Odds and Ends....

Now that the French Open is over maybe I'll get outside to take some new photos. These are a few I've taken in the past week and never got around to posting.  Nothing great, but a lot of odds and ends.

Nothing like starting with the worst photo!  This bird was over my head in the maple tree squawking at me very loudly.  I think it might be a young Brown Thrasher since I saw the one below in the yard during the same time.  I was trying to get a decent photo of the House Wren that is living in the gourd that hangs in that tree, but this bird was so loud and distracting.  I need to go out and sit and watch for the wren from a better location.  

 The Brown Thrasher in the yard.

 We have a few different day lilies blooming right now....not very many.  I'm a terrible gardener and just sort of stick stuff in the ground here, there and everywhere and hope it grows.

 The common orange ones that some people call "ditch lilies".  I love seeing them along the highways.

 We also have black raspberries right now.  I was out picking them earlier and the worse part is the ticks that hang around the area.

A young Cardinal on the front walk.

 My double Lilies....my favorites. They have so many blooms and are very sturdy.

A really dark skinny lily. 

I stopped by the park to check on the Barn Swallow nest and there was this other little bird sitting on the ground nearby...... 

 ....I wondered if it is a Kingbird baby.  There was an adult Kingbird in the area and the Swallows seemed to be chasing other birds at times.  It was all sort of confusing.  I think there was a Cowbird babe nearby, too on the ground.  I guess all the young ones are learning to fly right now.

 The adult Swallow swooping in with food.  My shots aren't very clear. I have to sit in my car and shoot to keep from irritating them too much.

 Expectant....they know food is coming.

 They look big enough to take off on their own soon.  

I hope they leave before there are any soccer games in the fields.  Being right over the men's room is not a good location with a bunch of  little kids running around.

 A parent giving me the evil eye.  One parent stays on the wire watching the nest while the other parent is out collection bugs.

"My turn....my turn.....he's getting all the food!"

I may swing by there later today and see if they have left the nest yet.

Killdeer, ducks, dragons, etc......

I've made a couple of trips to the wetlands in the past few days.  The heron is still out there fishing and there are still turtles on the logs, but I thought I would post some of the other things I see.

 There have been Killdeer hanging around in the shallow water.  I think they are pretty birds, but they sure could take the prize for the noisiest birds, also!  They don't make a move without screaming out their cry at the top of their lungs.

There are two families of ducks on the slough right now.  This first family of Mallards is pretty grown up, but you can tell by the way they follow the adult that they are young ones.

 "OK....lets see who can hold their breath the longest!"

"You lose!"

 A cluster of young showing that they aren't quite as tall as their parent yet.

The other family has 7 little ones.  It was sort of confusing when I first saw them because the two adults look alike!  I couldn't figure out why there were two females.  However, after doing some looking on the Internet, I find that the male Mallard changes to "eclipse plummage" after mating and looks like the female for awhile. I didn't know that!  I thought at first they were a different type of duck.

 Love the little ones!

Out of the water before they saw me watching them.

Lots of dragonfly activity for a change!  This is the female Blue Dasher and she was laying eggs. 

 This is the male Blue Dasher.  You can recognize him by the black tail tip.  He is fairly small.

 The female laying an egg.  

 Lots of bees and other bugs on the milkweed.

 An approach to the bridge through the woods.

 The Common Whitetail female.  The male is a pale whitish blue color which is where the name comes from.  When they are flying I always think the male's wings look like they have square "flags" hanging downward.

 This is an Eastern Pondhawk female.....

 ....and the Eastern Pondhawk male.

Eastern-tailed Blue butterfly.  I saw very few butterflies.  A few Cabbage Whites and Sulphurs which were not in the mood to slow down or pose for me. 

This is a female Widow Skimmer and she is eating a bug.  Didn't realize that until I had the photo on the computer! 

 I'm showing several photos of these because I saw several of them in the meadow area.   The male is more common to me.  The male is blue and there is white next to the black on the wings.  Very easy to spot when they are flying.  I haven't had a photo of one yet this year.

 I was surprised by the difference between this one and the next one that has black wing tips.  Apparently some do and some don't!  Also an immature male looks sort of  like the female.

I think the black wing tips are more dramatic!

Driving around Blue Grass FWA......

After going to the Classic Iron show yesterday, we went for a drive through the Blue Grass FWA.  My Classic Iron photos are in my other blog...click here.

 Bob White!  This was a wonderful surprise!  Mike spotted this pair in the tall grass just as we were leaving one of the gravel parking lots.  I have never seen them here before and only seen them once or twice in my life anywhere.

 They didn't make it easy to get photos, but we got a couple shots of heads bobbing up out of the grass.

 Saw lots of Dickcissels sitting tall and singing their songs.  Here on the thistles.....

 ....high in a tree.....

 ....on a low tree, which is a typical perch for them.

 One Goldfinch getting some thistle seeds.

 Dead thistle ready for a bird to come eat the seeds.

Thistles.

I have some more photos from the day before out at the wetlands, but this is enough for now.  Time to go do something instead of sitting here at the computer :-)

Four birds, one dragon.......or maybe two.....

We took a drive through Mouteau Park the other day on our way to Rural King.  This little park that was a former landfill is mainly used for some soccer fields for kids.  But on the way in there is a large area that is off limits to people and they have let the grass grow long.  This is where we see Meadowlarks.

 We got really lucky and a pair of them were right by the road rather than in the tall grasses.  This is the closest I have ever seen one!

 It looked around for awhile, posing very nicely for me.

 Eventually it jumped into the tall grass behind it, but I was so happy to have seen it up close.

 Along the edge of the field of grass and also the soccer fields there is a wire fence and posts.  A number of birds love to use these posts and wire to sit on.  This is the resident Mockingbird that is always near the gate when we drive in :-)  He was glaring at us and moving from post to post.

 "This is my area....go away!"

 Another fence sitter that I often see here....the Kingbird.  This is not a great photo, but he had just caught a bug and is eating it.

 A little better pose.  I was having trouble getting the focus against the different backgrounds.

A back view shows off his white tail tip nicely.

 A female Barn Swallow is another fence sitter.  She was hanging out by the bathroom building and I suspected a nest somewhere in the rafters.

 Sure enough!  Up by the door to the men's room......hope they fly away before the soccer season starts.  There were four babes in the nest, and when I got out to take photos I was bombarded by several adults that didn't like me getting close.  One of the babes was a bit shy and kept ducking down, so you only see three here.

 Bunny in the grass with the Robins.

 This is a Halloween Pennant and I believe it is male.  This is the only park where I usually find these.  There is a small lake and they are usually around the edge of it somewhere.  I also saw several other kinds but didn't get good photos and they were the common ones I always see....the Eastern Pondhawk and the Blue Dasher.  Who comes up with these wonderful names????

....and.....

My other "dragon".  We nickname our cat, Mouse...."The Dragon".....because she is so evil and mean.  However, yesterday we had to take her to the vet to be groomed....she won't let us comb her long fur....and it was so full of mats that they said it was easier to just shave it all off!  Oh, my!  How can you be a "fire breathing dragon" when you are naked??????  Poor Mouse!  She was not pleased, but she will be a lot cooler and more comfortable this summer as it slowly grows back :-)