With the weather warming up, it’s starting to “snowball” in the changes around us.
Can you tell the difference between these two photos? The one on the left was taken yesterday. One on the right today. So I think the bluebirds must have taken a rest today in building because not a blade seems to moved. Unless I was just too early. 🙂
This fella was singing in the back yard.
And not to be out done the Eastern Phoebe was in a nearby tree singing as well.
Three hawks overhead! Do you know what kind?
The bottom two are Red-tailed Hawks. Red tails and what is known as a comma (where the arrow points toward) are a couple of nice field marks.
The upper hawk in the group photo was a Red-shouldered Hawk. From a distance like this one was look for the white marks near the tips of the wings. Some call these white marks windows.
Indeed the Wild plums (Prunus) will soon be flowering!
A Goldeye Lichen (Teloschistes exilis) on the same wild plum tree.
Finally the Funaria serrata mosses are starting to lose their caps.
Furthermore they are showing their toothy grin! The teeth are the white part on the ends of capsules. The teeth as a unit are called peristome. FYI, the peristome will not always appear white on some other species. Sometimes it will a brownish color.
The more you know, the more you see and the more you see, the more you know
3 Comments
Thanks for the tips on hawk id! It is one of my goals to learn the more common ones and these markers sure will help get me started. Great pictures. I love all the moss and lichen close encounter shots.
Thanks for the tips on hawk id! It is one of my goals to learn the more common ones and these markers sure will help get me started. Great pictures. I love all the moss and lichen close encounter shots.
I don’t think a single piece of grass has been moved between the two pics. Great pic of the three hawks.
Good hints on the hawk id’s – I’ll be looking for those marks in the future.
Hooray for those water bears!