Butterfly and Wildlife Gardening And Photography In Houston Texas
Category Archives: Wildlife With the increase in bird activity around the feeders I guess it’s no surprise that a predator would show up. This is a Cooper’s Hawk and it tried most of the day to find a meal and was unsuccessful. I first saw this Hawk early in the morning. It was perched high in a Pine…  I really like these little birds. I like how they constantly are doing their little tweets. I even noticed several at my work today and was pointing them out to one of my colleagues. Then I get to my office and think I have a bug on my shirt and it turns out one of…  I think the mystery Hummingbird is solved. My friend Greg Lavaty came by on Friday so that I could help set up his computer, and if we really got lucky, to see the mystery Hummingbird that has been visiting my Coral Honeysuckle. Fortunately the Hummingbird did appear and Greg and I captured several pictures. Greg…  It was a busy weekend, at least on Saturday. I’m doing a complete redesign of one section of the backyard. My goal for this area is that it will be much more bird friendly. I’ve already planted an Eastern Red Cedar and moved the Yaupon Holly to that area as well. My “plan” is to…  Yesterday we saw 2 Eastern Bluebirds, today we saw 3. There are 2 males (I think) and 1 female. The more mature male was also examining the bird houses. As I said before, hopefully they will decide to build a nest in 1 of them. In the first picture, that is supposed to be an…  Another very warm day today in Houston, and some unusual bird activity for me. For whatever reason, the American Goldfinches arrived today. I counted at least 6. That’s a small number compared to the masses we had last year, but they did appear a little earlier than last year as well. I only have Thistle…  I had quite the surprise today. I was sleeping in a little late since I didn’t have to work today and I awoke to what sounded like an Eastern Bluebird (the windows were open). Sure enough, I peeked outside and there were 2 Eastern Bluebirds singing their dawn song. Here’s what’s kind of interesting about…  Here is part 2 of my vacationing and birding trip to Quintana. First is a Field Sparrow sitting in a tree. Their were others on its species just outside the frame of this picture. Another small bird I saw who appeared pretty tired was a White Throated Sparrow hiding in a bunch of twigs (at…  Sorry I haven’t posted in a while. I just got back from taking a 3 day vacation in Quintana, Texas. Quoting their web page, “Quintana is an island located between the mouth of the Old Brazos River and the New Brazos River on the Texas Gulf Coast.” My purpose in going there was just to…  I did take my trip to Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge. Specifically I went to the Skillern Tract part of the refuge. I can’t recommend this part of the wildlife refuge highly enough. It is awesome! From what I read, it’s still relatively unknown among birders, but that probably won’t last for long. I actually went…  I think I took this shot, but I told Leecy she probably took this picture just to make her feel good (she may have taken this picture as she was experimenting with my camera). We have lots of Honeybees right now all over the garden. Some are on the flowers, and some tend to have…  I took this picture over the weekend, but since I didn’t know what kind of bird it was, I delayed posting a picture. Thanks to the bird experts I wrote (Greg and Candy), they were able to confirm for me that this is a Summer Tanager. According to Greg Lavaty these birds will breed in…  The Common Green Darner Dragonfly that I placed on the Zinnia yesterday evening was still here this morning. He was covered in a light dew and the light was just starting to fall on our second Zinnia garden.  Here’s something you don’t see every day. We were cleaning our Butterfly enclosures this evening when this large Dragonfly flew right in there. I don’t know if he was old, confused, tired, or what, but he just stayed right there so I went and picked him up. After he stayed in the palm of my…  The majority of our Ruby Throated Hummingbirds left last weekend, but we do have 2 females that remain. Honestly, I think they like it without all the males fighting over the feeders. For Fall 2011, we maybe had 10 total Ruby Throats, which has been about average the last couple of years. Back before Hurricane… |
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