Feathers Fur and Flowers: June 2013

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Birds in the backyard.

Red-winged blackbird, female

Canadian Geese family. This year there are less families of geese and ducks. The rains we had the end of April flooded the ponds and area and washed out a lot of nests. The geese have a tendency to build nests on top of muskrat nests in the ponds in our area. We have not seen any small geese. This family is has pretty decent size babies.

Cormorants at sunset

Female red-winged blackbird

Tree Swallow Caught this picture of a swallow entering a bird house to feed its young. It is said they will build nests in a nest box. They will have one brood a year. They are constantly flying around the marsh area where we live.

American Tree Sparrow

Unknown

Red-winged Blackbird

Monday, June 10, 2013

Wild Flowers

White Violets

Purple Trillium

Shooting star

May apples

May Apple

Wild Geranium

Chestnut tree

Columbine

Blue Phlox

Celandine Poppy

Wild Geranium

Star of Bethlehem

Jack in the Pulpit

Butterweed

Sunday, June 9, 2013

Mute Swans

I cannot resist visiting the swans, that come to stay for the summer, where my Dad lived in Aurora. These are pictures of 3 different Mom's on 3 of the 5 ponds around the property. No one was out for a swim with this Mom, so am not sure how many babies hatched.

Looks like we can see at least 3 balls of fluff.

On the second pond, only one baby appeared. Mom is showing him how to feed.

A little swim time.

Look how many eggs she had and only one hatched.

Mom, I am ready for my closeup!

Is this what we get to do all day??

On the third pond, Mom has at least 5 hatched eggs.

The little guy on the left had been out exploring and was the last to enter the nest.

I think a couple of these guys had just been hatched.

They are beautiful.

Mom, what do I do now?

You can see there is at least one egg that did not hatch.

It is nap time of everyone.
I am so fascinated with these magnificent birds. When I visited the second pond, Mom and Dad were making noises that sound like a dog barking. This was to alert me that they were watching. They are strong powerful birds.