Butterfly and Wildlife Gardening And Photography In Houston Texas
Author Archives: texdr I need to get a few things off my chest (actually just one thing). This drought. It’s driving me nuts. This whole weather thing is driving me nuts actually. On the East Coast they’re flooding. Down here in Texas we’re drying up. Is this the effects of global warming? What will this wacky weather mean…  Finally a Butterfly appeared in the garden! We’ve seen next to nothing this entire summer. Everyone in this area just wants the Summer to be over, and to get a little rain. The Butterfly that appeared was a Gulf Fritillary and it showed up right after I was done watering the Zinnia garden.  I bought Leecy a new camera for her trip to the Galapagos next year. It’s a Canon PowerShot D10. It’s “supposed” to be able to take pictures and videos underwater, so we decided to see if it really works. First a few distance shots. Here’s Sascha the German Shepherd trying out her new Ruffwear Doggie…  I’m sorry I haven’t posted much lately. Now seems like a bad time to complain about the weather because of Hurricane Irene pelting the East Coast, but allow me to just briefly mention what the weather has been like in Houston where I live. I’m sure everyone has heard, Texas is experiencing “exceptional drought.” So…  I finally yanked out the camera after taking some time off from photography. It’s been so hot outside I just haven’t felt like taking any pictures. Despite the drought and its effects (very few Butterflies so far this year), the Cardinals appear to have done well. We have several babies that are being fed by… I wanted to get down my thoughts on being a Purple Martin landlord for 3 years now. As usual, it’s been a great experience, and each year has been more successful than the previous year. The first year the Purple Martin house was located a little closer to the pool and it seemed like we…  Update: As of Saturday at 9:00 am, Lil Buddy is not in his nest. Hopefully the process that I did below helped him to fledge. I guess today is day 2 of my attempt to rescue/rehab this baby Purple Martin. I’m calling him “Lil Buddy.” I’ll share with you the full story and intersperse it…  I’ll try to be brief about this, mainly because I’m exhausted. Our last (and living) Purple Martin baby made an unsuccessful attempt to fledge the nest yesterday. When I got home in the evening the neighborhood kids came to my front door to tell me there was a baby bird in my front yard (all…  Although we’ve seen a pair of Ruby Throated Hummingbirds all Spring and Summer, today there was at least 1 extra visitor. It’s a juvenile male Ruby Throated Hummingbird. This little guy was not lacking in confidence as he would fly right above my head for moments at a time. He seemed content on feeding from… We had a terrible day in our Purple Martin Colony today. I’ll describe what happened, and if anyone has any ideas as to the cause, please leave a comment or send me an email. In our Colony, we had one nest with 4 babies, and one nest with a near fledgling (with the bird we…  We have 5 Purple Martin babies who have not yet left the nest. Actually, 4 are in one nest, and one appears to be a fledgling. I say “appears” because when I was looking out the backyard window, I saw something that looked like a little mouse near the garden. When I looked a little… Okay, I’ve done it. I’ve cataloged most all my books. I still have some computer books at work I need to catalog, but for this blog I think I’m complete. I’ve organized the books into sections and I’ll also make the list available for download should you choose to keep it as a reference for…  I’ve got some really interesting, but personal, information to share. I generally don’t share a whole lot about my personal life, but this just seemed so interesting I’ve decided to do it. A little background. I remember my mother had a Butterfly business when I was a very young child. I don’t recall many of… I’m a little challenged right now with photography. It’s so dang hot and humid that I just haven’t been in the mood to go outside to take pictures. Even when I do go outside to take a quick picture, my lenses get so fogged up from the humidity that I completely miss the shot. Fortunately,…  It’s been a real challenge lately of finding any Butterflies or Wildlife to take pictures of. In fact, I haven’t seen any Butterflies lately. When all else fails, there’s always the reliable Purple Martins. I decided to do a nest check today as I know there are some babies in the Martin House. I’ve done… |
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