Mouse-ear Chickweed is a wildflower with tiny, white 1/2″ flowers. These flowers have 5 deeply notched petals and 5 prominent sepals. The 6-12″ plants grow from May through September so you should be able to see them this summer. I saw many of them along the trails at Fort Hill.
It is often called the “common weed of gardens, roadsides and lawns.”
Have you ever seen a Mouse-ear Chickweed? Pretty, don’t you think?
We saw quite a few Least Terns on Coast Guard Beach the other day. They are New England’s smallest tern at 9.” They nest in small colonies and make their nests in the sand by scraping it. (Click link for another photograph.)
Beautiful bird, don’t you think? Love the food in his bill! Have you ever seen a Least Tern?
I drove up to the Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary the other day to see their new wildflower gardens and take some wildflower photographs. The gardens have just started to bloom so there were a few flowers to photograph, but peak season will not be for a few weeks.
After spending some time in the gardens, I decided to hike the Silver Spring Trail which is sometimes closed in the morning for bird banding, and it was now the middle of the afternoon. Maybe there would be something new on the trail.
Wow! I certainly made the right choice! There it was… right on the side of the trail. I have not seen a Jack-in-the Pulpit since I was a little girl, so I was surprised to see one on the Silver Spring Trail. I had never seen one there before and I almost missed it, as you can see looking at the 2nd photograph. It’s hard to see Jack-in-the-Pulpit.
A Jack-in-the-Pulpit gets it name because it looks like a preacher in a pulpit. It has a green and purple striped hooded tube the grows right beneath a large 3-part leaf. Within the tube is “Jack” (the preacher) that will be covered with miniscule flowers that become bright red berries in August. I will have to keep an eye on it this summer. So cool…
Have you ever seen a Jack-in-the Pulpit?
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!
