taogirl's Journal

Beautiful sunny, 65 degree day with a light northerly breeze. Feels like spring should feel, not like the 78 degrees we had a couple days ago. Going to be too hot too soon. But today was perfect. The butterflies and the Red-eared Sliders are both more visible. The honey bees are getting more active with a few more flowers available, some early spring weeds. The Orange Sulphurs and Checkered Whites have been around for awhile but today they were more numerous and accompanied by American Ladies, Common Checkered-Skippers, and Dainty Sulphurs. Didn't get pictures of all of them though. The Red-eared Sliders now have been seen out sunning on several locations along White's Branch. Today they were in an area that I don't see them much in the summer but one that seemed to provide them with a quiet place to get afternoon sunshine. There were probably about 10 of them on the east bank. While generally the woods were unusually quiet of bird songs, one bird caught my attention. I have identified it as a Carolina Wren and will see if that id gets seconded. I don't have any idea why the park varies so much from day to day in the number of birds.The usual white-winged doves, robins, cardinals, and blue jays were there, but the robins were fewer. Didn't see any yellow-rumped warblers or red winged blackbirds or hear any chickadees. But the Cooper's Hawk didn't let me down. Don't really know how many we have here. We had a mating pair last spring and some sightings have been of different aged birds.

Thinking that I should do this at the park this week end, probably should have done it today when there were no other people besides me and my husband and my park friend there to scare everything off. The temperature dropped 20 degrees from yesterday's 70, and the sky was overcast. No butterflies flying naturally. The Downy Woodpecker showed up today, had not seen it in awhile. The Red-bellied was around too but did not get photographed. The most numerous birds remain the American Robins and the Cedar Waxwings. They often seem to hang out very close to each other in the trees. In terms of numbers, the Myrtle Yellow-rumped Warbler and the House Finch probably come next followed by the Northern Mockingbird and Northern Cardinals. There were also American Goldfinch, but no pictures. I did not go to the area where I generally photograph the sparrows and towhees today. While they probably are where I was today, it is much harder to get to see them as the briars are so thick and I can't find an easy spot to get close to them. A Cooper's Hawk once again was obliging of many pictures. I was surprised to see a tree full of small birds right next to him. Don't think they were initially aware of its presence.