Where are you?
Central North Carolina.
Oh wow, that’s so cool! (I had to google Brood XIX, but I know of periodical cicadas from the Dope.) Looking forward to regular updates!
And now I present… possibly the worst photo ever to appear in this thread (and I’m responsible for some stinkers) -
- taken from a moving car through gaps in a hedge, and with my phone deciding to focus on the leaves in the foreground; but you can just about make out a herd of wild deer lazing in what seems to be their favorite field at about 3 in the afternoon today. If you zoom you can make out about 20, with more hidden behind the foliage on the right, I think. I’ll make it my business to try to get a better shot over the next few days.
j
If I get lucky and find a cicada that’s just molted, I’ll post a photo here. They’re pure white when they first come out of their old skin, and then turn black.
They juiciest and most tender while they are white, they get crunchy when they get darker. Just saying…
Ugh, I was munching on some roasted peanuts when I read that! 
Am at my fave spring birdwatching site this weekend, Callaway Gardens. This time for this tin-eared hopeless case I installed the Merlin app, which IDs birds for you by ear. Since the spring foilage is thicker the later we get into the season (I am here 2-3 weeks later than I’d usually prefer, for vatious reasons), they are typically hidden behind all the leaves.
So turned it on this glorious sunny morning as I went thru the gates and parked my car…
DANG! There is a lot to miss unless your birding ear is very highly trained! My tally included:
Northern Parula
Wood Thrush (most gorgeous bird song in the multiverse)
Hermit Thrush
Scarlet Tanager (4 or so too)
Cedar Waxwing
Acadian Flycatcher
Great Crested Flycatcher
Phoebe
Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher
Red-Eyed Vireo
White-Eyed Vireo
Cape May Warbler
Magnolia Warbler
Hooded Warbler
Black and White Warbler (just got another here on the lodge porch)
Indigo Bunting
Blue Grosbeak
It also somehow IDed a Broad-Winged Hawk that I got qa visual one soaring over the forest canopy.
There are 2 colonies of Cliff Swallows here, plus I saw a bunch of Purple Martins at the open-air concert last night (no joy on their colony site tho), but the Barn Swallow ones are no longer active, alas. [got one nesting with their cousins tho]
A Chuck-Wills Widow is nesting close to my lodge room and has called the last two nights.
I did know close to 3/4 of the songs/calls going in, note. Still an awesome smorgasboard.
The sad/weird thing is that, on my c. 10th visiti here, I have YET to see a fellow birder, binocs in hand. Utterly inexplicable given the wealth of birds here.
The tragic thing was driving over (and missing) a baby turtle on the road. I stopped, went back, but lacked a 2nd nearby turnaround point. My heart sank as I saw a big pickup go charging towards where I had spied it, and yep when I finally came back he was toast.
Heh, I could easily defeat you here! I’ve seen several piebald deer (deer with unpigmented patches) in my life, but never an albino. A few weeks ago we were eating in our sunroom, and my gf saw what she thought was an albino deer in our horse pasture. I grabbed my phone and quickly tried to get a picture.
After walking for a few minutes, I saw some deer. I tried getting close enough for a good picture, when they spooked and took off. I got this, running and zooming: Could be bigfoot!
Great shot, right? Plus light was an issue. Then, last weekend I saw a white looking deer again, but I was in the house looking out the spare bedroom window towards horse pasture. I took a picture through the window:
Weird pigment issue, but definitely a pigmented planum nasale (nose).
OK, I’ll give you that one.
Here’s a slightly better photo of our local herd.
That’s as close as they’ll let me approach.Females and apparently a few juveniles - just by chance it appears that I caught the female on the far right feeding. There appear to be 20-odd in the herd. We’re barely a mile out of town here. These guys were very easy to find - just look in their field in mid-afternoon. The field slopes south, so maybe it’s a little warmer than other fields.
