The wildlife camera took a thousand pictures over three weeks in June. We were looking for shots of the deer eating the snowball flowers. Only just noticed this one. Red-shouldered hawk? Hawks have often nested in our tall trees and we hear their screaming regularly, but don’t as often see them clearly, or near the ground.
6:30 Thursday morning, May 18th. Previously we’ve only seen occasional distant shadows in the wee hours. Photo probably taken minutes after some miscreant decimated Sandy’s new annabelle hydrangea.
We’ve been watching this same thing from our own breakfast/lunch window. Photo by Gareth, saying “I put some dried worms in the window tray this morning and within minutes the Bluebirds were there. This is with the window open and me five feet away.”
First grosbeak seen at our house in a year or more. And he kept feeding long enough for me to go and get the camera.
But I’ve been here at least a half-hour!
April 24th in the woods just behind the house, almost our only fringe tree, aka old man’s beard. (Only sometimes attacked by the Emerald Ash Borer. See https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu/plants/chionanthus-virginicus/.) We do have one other. They’re hard to identify without the blooms. A long shot six days later:
Redbud and cherry and woods turning green, via the bathroom mirror, April 2nd.
Almost same direction, via the glass-top patio table, a week later, April 6th.
The 80-foot white oak near the northwest corner of the house has a fork we don’t want to split. The Bartlett Tree Experts installed a 7-foot quarter-inch steel cable intended to reduce the risk.
