Tag: natural history
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Corvids Are So Smart, Part II
My last post was about a Scrub Jay hiding peanuts in our back yard. This post again features peanuts, but another Corvid, this time, an American Crow. Again we start our story with a Crow picking up a peanut from a scattering of them left by a human neighbor. But the Crow evidently doesn’t like…
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Honeybee doesn’t fit, but hummingbird has no problem
Both bees and hummingbirds visit flowers, but flowers can be picking about who gets to move their pollen.
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Corvids Carrying Cargo Create Conundrums
Two corvids carry stuff in their beaks, but offer no answers as to what … or why.
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Banded Garden Spider
Trigger Alert: We’re talking about spiders in this post. Pictures, too. But it is a very gentle spider. The spider in question is a banded garden spider in our raspberry patch. It showed up in late July (unfortunately, my camera card with those photos on it became corrupted), and my husband and I have been…
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Ladybugs emerge
The East Coast has been inundated with two broods of cicadas. At my house, on the other hand, we’ve had an emergence of ladybugs. Ladybug larva are not among the prettiest creatures of the earth. At least one expert compared them to tiny alligators — grey with rough skin. But the larva gobble up soft-bodied…
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A Day Shooting Birds at The Reservoir
My friend and I took a walk around the reservoir today. Of course I took my camera. As a coming-out-of-covid present to myself, I bought a new, big lens a year ago. I do okay with it when it is on a tripod, but what fun is that? On the other hand, I’m still not…
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Red-tailed Hawk in the Backyard
In the past few weeks, I’ve noticed several instances of a hawk flying fast and low through our back yard. I had assumed it was an accipitor — either a Cooper’s or a sharp-shinned hawk that specializes in hunting in open forests like back yards. But while my husband and I were out working in…
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Baby Owl Day
You know how it seems like there is an official Day for just about everything? I’ve decided to officially declare this Baby Owl Day. Why? Because I finally got to see them! I’ve been told that there are three owlets in the nest. Here, I can only see two for sure, and then mama in…
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Aurora Borealis at -35o
Up until now I have posted my own photographs on this blog, with very few exceptions. But my brother and his wife went to Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada, earlier this month to see the Aurora boriealis displays. The photos they brought back were stunning. Auroras are created when the sun burps plasma full of charged…
