A female eastern towhee sitting near yesterday's male. Easy to tell the difference since she doesn't have a black head or wings.
2021-10-23 Georgian Forest Park, Silver Spring, MD
This guy was being very sociable, sitting just a little way off the trail.
2021-10-23 Georgian Forest Park, Silver Spring, MD
A midsummer dragonfly. According to wikipedia the males hang out near the water eating lots of mosquitos, defending territory and waiting for females to come by and lay their eggs, but this one was hanging out on the powerline trail pretty far from water with a bunch of other guys. Not sure what is going on.
2021-08-15 Cabin John (poweline), Bethesda, MD
2021-10-23 Georgian Forest Park, Silver Spring, MD
Ooh! Shiny!
2021-10-21 Bethesda, MD
The white-throated sparrows are back from their summer abroad, breeding and raising their chicks in northern Canada. Or maybe they stopped in New England because their wings were tired.
2021-10-23 Georgian Forest Park, Silver Spring, MD
A small bird hanging out at the edge of the forest. There is an Oneida tale* explaining why the hermit thrush is shy, but this one sure was not. Some sites say it is aptly named since it is "shy and retiring", but I didn't see anything special about its behaviour; there are lots of solitary birds. With 76 observations in the local area it is not particularly rare, though not particularly common either.
* https://www.oneidaindiannation.com/the-legend-of-the-hermit-thrush/
2021-10-23 Georgian Forest Park, Silver Spring, MD
A large feather for a little bird. Maybe it'll make him a fine blanket for the winter. There was some squabbling when he landed with his treasure, and you can see a bit of fluff in the beak of the lady on the right.
2021-10-23 Georgian Forest Park, Silver Spring, MD
A pair of mallards feeding. I'll leave the obvious comments to the viewer.
2021-03-13 Cabin John Park, Bethesda, MD
A pipevine swallowtail on cutleaf teasel. She* is not very tasty. According to wikipedia she has large amounts of aristolochic acid accumulated over generations (!?!) from the host plants. This strategy is so successful that other butterflies try to look like pipevine swallowtails.
* Males have more intense iridescence on the top of the hind wing.
2021-07-26 NIH pond, Bethesda, MD
Here's a transitory* visitor that flitted through our garden the other day. S/he didn't seem to be in any hurry, but I don't know how long the journey ahead might be. Anywhere from North Carolina all the way down to Central America. I hope the silver maple provided some insect protein to help h(er)im along the way.
* Seasonal migration of the blue-headed vireo is shown by the number of observations per month in Montgomery County, MD shows a bimodal distribution centered on April and October, plus or minus a month.
2021-10-19 Bethesda, MD
Lunch on the go…if she can catch it. The 17-year cicadas (Brood X) were everywhere this spring providing more food than the birds (and squirrels and dogs) could eat. I did see a couple of house sparrows take down a cicada mid-flight, but this one got away unscathed.
2021-06-06 NIH field, Bethesda, MD
A little later in the day and a different pearl crescent, this one with its wings closed.
Haiku by Craig:
Shy little one
Hiding behind a grass blade
waiting
2021-08-28 McKee-Beshers, Pooleville, MD
A pearl crescent relaxing in the morning dew.
2021-08-28 McKee-Beshers, Pooleville, MD
A great spangled fritillary on thistle, along with a cucumber beetle and a crab spider. It looks like she* took a fair amount of damage in her 4–6 weeks of life, maybe wind and hail, maybe thorns, maybe the occasional nip from an almost lucky bird. She still seems to fly just fine, so hopefully all is well.
I can't ID the crab spider below the family level without a good view of the eyes.
* Or "he". Females are "larger and darker" according to wikipedia. Thanks, guys… that really helps when I've just got the one. This one may be a little darker than others I see on Bug Guide.
2021-09-25 Patuxent Research Refuge, Greenbelt, MD
Non-native plant (common lambsquarter) feeding a native species (tobacco webworm moth). I had the macro lens on to get a closeup of the seeds. Tiny things, about 1 mm across: the native variety has pitted seeds but this one has smooth seeds. It also goes by the names white goosefoot, fat-hen, and bathua (a food crop in northern India). It can hybridize with the native, also a food crop before corn came up from Mexico. Both are closely related to quinoa.
2021-10-12 Bethesda, MD
A belted kingfisher sitting on a post by the shore in Chincoteague. This is the longest I've seen one sit still. Normally they are swooping along the waterfront chittering away, stopping briefly enough so I can almost find them in the camera and then they are off again. Regular will-o'-the-wisps leading me up and down the shoreline.
2021-09-19 Mariner’s Point, Chincoteague, VA
Here is yesterday's butterfly with its wings closed. Even though we knew exactly where it was, it was still hard to find. From 3m away it's just another leaf in the grass.
