Savoring Spring
Here on the Gulf Coast, we usually only get about two days of Spring before jumping straight into six months of “Sauna,” but this spring we have had two months of absolutely lovely weather! (High temps in the 70s, lows in the 50s or 60s.) I don’t know if different animals are around because of the nice weather here, or if I’ve just seen more because I’ve just been outside more, but I have gotten some good pictures this spring and I thought I’d share.
I would never have noticed this female summer tanager, if I hadn’t seen the male fly right over to her.
Harper’s barking brought me over to see this Gulf Coast box turtle. It may spend its whole life in an area the size of a football field!
My husband held down this coral snake (gently) just long enough for me to get a picture – then we let it go.
The pollinators are out.
I have a huge crop of volunteer sunflowers, and the bees are taking advantage of them.
The prickly pear are blooming.
The bluebirds stay close to the house…
…because they have a nest…
…here in our old stair post.
A closer look – I wonder what that baby is thinking.
A pied-billed grebe has been hanging out here for the last month.
A little blue heron fluffs its feathers.
This little guy is only an inch long!
Added to all this, all my farm and ranch paperwork for this year has been accepted by the county, I got to take an 8-hour tree ID class from the forestry service, no critters have eaten up my vegetable garden (yet, anyway), and I had a wonderful visit with both of my daughters and their husbands for Mother’s Day! We have had plenty of rain so far this year too. My soul is refreshed and I think I am even ready to face the Gulf Coast Summer!
Great information, and pics. Thanks for sharing. Be Blessed, Mtetar
Wow, the wildlife in your part of the world looks so exotic and wonderful to me! Sadly there are no turtles or beautiful blue birds over here.
No turtles! In all of England or just your part?
I used to live just an hour and a half from where I live now, and I never saw bluebirds there either, but there are tons up here. I never get sick of them!
What beautiful pictures. We have a blue jay that comes here pretty regularly and right now we’ve been laughing at the full grown baby grackles that keep chasing their mamas and asking for food. The moms ignore them until they can’t stand it and feed them anyway.
I didn’t blanch at the snake picture but I stopped breathing for a moment when I read it was a coral snake!
I looked them up and they eat other small snakes! They really don’t want to come after humans.
From the picture of the coral snake, I assume your husband is a robot, or at least has a robotic foot.
Wait! Don’t you have your own Coral Corraller 4000? It’s a specialized piece of equipment we keep around for just such situations. (It might look like a sponge mop to the uninitiated.)
Great pictures. Birds in particular are a challenge to photograph, (as I am discovering) I admire your ability to catch the images. (I got a kick out of the baby eye looking out at the world.)
Thanks! Here are my bird picture tricks – 1) I have a good zoom on my camera and 2) pretty much as long as the bird is in view, I am taking pictures. I can’t really see my view finder in the bright light, and as I just use auto-focus, the focus seems to change a little on each one. But out of dozens of pictures there is sure to be one good one. And 3) I am out there with my sheep – I think the birds don’t panic and think, “Ah! A human!” as they would if I was by myself. They think “OK, there are some ordinary pasture animals – one of them is a little strange looking but overall, they look harmless.” So I am able to get a little closer than usual. Maybe you can borrow some sheep and give it a try! 🙂
I’d love to. The neighbours might worry though…Thanks for the tips!
Yeah, I’m not sure that having sheep munch the neighbors’ landscaping would be a good trade-off for some bird pictures! 🙂