Pretty snake. My favorite image of a snake is when it rippled down the granite steps like a waterfall (no camera).

Claire

Did the snake scare everybody away?

Snakes do have that power, Pat. This one is probably still snickering (I do believe snakes snicker when they scare people).

I just glanced out the window and saw a red fox eating birdseed (or maybe it was sniffing something's footprints). It left soon after I saw it and within seconds the birds were back on the ground.

Still no hummingbird residents but I have orioles mobbing the jelly feeders. This morning I saw what I think is a first-summer male orchard oriole.

I'm going to try mixing in some cherry preserves with the apricot preserves to see how they like it (Ocean State Job Lot has cheap preserves - I like the idea of feeding them preserves with pieces of fruit in it).

Claire

SN*KE? Is THAT what that was?

Healthy looking fox, Claire. Nice that you have the orioles. I made a jelly feeder last week after the one oriole had left, (barn door effect) and the titmouses looked at it in a way that may have been a look of charity on my creation. Then they flew away, too. I'm going to blame their lack of interest on the rain.

Jane :)

Oh, what a mournful looking dove, hunkering down in the rain!

Do you have catbirds? They love jelly too and would appreciate not being chased away by the orioles.

The more I think about that "first-summer male orchard oriole" the more confused I get. He fits the description and looks like one, but it's too early for him to be a hatchling from this year. It's only mid-May and they should be nesting now. Maybe the males take a couple of years to mature and he's a kid from last year's brood? Time for a bit more research.

I did find a neat migration map of orchard orioles on eBird.

Claire

Jane, my bluebird looks as mournful as your dove.

Susan :)

And he looks like he's trying to shake water out of his ear!

Claire

Oh, Susan! That poor baby! Birds really have to be so tough!

Yesterday I moved the goldfish to their outdoor pool. After a whole winter in cold storage with no food, in a state of semi-torpor, they seem delighted to stretch their fins and tails. The red feed tub to the right of their pool (similar to that which was their winter home) is a quarantine holding tank for new mail order fish that should be arriving tomorrow (to replace poor "White Nose" who made a fatal jump from his bucket last year, during the move into its winter home in the cellar, and a couple others that we lost over the past 5 years, also most likely due to suicidal leaps).

The first part of the video is a pan around of our property, newly mowed. It is amazing how fast the landscape becomes green, and a home to various nesting critters. The tree swallows are feeding little ones in the birdhouse and the titmouse pair has a nest in the barn. Unfortunately the marauding rabbits are also reproducing like... well like rabbits.

Love the photos of the "Gypsy Vanner" horses and the little foal, Jane. I miss horses. They are one of the finest life forms on this earth!

Hopefully our newest residents won't be as scary as the snake ;)

Anyone know what this little guy is called? Hard to tell due to the light, but the wings and head are blue. Taken on my 3rd graders field trip in Nahant, MA

I can hear the buzz-buzz-buzz-buzz, suzabanana. Very welcome sound, not at all scary.

Maybe a tree swallow?

Claire

I think you're right on the tree swallow ID, Claire! Thanks!

Wow, I love all the photos on this thread ... and jealous of the variety of birds. I confess I have stopped filling my feeder for the summer as it attracts too many squirrels and chipmunks ... last summer they (along with the rabbits) devastated my veggie garden. Anyway, we do see lots of turkeys in our area, but I've never seen one in my perennial beds before ...

Nice turkey pic, PankajT - in my experience turkeys will show up everywhere if you wait long enough.

I just saw the red fox again and this time it was definitely eating birdseed. The mix I use contains nuts as well as seeds and I'm not sure what it's eating.

I watched for a while (taking the video) and then decided both that I didn't want to scare it away and that I wanted to eat my own dinner so I went away.

The fox was under a large shrub/small tree and I guess it felt fairly safe there - at least it didn't race off.

The time was late afternoon and I shot through the west-facing kitchen window. There are reflections and the glass isn't too clean so the video isn't as clear as I'd like.

