Photographs through a Window – August 2016

August has been hot, humid – punctuated with thunderstorms. Photography through the windows of our house has still be good. The doves are still around – coming for water at the bird bath frequently.

There always seems to be a wasp that leans too far into the bird bath and ends up drowning. I watched one for several minutes and saw that even when it maneuvered itself close to the side, the wasp could not get enough leverage from only 2 or 3 of its legs touching the side to lift itself out of the water.

There has been an uptick in gold finch visits. The bird bath is popular with them just like it to the doves.

But the gold finches like the zinnias

And the high narrow perch of the hanger for the bird feeder (empty during the summer) that the doves are too big to enjoy.

There was a molting American Crow on a neighbor’s roof.

We had more butterflies around in August. The zinnias were visited by spicebush swallowtails and

Tiger swallowtails.

The tiger swallowtails are probably our most prolific large butterflies because we have so many large tulip poplar trees in the forest behind our house (tulip poplars are host plants for the tiger swallowtail caterpillars).

August was a good month for through a window photography!

Chaos Garden

The plot of ground in the back of our house that is not covered by the deck that is a story of the ground is my chaos garden. It is a haphazard production. The two hydrangea bushes that we planted almost 20 years ago two blooms on them this year after being almost killed by a late frost and heavy deer grazing last year. In early July they looked wonderful against the white brick of the exterior of the basement. A closer look showed the green tinges on the petals.

By early August – the flowers are fading. Many times they will dry on the bush. I bring then inside in the autumn for dried arrangements.

A close up of the leaves show deer are still around this year too.

The cone flowers come up every year on one side of the plot – and attract butterflies. On the day I was doing the photographs for this post last week there was a persistent spicebush swallowtail. There is some honeysuckle that photobombed a couple of pictures. I periodically pull all the honeysuckle to keep it from taking over.

There is a sycamore that came up in the corner of the plot furthest from the house and I have left it there to shade the big dining room and master bathroom from the sun in the afternoon. It has helped make the house easier to cool – but having a tree as large as the tree will be in another 10-15 years might be problematic. Sycamores have peeling bark…leaves that continue to get larger and larger throughout the growing season.

The garden also has two types of milkweed which I planted to help Monarch butterflies but that are enjoyed by lots of other insects as well. The common milkweed had all its mid-range leaves eaten by something. The lemon balm grows all around both milkweeds.

There are also several clumps of chives. I harvest just enough to use immediately. Somehow herbs that are cut fresh always taste better!

Nature Photography with Mt. Pleasant Summer Camp

The day after I volunteered at Belmont – I was at the other Howard County Conservancy location - Mt. Pleasant – for the same activity. The situation was easier because I had more assistants and the day was not quite as hot. It was harder because there were 15+ more campers (3 groups instead of 2). I started out with a short loop hike before the first group – just to check out what might be interesting topics. I focused on a stand of milkweed after I noticed a smallish Monarch caterpillar. It was the only one I saw on any of the plants but one is better than none!

There were very active red milkweed beetles – mating and foraging.

There were aphids too.

I took fewer pictures with the campers since the groups all had 15 children. The two youngest groups needed a lot of attention. With the oldest group – ages 9-12 – more of the campers had some experience with cameras and were more independent taking pictures so I took some pictures of my own. My favorites were of ripening blackberries,

Horse nettle (with thorns visible…and obviously a plant that is buzz pollinated),

Milkweed bugs on butterfly week (the orange of the bugs matches the flowers quite well!),

Spice bush swallowtails on cone flowers,

Tiger swallowtails on cone flowers (the ones with blue are females, without blue are males),

And my favorite image – a black eyed susan flower just opening amid a lot of greenery.