It feels like we’ve only started seeing sizeable herds around here in the last year or two. Whether that’s because it’s a new phenomenon, or there always were herds but now they’re bolder, or something else - who knows? .
j
Change of subject - it isn’t just bluebell time of year here - the wild garlic is out as well. So, out on the bike this morning…(click for the full image.)
Perhaps not quite as pretty as a carpet of bluebells, but the smell is fabulous.
The third part of my spring flower trifecta is the early purple orchid - but they’re not yet at their best.
j
That is an impressive cover of Allium ursinum, if I see it right. I may have written this before, but it bears repeating: some people like to harvest it and eat it as pesto or salad. A bit pungent, but interesting. Just make sure not to mistake it with lily of the valley, which is poisonous! They look similar, but can be easily distinguished if you know what to look for.
Yep, Allium ursinum aka Ramsons. I’m too timid to eat it raw, no matter how much you wash it. Foxes, y’know?
j
Oh, yes! That is another of my pet warnings: the much dreaded fox tapeworm. Yuck!
(Discourse reminds me that I posted about it in this thread on Dec 9, 2022. Pet warning indeed, but that one bears repeating too.)
(From today)
There is no question that this is the prettiest time of year to go cycling 'round these parts.
Aside: you’d need a big screen, zoom and a lot of patience to find it, but there is what appears to be a surprising structure hidden somewhere in there. Answer below.
j
Ans: If you click on the image to open it in google photos, then ~20% in from the left edge and ~40% down from the top, there is a square structure. If you look closely, this appears the be part of a shooting platform (presumably to cull deer). The surprise is (at least to me), I took this photo two meters off a public road.
Not today, and not exactly in nature (more like, in MY HOUSE): a few weeks back we had a pair of Carolina wrens.
Flooring work was being done. The guys were doing a lot of it in the garage, with the garage door open. They also left the door into the house open a chunk of the time.
Something caught my eye, in the family room, and I saw a bird flapping around in terror. It landed briefly on the brick wall above the fireplace, where I got a photo. Then it flew around a bit more, and disappeared upstairs.
A little while later, the workers caught it in a window up there, and got it outside.
A little after THAT, my son and I saw ANOTHER bird flying frantically around the downstairs. I got a good photo of THAT one, on the dining room light fixture. We opened the front door, and it managed to find its way outside.
The theory is that they were looking for nesting spots, and those wrens are infamous for choosing places in or near human habitation. “Hmmmm. Nice garage there. Can we call it home???” then they got curious and checked out the open door in the back.
I checked out the garage very carefully the next day to make sure no nest had been started - I didn’t think they’d had time to lay anything, even if they’d started building, but it would have been a huge hassle to need to leave the garage door open for months.
Yes, they are well known for doing this. We’ve had them in the house, the garage, our shed and even in my car. You can’t leave a door open this time of year without a wren trying to check out the real estate.
That’s a very nice photo.
I think I see what you are talking about - I confirmed the location with your hint.
My brother moved from Michigan to Colorado a few years ago. Yesterday he got this picture of what I believe is a horned lark.
I posted the photos on Facebook to try to identify the species, and several people told stories of birds building on their property. I’m glad we figured things out in time to prevent this. as leaving the garage door open 24/7 for several months would have been a real problem for numerous reasons.
My first thought when I saw SOMETHING flying was to panic: we have two pet birds, who are both “free range”. We had closed them up in their cages due to the work being done, and I thought one had gotten out somehow.
I’ve since heard their song outside (confirmed via Merlin app) so either this pair found each other, or there are other pairs nearby. I hope they did find each other; the second bird went out the front door, and the first one I think as well.
I sent that photo to the manufacturer of the light fixture the bird is perched on, thinking they’d get a kick out of it. They were entertained (Hubbardton Forge; US-made wrought iron etc.).
I’d estimate one out of every three years we get careless with our garage doors and end up with wrens building their nest. Once it begins my gf insists that we allow them to continue. One year they built a nest adjacent to my parking spot, so the doors remained open and I parked over by the barn for the duration.