Claire

Does anybody know what this fellow is? Sorry, this is the only photo I was able to get, as they buzz about so much.

These guys have decided to nest in the ground in my veggie garden, and actually have been around for a couple of years. This year there seem to be a lot more of them though. I managed to get my tomatoes and basil in yesterday by working first thing in the morning when these guys were still asleep but by today they have dozens of access holes made.

I haven't got stung yet, but I worry. Any ideas or thoughts?

Maybe mining bees? If so, they appear to be no threat and I can go about my business :)

The bee photos are terrifying to me! I'm fine with bees pollinating my flowers, as long as they live elsewhere, far away!

Snakes are my friends. As a kid, my favorite pastime was capturing reptiles and amphibians and keeping them as pets.

My front porch was humming with birds today. A house finch is building a nest in the box and many hummingbirds have been visiting the feeder.

The more I read about them, the more convinced I am that what I have in my veggie garden are mining bees (andrenidae). They appear to be quite harmless and docile, seldom stinging, and of course they are beneficial pollinators. The descriptions match with my experience with them over the last few years ... they are non-threatening and have quite a short season of activity (a few weeks) after which they will disappear. So I intend to leave them alone and co-exist with them. They probably not only pollinate the flowers but also aerate the soil, so it's all to the good.

Spedigrees, what do you feed your hummingbirds and how often do you have to clean the feeder?

I make up a mix of 3 1/2 cups of boiling water with a heaping cup full of white sugar. I stir until it dissolves and store it in the fridge. That will fill the feeder about 4 times. Each refill lasts about 3 or 4 days, depending on how hungry the birds are and how hot the temperatures. I have two identical feeders, and when I empty one, I replace it with the other, and I soak the empty one in a weak bleach solution, then rinse thoroughly, dry, and store until it is time to switch feeders again.

Thanks, good idea having the two feeders! I love hummers so I will have to try this.

I may have mentioned that I stopped stocking my feeder with birdseed as it attracts too many chipmunks and squirrels. I figure I'll start up again when it gets colder and the garden goes dormant. In the meantime, I discovered a nest has been built inside! I am not sure who is nesting in there ... some kind of finch or sparrow judging by the very quick look I have got as it flies out.

Probably not this chipping sparrow that posed so nicely for me nearby.

Update on the bees: I am now pretty much sure that what I have are mining bees (andrenidae). They appear to be quite harmless and docile, seldom
stinging, and of course they are beneficial pollinators. The
descriptions I've read match with my experience with them over the last few years
... they are non-threatening and have quite a short season of activity
(a few weeks) after which they will disappear. So I intend to leave them
alone and co-exist with them. They probably not only pollinate the
flowers but also aerate the soil, so it's all to the good.

I got a couple of good shots of the bees themselves:

and this is what their colony looks like:

Serviceberries are not quite ripe enough, but...Cedar Waxwings are testing them via allo feeding.

Love the Waxwings, Jane!

That is some tail to be proud of!

Jane

What a pretty skunk, Jane! Maybe you should be sure to announce your arrival when you go into the garage ("I'm coming in, skunk, no reason to panic....")

Claire

Speaking of skunks, this one met up with 2 neighborhood cats in our back yard recently. After a little aggression by the felines it did a little tail raising, but soon everyone went their separate ways. No stinkin' fight to watch here.

Yay,

Susan

That reminded me, Susan, of a time many years ago when I was out with my cat as it was getting dark and I noticed two skunks rummaging around the yard. I was mostly concerned with getting the cat safely past them - luckily he followed me while giving the skunks a wide berth. This was a city apartment cat on vacation in the country, and he'd never met a skunk before.

Once we were safely past I sat on the steps with the cat to watch the skunks. One of them started moving toward me looking rather aggressive, but the other skunk ran over and there was a brief moment of growling and grunting and the the first skunk backed off and the two continued their rummaging. I suspect the second skunk (the mother?) told the kid to cool it, we (the cat and I) weren't acting like a danger.

Beautiful critters, skunks are.

