I was out in the yard yesterday when I kept hearing a little bird crying. There in a tree a little ways away was a Hairy Woodpecker chick clinging to the bark while crying away. He was so cute and so vocal! (Click on link to see more photos of the chick.)
The 2nd photo shows him crying in the tree. He looks like a little fluff ball! The 3rd photo shows him staring at me. He must’ve seen me taking his photograph. So cute!!
The next thing I knew, he flew to another tree and mom flew right over to feed him as you can see in the first photograph. It was precious!
Phil was making dinner the other night when he looked out the front window and saw this brown butterfly on the railing. I got my camera and went outside to take some photographs, not knowing what kind of butterfly it was. (Click on link to see other photograph.)
In doing some research, I found that the brown is the underside of a Question Mark butterfly and acts as camouflage. These Question Mark butterflies are frequently called “anglewings” for the shape of their wings which you can easily see in both photographs.
It stayed on the railing until dark, so I never got a photograph of the upper side. The 2nd photograph is from Wikipedia so you could see difference between the upper side and the underside. Quite a difference, don’t you think?
The Canada Mayflowers are blooming all over Cape Cod. They are a small woodland plant with tiny 4-petaled flowers clustered on stems like miniature bottle brushes. They only grow to about 4.”
I saw this Canada Mayflower at Fort Hill. There were many around, especially along the boardwalk on the Red Maple Swamp Trail.
The road to Coast Guard Beach looked quite different before the Blizzard of 1978. (Click on blog to see old photograph from the Cape Cod National Seashore.)
Before the Blizzard of 1978, there used to be hundreds of parking places for people could access the beach. You can see these in the 2nd photograph. It all washed away in the Blizzard of 1978. Now people are shuttled to and from this gorgeous beach.
The first photograph is the old road by the Coast Guard Station that used to lead to the old parking lots. You can see the road on the top left of the old photograph. Now the road just stops on top of the dunes by the edge of the beach. You can view the ocean and the beach from there. You can walk to the beach along a path to the left by the bathhouses. But the huge parking lots and roads are no longer…
We’ve had this male House Sparrow sitting on the birdhouse outside our bedroom chirping for the past 6 days, almost nonstop. He starts about 5:00 am and chirps until dark. We thought he had lost his mate or something catastrophic. His constant chirping is “driving us crazy!” 🙂
When Phil did some research last night, he found that “Male House Sparrows take up nesting sites before the breeding season, by frequently calling beside them. Unmated males start nest construction and call particularly frequently to attract females.”
This totally explains why he has been bringing long grasses into the birdhouse and sitting on top of the birdhouse chirping non stop. (He does occasionally stop to get some food from our bird feeders or a drink from our birdbath.) He is getting the house and nest ready for when the female arrives…. which we hope is SOON!
(He is a bit skittish as when I try to take his photograph from outside, he will fly away. Thus, this photograph was taken from inside our bedroom, through the window and the screen.)
Cape Cod daily articles on the wonderful Cape Cod places to hike, experience and photograph. A Cape Cod Outdoor Adventure Series.