2021-10-09 Bolivar Hts Battlefield, Harpers Ferry, WV
This variegated fritillary landed nearby while we were out walking in West Virginia. It's species name (Euptoieta claudia) comes from Greek for "easily scared" (euptoietos) so it is a good thing the camera I was using doesn't let me get within 2.8 m when taking a photo. Normally annoying but this time it was a feature. The common name, fritillary, comes from latin for "dice box" (fritillus) because of its checkerspot pattern.
2021-10-09 Bolivar Hts Battlefield, Harpers Ferry, WV
Recently emerged keeled treehopper nymphs. You can still see some unhatched eggs. The ants in the picture are hired muscle, protecting mom and babies from predators. In exchange mom (at this moment a couple of centimeters down the leaf) secretes honeydew to feed them. Her maternal instinct keeps her around until the last nymph has flown.
https://content.ces.ncsu.edu/ientylia-carinatai-the-keeled-treehopper
2021-08-10 Bethesda, MD
Here's a keeled treehopper hanging out under the leaf of our sunflowers (before the squirrels got at them).
2021-08-11 Bethesda, MD
Squirrel! Otherwise known as the destroyer of sunflowers. Gone are the mornings sitting on the deck watching the cardinals and goldfinches eating seeds direct from the plant. The squirrels finally tasted them and found them to be good.
They only got one head…maybe there is time to save them. Looking online for solutions:
* Get a dog (destroyer of gardens) or a cat (destroyer of birds). Not going to happen short term.
* Spread cat pee around the garden. None handy.
* Cover them with nets. But then the birds can't get them.
* Plant them in the open. Our garden is too small for that.
* Shiny things blowing in the breeze. Never worked before.
* Surround them with thorns or plants infected with aphids. Seriously?
* Use pepper spray. Promising...
Homemade pepper spray: Soak cayenne powder in water for 24 hours. Not enough time for that: the squirrels know they are there and they will be gone by tomorrow. Maybe one hour will do it? Put it in a bottle and immediately clog the sprayer. Try painting it on. Sunflower heads appear to be water repellent. Dump it on directly. Okay maybe that worked, but to be safe let's sprinkle on some cayenne powder as well.
Next morning all the sunflowers are neatly trimmed, and the heads piled next to the fence with no seeds left. The local squirrels really seem to like the flaming hot sunflowers!
It was nice having the sunflowers, but squirrels have good memories so I don't think they will leave them in peace next year. We're not sure yet what we are going to do with that spot. Maybe try again with red stick, which didn't take this year.
2021-09-29 Bethesda, MD [IMG_8295]
A pair of Zabulon skippers hanging out on knapweed. Male on the left and female on the right.
2021-08-15 Cabin John powerline, Bethesda, MD
A flock of ibises (ibes? ibides? ibis?)* flying over the marsh. I love the curved beak in the silhouette.
Yet another instance of "shoot first, ask questions later." The beak made it easy to figure out the genus, but getting to species is hard when you can't see the colour. In this case there was enough white under the wings to rule out the white-faced ibis and enough dark on top of the wings to rule out the white ibis. Maybe. I left it at "ibis" and let the bird IDers on inaturalist come to this conclusion.
* The plural of ibis: http://lexitechnia.frath.net/2009/10/the-plural-of-ibis/
2021-09-19 Chincoteague NWR, Chincoteague, VA
And predictably I will follow the female pondhawk with a male. This one from the McKee-Beshers WMA in the early morning with the dew still lying heavily on his wings.
2021-08-28 McKee-Besher WMA, Poolesville, MD
We saw her perched on a branch while walking through the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge on Assateague Island. You can tell she is female from her ovipositor (easily visible in this photo) or the terminal appendages at the end of the tail (see BugGuide* for details). Adult males are powder blue, but juveniles are green so you can't tell just from colour.
* https://bugguide.net/node/view/577#id
2021-09-19 Chincoteague NWR, Chincoteague, VA
There was a flock of brown-headed nuthatches hanging out in the trees outside our rented house. Something to photograph in the morning before our adventures.
From wikipedia: "The bird is regularly observed using a small chips of bark, small twigs, and pine needles held in its beak as tools to dig for insects." In this case, it is using a pine needle.
2021-09-18 Sunrise Shore, Chincoteague, VA
Another photo of the same buckeye showing the underside of his wings. You can tell he is male because of the white antenna and the stubby abdomen. There's also a size difference, but that doesn't help much when you've only got one in the picture.
2021-09-17 Island Nature Trail, Chincoteague, VA
A common buckeye we saw on a walk through the salt marsh on Chincoteague.
2021-09-17 Island Nature Trail, Chincoteague, VA
An oystercatcher taking a short hop over the water. The name says it all: primarily a diet of oysters, but they eat other shellfish as well. Sometimes they catch the oyster with its shell open and snip the closing muscles, otherwise they hammer it with their beaks. Our guide says they will pick up and drop the shells on the rocks to open them.
2021-09-19 Assateague channel, Chincoteague, VA
One of two eagles we saw on our harbour tour.
2021-09-19 Assateague channel