Claire

I have a healthy respect for skunks between the spray and disease potential and their generally cranky nature. DH found one had entered the garage via the cat door a number of years ago, and since the cat was no more, the opening was fastened closed. I would not want to blunder out with a bag of trash only to discover that I had company the hard way. :>\

I have no issues with them digging around in the garden since they do little real damage, but a couple times a car or predator has startled one into spraying during the night. If the windows are open, it is potent enough to wake me up.

We have a resident skunk and sometimes there's some smell. Not terrible, but I wonder why it sprayed. Has anyone seen any wild turkey chicks? I wonder if the cold wet weather has been a death sentence for them.

Two deer have been visiting and one has been getting too close to the house. The maple sapling has been browsed and my husband said he has seen tracks in the driveway. I bought some spray but with all the rain haven't been able to use it. Last night we saw that one had a spotted fawn. Usually we never seen the fawns because the grass is too tall but this year it is laying down in a lot of places. She left the baby hidden next to a bush and birch tree but we didn't wait to see when she came back. Today around lunch time she was heading toward the tree but making a wide circuit. She must have been looking to see if it was safe. Finally she got to the far side of the bush and maybe 100 feet from it. She must have called the fawn because this time it ran out to her and immediately started nursing! We have never seen that before. The mamma kept nosing/licking the fawn's rear so I wonder if she cleans it so the fawn doesn't leave a lot of scent.

In addition to cow birds, we have grackles and starlings that we never used to have. The tree swallows took over at least one of the blue bird boxes. The barn swallows build nests in the open sheds. Sadly, song sparrows built a nest almost on the ground in a spreading cotoneaster. I thought the babies were going to make it but today they are gone. My husband thinks they had enough feathers to fly. They always choose a low shrub to build their nest.

I live in SE Michigan and have never seen a Bluebird or a Cedar Waxwing. You kids are lucky.

Defrost, nice to see a fawn nursing!

We are regularly seeing two female and one male turkey but they don't have chicks at this point. Recently they have been hanging out in our rather shallow front yard during the afternoon commute time but so far they have stayed out of the road without being particularly alarmed by all the traffic.

The other day there was a pileated woodpecker working on the stump of an old maple between the back door and the garden. He was on the back side of the stump, so I didn't see him until he flew. I was sorry to have disturbed him.

Last week we saw a pair of bears at the far end of the field. They were fairly different in size, so it could have been a mom with one yearling cub (though our last year's bear had two cubs so maybe something happened to one) or a pair of cubs with one much larger for some reason, IDK.

I saw the shine and grabbed the camera. I read that it is because of the internal wave structure of the neck feathers that causes the light, if caught just right, to produce the shine. Similar to why sometimes you see the ruby on a hummer and sometimes you don't.

The finch kids are driving Dad nuts.

So much so, he just jumped.

Jane

Just read this. Amazing 8 foot wingspan. Frigate bird

Magnificent, indeed!

Claire

At the pond...

It's really hard to hide in a pond when you're blue.

Or when you have big ears. I'd forgotten where a frog's ears were. It's that (the right one) big circle to the rear of his eye.

Not only does he hear well, he helps to make pollywogs.

I brought pollywogs home one summer day when I was kid. The day they grew legs and jumped out of their bowl and all over an antique Chippendale pie crust table was the day my mother (the city girl) gave a lesson about leaving living things IN the brook.

I don't know if waterbug is his proper name, but he makes good circles.

Jane

John makes nice waves, Jane. Pond denizens are always interesting.

Today I was driving on a back road and I saw a turtle trying to cross the road. I made a quick turn and went back to see if I could stop it from getting squashed. Traffic was fairly light but still threatening.

The turtle had gotten to the center of the two lane road and stopped there, probably realizing it had reached an impossible situation with traffic whizzing by in both lanes. I stopped the car in the middle of the southbound lane and got out, hurrying over to the turtle. I was expecting to have to pick it up but the turtle didn't want any of that - it started moving to the side of the road and I followed it waving my hand behind it and making encouraging and shooing sounds.

