at the bluebird nesting box by the well: first two on May 23rd, the rest on May 27th, all early afternoon.
Cardinal
Month: May 2011
Mouse(?) at midnight
On the bluebird nesting box by the well.
Bluebird at the box
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuiKhQ5mhag”
Our Wildview camera’s video of a bluebird at the bluebird box 21 May 2011, 4:23pm. Only a week ago we though this box was occupied by chickadee chicks. After Youtube starts, you can activate the full-screen option by clicking an icon in lower right which looks like one of these: 
Historic Half-Marathon May 15th
At Fredericksburg, Virginia: pictures by Elspeth
High expectations: Tim met his, with a 7:35 pace, finishing 1:39:10. I started well enough but slowed down too much in mid-race, ending up with an 8:42 pace to finish at 1:53:58. Tim was 56th out of 422 in his age group, Mike was 15th in his (and also under two hours), and I was 9th out of 88 in mine.
Peony
Iphigénie en Tauride
Before dress rehearsal at Kennedy Center Tuesday 3 May 2011, photo by Barb B:
With Barb we saw Gluck’s opera story of Iphigenia in Tauris, Washington National Opera, the wonderful soprano Patricia Racette in the title role and a baritone Placido Domingo as her brother Orestes. Here’s a link to a nice Washington Times review. Elspeth found this Washington Post review. But as is often the case, the best review is by Charles Downey on his IonArts blog.
A week later I attended the WNO dress rehearsal at the Kennedy Center of Donizetti’s Don Pasquale. Here’s a link to the Charles Downey review. Pasquale was James Morris, bass, and soprano Norena was Ekaterina Siurina. I very much enjoyed all five of this year’s WNO performances, and maybe this one the most.
Owls
Still no sign of owl interest in Sandy’s barred owl nesting box. We have started to hear owls in the distance over the last few weeks. I could hear a barred owl this morning before dawn today, and even before dusk yesterday. We’ve also heard another owl, possibly the Great Horned. This morning’s email brought this from Rob Bierregaard at Univ North Carolina, Charlotte (whose plans I followed in building Sandy’s owl box):
. . . we’re back on the internet airwaves with a NestCam in a Charlotte Barred Owl nest box.
This is a new box. Our old faithful pair (Percy and Mrs. Percy) did not use their box. I suspect Mrs. Percy may have come to an untimely end. Percy was scraping in the nest box back in January, and has been delivering food to a female, but they didn’t use the box.
The pair we’re following this year has always started nesting very late. 2 years ago when we first got them in a box, I put the box up on the 1st of February, knowing that that was way too late for them to nest that year. A month later the female laid eggs. Hatch this year was about the 20th and 22nd of April, at which point some Charlotte pairs had young out of the nest already.
Go to this cornell.edu website to watch the cam. [Pick Select a Cam, then Barred Owl, NC.] We should have about 4 more weeks to watch the young grow. It will be interesting to see how they respond to the big 17-year cicada hatch predicted for this year.