Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Orangetips and Bluebird Eggs

Out the meadow, we find a pitched battle between two bull falcate orangetips over a willing cow.  I know, I'm going all Marlon Perkins on you, but please indulge my lingual flight of fancy. They were ferocious butterfly rivals. 

She waits on the leaf, wings spread, waiting for the victor to claim her. 


Falcate orangetips, a signature butterfly of spring on our place, are very difficult to photograph, for they very rarely alight for more than a nanosecond.  I was over the moon to freeze this male in flight over his lady love, his glimmering orange wingtips shining. 


Liam counts seven chickadee eggs in the driveway box



and a bluebird nest with three ruffed grouse feathers in it, telling me that the elusive ones still walk our land. I saw one grouse last summer. One. And I used to scare two or three up every time I went for a walk. I miss them so, but we've traded them for wild turkeys, just as we've traded our beautiful red and gray foxes for coyotes. Ah well. Nothing stays the same in nature. Might as well want what you've got.



And oh, we do. We've a spectacularly tame pair of tree swallows in the meadow. Hooray, hooray! I took this with my little Canon G-12 on 5x zoom. I was right on top of him!


It's shaping up to be a wonderful nesting year for the box trail.

Because you have been on a starvation diet for Chet Baker this winter, I give you Liam, The Sausage Patty, and The Bacon.

Liam was being closely dogged by Chet Baker as he tried to make his way out to the bus stop with a sausage patty impaled on a fork. A walking breakfast, if you will. Liam eats all morning long, from the moment he pops out of bed, singing, until he gets on the bus two hours later. Fresh fruit, cereal, toast, sausage...whatever's around, he eats. I'm kind of dreading his teen years...when he'll doubtless go from 85 lb. to 185...


So Liam tried to get away from Chet by standing on a concrete bench. As if. 



Yes, The Bacon got some sausage.

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