I saw a bee gathering pollen:
That flower is a viburnum and they smell divine.
Nice shot!
On the way home, I saw an Amazon driver pulled over with emergency flashers on. Turned out she was shepherding a three-legged turtle across the road. 
Many blessings upon that driver for her kindness.
These pitcher plants are in the middle of a drainage ditch. We had a day of wind and rain and nobody changed orientation. Not aerotropic, but I’ll keep an eye on them. They are devious carnivores.
Heard a noise outside a window. Looked out and saw a sparrowhawk killing a collared dove. Sparrowhawk took the dove to the far end of the garden, stripped its feathers, ate some and took the rest away. Nothing remained of the dove except feathers.
(Gloucestershire, UK)
Eagle cam today, watching the little ones get fed squirrel bits. Thems hangry!
That’s interesting. Wonder if it was roadkill?
In other bird couple news, the saga of Annie, Grinnell and “New Guy” the peregrine falcons continues at UC Berkeley.
I doubt it. The eagles are in a river valley/wildlife area that is loaded with small critters. Nearby, there is a golf course that isn’t open yet and open land that the eagles can hunt on as well as the river. Oak trees guarantee a quantity of squirrels. I’ve seen them eating fish of course, but this was definitely a squirrel.
Boise ID actually does freeze their roadkill to feed their eagles in the winter. They feed them outside of town to protect the birds from getting too close to humans. Or they did pre-Covid, I haven’t heard lately.
Little old snakey-snake hiding out in the barn last night. I wonder if he knows why my chickens haven’t given me any eggs lately. Or maybe he was just trying to help with the mice.
On about the fourth go-around this finally reminded me of Salisbury Cathedral Peregrine Falcon Cam. It was in the Close at Salisbury Cathedral last year that I saw a peregrine (post 851). Now that’s in the city center, so @Tamerlane’s roadkill question might apply there. I can’t imagine many raptors would turn down roadkill “on principle”.
Anyhow, here’s the cam - three of them to be precise, two of which are of the nest. Live Peregrine Nestbox Webcam | Salisbury Cathedral, UK
Looks like incubation is under way.
j
Ah, a yellow rat snake (aka eastern rat snake)! I used to have one as a pet back in my twenties when I was heavy into reptiles. Looking for mice, I’m sure.
They’re caught up in quite the taxonomic kerfuffle these days.
Yep - just caught peregrine falcon changeover. Four eggs.
j
Thanks! I wasn’t sure what kind of snake it was, but knew it was harmless.
What a nice picture of the Texas ratsnake at the link.
That’s cool. We have a falcon cam, too, in downtown St. Paul, near the river. Though I see a peregrine in it frequently, there’s no sign of a nest this year. Usually, there are eggs by now. I’m thinking maybe someone lost their partner. 
Back in 2020 I reported that, round these parts (SE England) it was a hell of a year for buzzards. Last year it was geese and goldfinches. So…
I have been doing a lot of failing to spot ospreys for the last couple of weeks, but I have seen eye-popping numbers of cormorants. My last two failed osprey spotting trips were today. At Hedgecourt Lake I counted 10 cormorants roosting in a single dead tree; and later at Weirwood, we passed a huge colony of cormorants on the way to the hide; and across from the hide, the old heronry has also been completely taken over by them. So there you have it - this year it’s officially a hell of a year for cormorants.
j
OK, so I have been getting ever so slightly sulky about failing to see ospreys this spring, despite my best efforts. But I’m over it now. Nearly a year ago I reported in this thread:
That’s from post 718, which I’m noting because there are links to background on the UK reintroduction program at Knepp (after a gap of 600 years) should anyone want to read up.
Well, today you can get your hopes up just a little more. We did the long hike on the Knepp estate today.
Granted, it’s not a great photo. But getting a great photo (on a phone) is not as important as ensuring that they are not disturbed, so it’ll have to do. However, as we were viewing the nest - very clear through binocs, and I swear I could hear beak clacking - its partner flew straight over us. In a mad panic I took a fine photo of my thumb, but you can also see a flying stork:
We saw a stork in flight (presumably the same one) on three occasions. The most remarkable thing is that they look like buzzards hunting - same height, same back-and-forth, presumably looking for prey.
So yeah, ospreys - I’m so over them.
j
Well, our little a-hole hummingbirds are back, already fighting over the feeder. We have two, but they like one better than the other, and Og forbid they share. There’s aerial combat happening on my front porch.
It’s the American Murder Log! 
We’ve got moths outside and gnats! The chives have just pushed through the leaf litter, and the gladiolus are stretching out!
Two doves (mourning doves, I think) that are trying to build a nest in the big ol’ dirt pile left by the plumbers doing repair work next to my neighbor’s townhouse. They’re not the smartest of birds.
There was a pair of crows in the tree above them probably also thinking how really dumb those doves are.