Butterfly and Wildlife Gardening And Photography In Houston Texas
Monthly Archives: March 2010 Here’s some additional pictures from Brazos Bend State Park. This was actually an accidental picture. I was just trying to take a picture of a White Ibis. It wasn’t until I got home and started reviewing the pictures that I noticed that this bird had caught a Crawfish. In this first picture, you can just… I read this article today in the Ft. Worth Star Telegram. One again, it doesn’t sound good. Monarch butterflies, hit hard by strong storms at their winter home in Mexico, have dwindled to their lowest population levels in decades as they begin to return to Texas on their springtime flight back to the United States…  I intended to visit Brazos Bend State Park to take some pictures of the birds and wildlife. Little did I know the place would be full of American Alligators. I started off seeing some gators swimming through the water. The gator below seemed content to warm up while in the water. Then as I’m walking… Finally! I’m taking a week off from work. Tomorrow morning I plan on heading out to Brazos Bend State Park. A day or two after that I plan on revisiting Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge. I’ll also probably visit the Houston Arboretum, but after that I am undecided. I’d like to try a couple of new… By all accounts, the Monarchs from Mexico should be arriving any day now (in Houston). This current generation of Monarchs have been through a pretty rough life. They come all the way down from Canada to their wintering grounds in Mexico. This year the smallest population ever was observed (1.92 hectares versus the average of… I thought this was fairly entertaining to watch. Yesterday during the late afternoon I was watching the BirdCam while trying to relax after a day spent working in the yard. Along comes a nice little Squirrel in for an early evening dinner and gets constantly harassed by the Red Winged Blackbirds and Grackles. He jumps…  I thought some folks might find this helpful to get some ideas for their own Butterfly and/or Hummingbird Garden. This is just one section of the yard, but it’s where I try and place the majority of my nectar plants for both the Butterflies and Hummingbirds. On the left side of the picture is the…  After posting the video of the Raccoon taken with the bird cam a few folks have asked me about the setup and how the camera works. Below is a picture of the setup. The bird cam is mounted on that wooden pole in the left side of the picture. The camera is not motion activated. … I mentioned a few days ago how I had purchased this new “bird cam.” It’s a super tiny camera that can be used in bird houses, or in my case, aimed at the bird feeder. I should also mention that this camera records in infrared as well. So guess what happened when I was recording…  Remember the posting I did a couple of weeks ago about that bird that appeared to be missing the top part of its beak? Well that same bird is still around (it’s been about 3 weeks now) and today it allowed me to get close enough to get some pictures. They aren’t pretty. Fairly early…  We had another Eastern Black Swallowtail hatch today after about 6 months in the Chrysalis stage. I took this one out once the sun was out and let it warm up on the Rosemary plant we have. He/She simply opened their wings towards the sun and warmed up a bit before flying off. Traditionally these…  The happy couple started to make themselves comfortable in their new home. Actually, I counted a total of 6 Purple Martins today, but these two seemed to be especially close. My Martin house has 14 rooms so I’ve got room for 8 more. In previous years I’ve had two neighbors that have put up Martin…  Leecy and I have had this collection of Eastern Black Swallowtail Chrysalises since October 2009. I had previously read that occasionally some of these Butterflies don’t hatch out of their Chrysalises until the following Spring. That seemed like an awful long time for these Butterflies to stay in the Chrysalis stage, but what did I… Finally! I’ve had the Purple Martin house up for about a week now but I saw no sign of any Martins. I was starting to wonder if I put the Martin house up too late. I was outside tonight testing out my new bird cam (more about that in another post later this week) and… I bet I’ve got something y’all haven’t seen before! Let me back up and explain. Over the last two weeks, I’ve probably bought 100 bags of mulch, 50 bags of topsoil, and 50 bags of potting soil. Needless to say, my back is getting a workout and I’m not getting any younger. Today, I purchased… |
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