Nature journal

[Andrew]

Here's a log for anyone to post their local nature observations in, and hopefully our pictures too.

We live all over the world on this forum and our local geography, plants, animals and weather are so different.  But most of us live busy lives in cities, and don't make time to connect with our local natural environments as much as would be good for us. 

I know a lot of us were really affected by the beauty of the nature cinematography in BBM.  And there were evocative nature sounds too. There have been postings about the far-off bird call in one of the mountain scenes, a sort of high-pitched but descending JEEEe_eeeeeer  That was a red-tailed hawk, a bird distributed all over the country, so that I often see and hear it here in Boston, though we have come to associate it with the West because of that way the call has of suggested vast open spaces.

Here's a picture of a red-tailed hawk(not by me):


It's a quiet time of year for birds in Boston, especially songbirds which are much quieter than in the spring.  I always take my binoculars out anyway when I go for a walk around the ponds and woods near my house since you never know what you're going to find.  Tonight, at dusk, it was a great blue heron at the edge of the water:

(again, this picture is not by me)

[Andrew]

These tiny pale blue flowers, each on the tiniest wire of a stem, are called Quaker ladies, or bluets.  I always see them on sunny banks next to a path in the woods.  Today I spotted them on a lunchtime walk at a wooded park near my office.  I am lucky to have woods and water near my work and near my home too.

[Andrew]

Here's a tiny white flower, Spotted Wintergreen, I found blooming in the same woods near my office, in dry soil under a pine.  It's always nice to find a woodland wildflower that waits until July to bloom when most of the others have gone by.
 
If I know the name of plants like these I look them up on the Net to find a picture to confirm the identification - and to steal to post.  Small flowers like this are very difficult to photograph successfully yourself, or they have been for me.


 

[Andrew]

Tonight on my walk near my house I saw a night heron in the same spot where I had seen the great blue heron just a few days earlier (see my first post for a picture).  Night herons are lot smaller than great blues.  There never seems to be more than one heron on any one pond. 

A few weeks ago I saw a night heron at another pond near my house.  Suddenly it flew off.  I looked around to see why and there was a great blue in its place.  Clearly the bigger bird had just come in and claimed the fishing spot by eminent domain.

[Katie77]

Just wanted to send you a few pics of the visitors who come to feed in our backyard morning and afternoon......

The white ones are sulphur crested white cockatoos...the green multi-coloured ones are lorikeets.......

[Katie77]

I'll try again with the pics of the white cockatoos....

[Andrew]

What fabulous pictures, Katie.  I really can't imagine living in a place where you could expect such brilliant visitors to your bird feeding station!  In town in Boston it's almost all house sparrows, with just blue jays and cardinals showing up from time to time for color.

Do the lorikeets and cockatoos each come at regular times?  You said morning and afternoon as if there were a lunch crowd and a dinner crowd.

[Katie77]

Hi Andrew, glad you liked my pics....

All the birds come morning and afternoon....the same birds.....if we are inside and dont see them, they sit on our outdoor furniture and wait until we come out...some of them will eat out of our hand.......its lovely when they bring in their babies, and we spend many hours outside watching them, with the littlies siitting there with their beaks open while mum feeds them...

One of the white cockatoos, is one that we had as a pet, and he got out one day, and went off to join a flock, but he comes back every day, and still lets us pat him...he has a wife now, and he has brought back his babies too....

Heres a pic of me with him.....and also a pic of the lorikeets on the outdoor table...

and ive added another one, that i have posted on different threads here before, of my son adam, who volunteers to help injured and orphaned wildlife...here he is bottle feeding a baby kangaroo...

hope you like them...

[Andrew]

I got a sudden hankering to see some of the Wyoming wildflowers Jack and Ennis would have been lounging among during those times the sheep didn't need much minding.

So here's a closeup of Scarlet Gilia:



and this is the whole flower spike:


For contrast, here's a Dwarf larkspur:



Both flowers are up in the mountain meadows of Wyoming.

[fernly]

Andrew, thank you for starting this nature journal. Your and Katie's pictures are just beautiful.