We have a little spot of dirt in our front yard that gets full sun so I planted sunflower seeds and a few weeks later they started coming up.
Near the end of April this one was the first to start blooming.
A tiny Eastern amberwing dragonfly was flying around the sunflower plants.
A titmouse was showing off his snacks. I’m assuming he had a nest somewhere high up in the tree. I kept seeing him fly up there but couldn’t tell where he was going.
A moth through the window. Taken with my phone.
This blue jay was driving me crazy. He kept eating the suet and digging around in the plants for bugs. He lets me get really close. I took the above with my phone.
Critters on the flowering plants in the front yard.
I was sitting at the kitchen table working on my computer when I looked up and saw a hummingbird flying around in front of the window. I pulled out the old window feeder that I hadn’t used in a long time and made some extra food and put it on the window. By the next day she was coming to the feeder. If I was standing still in front of the window when she flew in she would continue to feed as long as I stood still.
A video of Fred flirting with me through the window.
It was almost time to take the suet feeder down. It’s just too hot once May comes and even through the package says they don’t melt, they do. The woodpeckers will just have to eat the regular sunflower seeds instead for a few months.
I kept hearing a peeping noise when I went out to water the plants and saw a downy woodpecker hanging around a spot high up in the oak tree in the backyard. I saw the woodpecker fly away and walked over and saw the above juvenile looking out from a hole underneath a branch. So I did what any normal bird nerd would do, I went inside and got my camera and dragged my patio chair under the tree and waited for the parent to come back.
The parent came back several times. There were two juveniles in the hole but only one popped out at a time. It must be tight in there. I could see the red on the young one’s head so I knew it was a boy. There was also a female.
Both parents stayed busy bringing in food but they would stick their head far into the hole to feed the kids so I couldn’t get a shot of them feeding it.
I knew that the babies were about to be too big for that hole and a few days later I saw them chasing the parents on the trees.
A regular visitor to the backyard.
I was out running errands and on the way home I saw these 3 on the sidewalk in front of the utility field down the street. I pulled over on the nearby parking pad and got out with my camera and crossed the street. Then they started crossing the street and heading right for me. These guys were strutting around like they owned the neighborhood.
I realized there were 2 females behind the trees on my side of the street. The males got close to the females but the females ignored them and went into the woods.
Linking to A Stroll Thru Life.
It was mid-May and the backyard was blooming. The hanging shrimp plant really made the backyard pop. Bees were always visiting it but one day I was out with my camera and caught the tiny moth on the underside of the petals.
