Buckeye Butterfly

We had a Common Buckeye butterfly in our backyard today:

These butterflies prefer open, sunny areas with low vegetation and some bare ground. Males perch during the day to watch for females, flying periodically to patrol or to chase other flying insects. Females lay eggs singly on leaf buds or on the upperside of host plant leaves upon which the caterpillar feeds (including plants from the snapdragon, plantain and acanthus families). Adult butterflies live for about 10 days. Their caterpillars are solid black in color and spend most of their time alone eating leaves. Upon reaching adulthood, common buckeyes feed on the nectar of such plants as aster, chickory, tickseed and peppermint. The Common Buckeye is found throughout the southern United States and north along the coasts to central California and North Carolina; as well as south to Bermuda, Cuba, and southern Mexico.

Sources:
Amazing Insects
Encyclopedia of Ohio History

Yellow Butterfly Roosting on a Yellow Leaf

Cloudless Sulphur (Phoebis sennae)

Chickadee Nest

We have two pairs of nesting Carolina Chickadees in our backyard. We know exactly where their nests are because they are using two of the nest boxes we put out for them a month ago. These birds typically nest in tree cavities, so they easily take to using nest boxes.


Chickadees will lay around 3-10 eggs. Our two nesting pairs have laid 6 and 5 eggs. Both nests are the in stage of "sitting on the nest"also known as the incubation period. The eggs should hatch in 11-14 days. As you can see the nest looks fluffy and comfortable. They build their nest with twigs and moss, then line the nest with fur. I think there are a few of my dog Ella's hairs in their as well!

To learn more about chickadees see this site: all about birds

To learn more about nest boxes see this site: birdhouse network

Spring Flowers

It is really starting to feel like spring here. The temperatures are pleasantly mild, the pollen is is unpleasantly high (for those of us with seasonal allergies), and the unexpected rains have made for some wonderful spring blooms.

Here is a round up of current blooms in the backyard:

This is a creeping phlox (stolonifera) that we recently planted. It is a great shade plant, and it is native!















The red bud tree blooms in the front yard:

We have a few dogwood trees in the back:

The dandelions are starting to peep through the leaf liter:

We have one azalea bush that surprised us with pink flowers. We are going plant more azalea bushes in the fall. There are a lot of azaleas that are native to this area that come in a variety of colors. To see a few check out this link and scroll down to the Rhododendron listings.



















The blueberries are also in bloom, we look forward to having some ripe berries to snack on a few weeks from now.

Snow!

It snowed last night....a little. It was predicted we might receive up to 4 inches, but landed up with just a light coating of snow.

Ella did not want to go out in the snow.

New Yard, New Birds

Our new backyard is chock full of birds! A few highlights include a Red-tailed Hawk that we see every day (yesterday it was perched on our mailbox!), two kinds of nuthatches: White Breasted and Red Breasted, Juncos, Sapsuckers, and a huge flock of Yellow-rumped Warblers.


Here is a picture of the Red-tailed hawk perched in our backyard on a wet cold morning:
We just put up a few bird feeders last week. For the first 6 days the squirrels had their way them, but yesterday the birds finally found them!

Here is a White Breasted Nuthatch stocking up on the black oiled sunflower seeds: