Last weekend we headed off to a nearby nature center to watch bird banding. I was told about it by one of Peter's daycare teachers who is a monthly volunteer. Last time I went (by myself), it was maybe March or April and the birds were in the middle of their migration - so there were many birds caught, counted, and measured.
This time however, the weather was warm warm warm, and the birds were nesting. Even so, for the few hours we were there about 6 birds birds were caught. A few cat birds (called so because their call sounds like a cat's "meow"), maybe a couple of nuthatches or wrens, and then these two...
A downy woodpecker,
And a...wait for it...
A wax wing. This one got ooohs and aaahs from the crowd.
My native flowers in the front yard are going full throttle - the gray headed cone flowers and smooth asters average about 5 feet in height. Its also doing its job to bring in more pollinators. Earlier this year the pearly everlasting had many American painted lady caterpillars followed by actual sightings of the same butterfly later. And now that the monarda has bloomed, I've had lots of big chubby bumble bees and even a yellow swallowtail. Happy with my progress after just one year, I've decided to expanded the native flowers all the way to the road.
Over in the garden, the cucumber has made it to the top of the trellis, and the tomatillo isn't far behind. The tomato plants have lots of green globes teasing us by not even hinting at turning red just yet. That picture below is a plant Rich started from a seed, saved from an heirloom tomato, purchased at the farmer's market last year!
Plants do soooo well in these raised beds. Because you make the soil - in our case copious amounts of free compost and purchased topsoil - it virtually weed free. Drainage is not a problem; either is water holding capacity. Plus animal impact is less. The deer do stop by on their nightly rounds, but hey are generally lazy animals and are fairly easily deterred.
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