new thing was learning about bee flies. They look like small, very cute bees, but are actually bee mimics. This one was visiting small pale tangerine-colored flowers out in the meadow (a weedy plant that I should know the name of, but which is really quite lovely). They're pollinators, just like bumblebees, honeybees, and other bees, but as flies, mimic bees to avoid predators. Here's a great array of bee fly images from giffbeaton.com.
Similarly, watching a syrphid fly that mimics yellow jackets was fascinating. These flies are also flower visitors, and are sometimes called flower flies. Here are some good images from a NC Extension Sustainable Agriculture site.
I was able to get a good look at a number of birds that were less familiar to me. A Eastern Kingbird and a number of blue-gray gnatcatchers were highlights, as well as a tufted titmouse carrying a HUGE wad of moss in her beak for nest building. We also saw the nesting female red-shouldered hawk apparently feeding bits of an anole or lizard that her mate had just brought to her. She's probably staying at the nest with her nestlings while they grow feathers -- they're altricial (born with little or no down), so need plenty of help to stay warm, and need to be fed. Hopefully, they'll be independent enough in the next few days (it takes about a week) that both parents will be feeding them, so we'll have lots more activity. We were able to see the male come in, deposit the critter, and quickly depart, and then the backside of the female as she fed her young.
Gardeners' Bloom Day Hits the Press
The good news, the bad news, the bad news and the good news.
I've got a day off from work (good news), it's bucketing with rain (bad news), and my back has packed in (very bad news). It's been grumbling for a while, and carrying a load of containers downstairs yesterday to get rid of the old soil just about finished it off. So all the gardening I'd intended to do today is on hold (result of the two bits of bad news).
But as I had some free time, I decided to follow up a message that VP had sent me (thank you VP) saying that The Balcony Garden had been featured in the British newspaper The Independent, (good news). I'd managed to get hold of a print version on Saturday but found nothing, and a quick look at the online version didn't turn up anything either. But today I sat down to do a more thorough search. And found this post in one of the blogs in their Indyblogs section, focusing on Gardeners' Bloom Day, and mentioning some of the blogs which had participated this month.
I'm not surprised that Bloom Day has been noticed. By now it's become a Garden Bloggers' institution, with over 100 blogs taking part. Well done (and thank you, because it's fun) to Carol for dreaming it up. Thank you too, Carol, for the way you reply to everyone who posts. It must take hours, but is much appreciated.
So to celebrate, and to try and forget the rain and the back pain, here are some shots that I could have published for GBD this month, but didn't. I've said before that colour combinations aren't my strong point, but I rather like this one. Or did, as I have to admit that the petunia in the middle has died. Not sure why - I suspect because of the sudden drop in temperatures that we had just after I'd bought it at the Easter Monday flower market (which I blogged about last year.) Odd though, because some others that I got at the same time are doing fine. I've been scouring the garden centres for another one which is just the same shade of purple, but of course haven't found one. Oh well, back to the colour wheel ...
Casa Buena
Sunday, April 20, 2008
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