Headache?

Headache?

Poor girl hit our sliding door. Jim got the first photo. This is a female Yellow-shafted Northern Flicker. You can see that she does not have a mustache like the males. The mustache is black (for a yellow-shafted)  that starts at the base of the beak and runs under the cheek. She has the yellow-shafts…

Part II…Continuing on with yesterday grasslands adventure!

Part II…Continuing on with yesterday grasslands adventure!

  Crustose lichen with moss. Some crustose lichens have their fruiting bodies embedded in the thallus (the pale white-green warty crust in this case) that are called apothecia. The apothecia can either be cup or disk-like. There are many variations to thallus and fruiting bodies which can be pretty confusing. Another pareidolia…wood debris that looked…

Birdy

Birdy

 It was a birdy day. Saw some very nice birds! Some of my “first of season” birds were dark-eyed junco, white-crowned sparrows, and red-shafted northern flickers. Also saw chipping sparrows, vesper sparrows, cardinals, blue jays, red-tailed hawks, mourning doves, meadowlarks,black vultures and turkey vultures. Got a great look at the Red-shouldered Hawk. Meadowlark Multiple Loggerhead…

On the fence

On the fence

 Are you on the fence? I’m not and I have voted BUT this is not about that. The following is about stuff on the fence, my barbwire fence! The Loggerhead Shrike was quite busy storing its cache on the fence. This beetle was still twitching so it was very fresh. Maybe the Loggerhead Shrike’s poop?…

Make your guess

Make your guess

Can you guess what this came from? I will give another hint at the bottom of the post. Someone had a meal last night. Imagine someone having a cup of coffee and conversations around the table? We often find pottery and glass shards on our place where there was once an old homestead.  The unmistakable…

Found the head waters!

Found the head waters!

 Today, we went back to find the head waters of this unnamed creek we had been exploring for the last few weeks. You know, the same one in “up a creek” post, but ran out of time to continue that day. Success today! Barely got going and came across several of these beautiful Lecanora species…

Ferns under the scope

Ferns under the scope

I spent most of my day looking at spores under the scope. I did not know what I was going to see or what I was looking at half the time. Thank goodness for Google! Purple cliff-brake spores (Pellaea atropurpurea) are the roundish things to the right side of the photo. This is at 400x. …

Montague County drive about

Montague County drive about

 Had to get a drive-about before the rain…fingers crossed! Rough-winged swallows were our first stop along the side of the road.  We also had first of season American kestrels.  Other birds of the day were Great Blue Heron, Great Egret, doves, Loggerhead Shrikes, roadrunner, red-shouldered hawk, vultures, White-eyed vireo and one mad-at-us Carolina wren.  Then…