Category: Attracting Wildlife
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Window Treatment
Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly. ~Langston Hughes Several times this winter I have heard that familiar thud that means a winged beauty has collided with my window. A quick glance shows the track left behind by such a collision – a few feathers Read more…
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March Madness
The first day of spring is one thing, and the first spring day is another. The difference between them is sometimes as great as a month. ~Henry Van Dyke About two weeks ago, I blogged about what I thought would be my last snow of the season. The day I posted that topic, it snowed Read more…
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More than Just Blue
When Nature made the bluebird she wished to propitiate both the sky and the earth, so she gave him the color of the one on his back and the hue of the other on his breast…He is the peace-harbinger; in him the celestial and terrestrial strike hands and are fast friends. ~John Burroughs, The Bluebird, Read more…
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Subtle Beauty
It is not only fine feathers that make fine birds. Aesop Cardinal….Redbird…the names refer to one of our most beautiful backyard birds…and they refer to the male of the species, Cardinalis cardinalis. He is among our most strikingly colorful birds with his scarlet red plumage and crest. His mate is also a comely bird but Read more…
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Cool Cats
“Teaching a child not to step on a caterpillar is as valuable to the child as it is to the caterpillar.” Bradley Millar Caterpillars are cool. I have been fascinated by these diverse and sometimes outlandish creatures for decades and have found them to be one of the best gateways for introducing people to the Read more…
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Hummingbird Habits
The past few weeks have been amazing in the garden – a daily display of aerial acrobatics from the remaining group of Ruby-throated Hummingbirds. There are four birds feeding on various wildflowers and the three feeders I have out in the garden. Every time I am out there I see and hear the squabbles as Read more…
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So Many Green Things, So Little Time…
There has been a spate of caterpillar sightings the past few days, especially of the big green kind. I know this is just to get me overly hopeful that some of them may actually still be around for use at the caterpillar tent this coming Saturday at the NC Museum of Natural Sciences big special Read more…
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They Grow Up So Fast…
It seems like just yesterday they were just a gleam in their parents multifaceted eyes, and then, before you know it, they are off to pupation college. I reported on some egg-laying of butterflies and moths in recent posts and decided yesterday to go out and look for the young ones out in the garden. Read more…
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Little Spike
On a short hike through the neighborhood a week ago, I saw a Snowberry Clearwing moth (I posted a blog on these day-flying moths on July 29) hovering near the ground and briefly touching leaves of various plants. This is classic behavior for female moths and butterflies searching for their host plant in order to Read more…
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Cloudless Sulphur
This time of year I often see a bright, clear flash of yellow in the garden and know it is a wanderer, a Cloudless Sulphur butterfly. On my trip to some refuges down east earlier in the week I saw plenty of these vibrant yellow beauties as they are a common species in the coastal Read more…
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Roads End Naturalist 