In the meantime I'd pretty much stopped traffic in both directions. A few cars passed me but most of them seemed to be enjoying the spectacle and waited until the turtle was safely on the side of the road where it could reach a pond. I got back in the car and carried on.

I don't know much about Massachusetts turtles but I did know it wasn't a snapper so I wasn't too worried about picking it up.

I checked a few sites and found this one:

Turtle Species in Massachusetts - Mass Audubon

I'm not sure which species it was and for once It didn't occur to me to take a picture until later.

I was surprised at how many turtle species are threatened or endangered. The statement "Threatened under the Massachusetts Endangered Species Act. It’s illegal to kill, harass, collect, or possess this turtle." was common. I'm glad I didn't run it over, or abandon it to that fate.

Claire

Good on ya. Proud of you. Turtles are people, too.

There is a sign up at the small gym I go to that turtles are in the parking lot. Mostly it's the back, unpaved lot since the soil is very sandy. A market farmer posted a photo on facebook showing a turtle trying to lay eggs in their garden. They moved the turtle. Seems to be a lot of talk about turtles right now, maybe because people are seeing them on their egg laying treks.

I opened the kitchen door yesterday to see a very young robin perched on one of the chairs. Pooping. I closed the door, debated getting the camera, then decided if I went for the camera it would fly off. So I opened the door but actually had to shoo it away (more pooping). Wish I had gotten a photo because the spots on its breast were so pretty.

Mom?

She quietly showed up under the feeder early evening last, and left just as quietly.

Jane

Catbirds love grapes.

That seems to be a case of potty training gone awry, defrost49. I hope the robin doesn't grow up thinking chairs are toilets!

Jane: I'm still seeing isolated turkeys. I'm not sure if they're outsiders way down on the pecking order or hens that didn't breed (or both). The main flocks are still in the woods so hopefully there will be poults around soon.

That's a great idea hanging grapes for the catbirds - particularly so they can pose in front of a lovely kousa dogwood.

Claire

The world is a seesaw of extremes and no less in this yard. Largest to smallest...

red-shouldered hawk

Buddy, ruby-throated hummingbird

New England is truly a treasure trove of species.

Jane

We are now seeing hummers regularly, and in the past week we have seen several, both male and female and both down at the shop and near the house.

lovely photos, Jane.

I thought it was Dad Downey Woodpecker waiting for his daughter. Nope. This is mother and son on safflower seed.

Grabbed the camera and it needs new batteries. (I don't like how often my Canon Power Shot sx150 needs new batteries.) Finally! A mama turkey and 10 chicks about the size of morning doves. They stayed in one spot for quite some time then started to stroll along. Mama found something in the tall weeds that must have been yummy. Several chicks ran over. We also had two male cardinals this morning. A very unusual sight for us but my husband was looking out the window at the right time. I usually hear the whip-poor-will around 4:15am. Not this morning though when my husband was also awake too early and would have liked to have heard it. There's a hummingbird around but I have just planted Scarlet Runner beans on a trellis next to our favorite viewing window. I wonder how much food is out there for him.

defrost - for it's worth, I found when using AA batteries in Canon cameras, I got more time out of eneloop rechargeable batteries. I still use them in the Apple mouse and they do last longer. A set of 4+ with a charger should do it. recharging.https://smile.amazon.com/Panasonic-K-KJ17MCA4BA-Individual-Rechargeable-Batteries/dp/B00JHKSMJU/ref=sr_1_5?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1498137307&sr=1-5&keywords=rechargeable+aa+batteries+with+charger

Canon reset may help - https://www.ifixit.com/Wiki/Canon_PowerShot_SX150_IS_Troubleshooting

Just my 2 pence. Jane

Thanks, Jane. I liked the Canon I had before this one that came with a rechargeable battery. I'll take a look at the troubleshooting website. Thanks.

I've set up a new thread because this one is getting long, and slow to load for some. As always, feel free to continue the discussion on this thread, but please post new material on the new thread.

Claire