A Swallowtail Butterfly for Camera Critters

Each spring I eagerly await the arrival of Swallowtail butterflies.  This year they seemed to be late and it wasn't until this week, on June the 6th.  when I saw my first Swallowtail; butterfly.

 It was hovering above the road and I was able to gfet a photo.  My prized Swallowtail setting has always been when one was feeding upon our lilac blossoms.  However this year our lilac blooms are already turning brown and I have not seen a Swallowtail feeding on the beautiful lilac blossoms.

Bewlow I am including some Swallowtail pictures from my archives for you to enjoy viewing this beautiful butterfly.

I am linking today to viewingnature witheileen.blogspot.ca

I hope everyone enjoys a wonderful weekend.

Me Ann and my Camera

V is for Violets

I am connecting today to ABC Wednesday which is found at::http://abcwednesday-mrsnesbitt.blogspot.ca/ and my photos representing V are violets. The provincial flower of my province ofNew Brunswick is a Purple Violet.

Another beautiful little wildflower of the violet family which I find on my soggy wet side lawn each spring is the Northern White Violet.  This is a very tiny flower and I have to bend down very closely to get its blossom in full on my camera viewfinder.

We have another violet species growing on our property but it is more a domesticated perennial which grows in quantities in and around our flower beds each spring.  It is a white violet.

The three photos below are of White Violets growing in my flower bed.

A happy  Wednesday to all.

Best Wishes to all from Ann and my camera

A Song Sparrow and its diet

I have long loved bird watching and discovering  a bird's  id, BUT I have realized lately there has been a missing factor in my knowledge of bird id'ing...  I have learned that knowing what a bird will eat is most helpful  in identifying the bird I have found.  This morning that fact was brought to my attention once again.  While watching a Song Sparrow in some bushes I noticed something yellow hanging from its mouth and I immediately assumed it was a small yellow leaf.  Wrong!  When I got home and downloaded my pictures I discovered that the yellow leaf? had legs!! ( oops, I may be wrong here about  legs? Perhaps the two hanging leg like things may  be attenaes?)I think it was a grub of some sort. It was just last week that I discovered that a Song Sparrow's diet consists also of insects, as well as bird food seeds.

Above, see the yellow thing hanging from the side of the sparrow's beak!

 Above, you can see that the yellow thing ( grub?) has legs!!

 The dark breast spot in the picture above id's this sparrow as a Song Sparrow.

As well as the yellow grub there are other insect legs and things protruding from the bird's beak.  The sparrow did not eat these goodies immediately, so I assume that it was gathering breakfast to take home to its family.
Being a lifelong daily learner has some benefits for sure! I now have valuable information to use when id'ing a Song Sparrow.  I now know that they  will eat insects and grubs!!

Yellow-bellied Sapsucker

My one and only sighting of this woodpecker  speciesthis year! Its a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker! .

I am pleased that the yellowishness of its breast is showing in this picture as often I am disappointed and confused as to the source of its naming.

Mourning Cloak butterfly

A Mourning Cloak is not an unusual butterfly sighting as it is often the first species I see in the spring, for these Cloaks often overwinter  folded within the bark of trees.  What is slightly unusual is that I am not seeing other species this spring.  Our Lilacs are now in bloom and I often delight in photographing yellow Swallowtails feeding  on the purple lilacs, but not this year  as I have not seen a Swallowtail or a Clearwing hummingbird moth which often attracts  my camera at this time.  So what to post, just another Mourning Cloak which we saw yesterday!  It is a beautiful butterfly, with its attractive blue spots ridging the wings and its beautiful cream coloured lacy edging, but for some reason the one I saw yesterday had white edging, not cream.

Today, if the sun continues to shine we are driving out to a location where I usually see early butterflies. If I find any butterflies later today I will include them here in my post

An Insect eating Song Sparrow

One good reason to encourage a Song Sparrow to stay around your yard is that they will eat insects!!  I hadn't known this   but yesterday I shared a photo of an unknown bird ( unknown to me) which had a mouthful of insects and I was told that it was a  Song Sparrow

  Yea, how wonderful! Although these photos were taken along the river , not in my yard!

In the picture above a portion of this Song Sparrow's dark center breast spot can be seen.

Have a nice weekend everyone!

Belted Kingfisher for Saturday Critters

One of the difficult birds , to get a picture of is a Kingfisher.  that has been my experience anyway. but yesterday while standing on an observation deck overlooking the river I saw Kingfisher hurtling itself flying in a fast frenzy up river as it had spied me watching the river.  Unbelievably good luck was mine as the Kingfisher landed and perched on a rock in the river!

Aha! An opportunity to get a Kingfisher photo, although it was still very distant from me.  But I had faith in my camera's ability to pick up detail and I often get good closeup results with cropping on a photo editing app.

                                              First the Kingfisher had its back to me, but then
it turned around and I was able to get a good frontal shot! ( see below)

 There have always been Kingfishers along the river at this location. I have included one of my best  Kingfisher photos taken in 2008

   I am linking today with Eileen at :http://viewingnaturewitheileen.blogspot.ca/

A Couple of Warbers.

I have seen very few warblers this spring except for a Pine Warbler which visited for five or six days feeding at our bird feeders in Bird Alley.  This week however I did see a coup[le of my favourites.  My first warbler surprise was a Yellow Warbler, it is such a beautiful, attractive bird.  I was disappointed that its red stripes on its breast was not too showy, but it did have a few faint stripes on its breast.

My second warbler sighting of the week was a Common Yellowthroat.  Actually we are quite familiar with this interesting warbler as my husband has nicknamed this delightful looking bird, The Lone Ranger bird.  When you look at the bird's photo you will get the connection to its nickname if you happened to be a Lone Ranger comic book fan from the 40's - 50'.  That was our era ( we were both born in the 40's) .So thus the Lone Ranger memory gets an appreciative welcome whenever we happen to see this sweet looking warbler with its black mask.  Do you remember the Lone Ranger?

                                          Above you can see a portion of this warbler's black mask.

Perhaps another day I will be able to capture a fuller body photo of this bird.

I am adding a coupe of pictures from my archives of this warbler so you can more fully appreciate its mask.

Mama Mallard and her Ducklings

Sometimes I am extremely fortunate to come upon a family of ducks which occurred to me yesterday!

I think that the adult duck  of this family is a Mallard and I was able to capture a picture of her with her eight ducklings! To count the young ducks look carefully beside the adult and you will see that there are four ducklings bunched together at her side  in the photo above!

Above two ducklings and the adult duck!

In this photo above I have cropped of the last straggler in the picture of Mama with eight of her babies and you can easily see the group of four at her side!

This last photo shows all the eight babies by themselves!  They are in a hurry to reach the shore as I am sitting on the roadside in my idling car slightly elevated above them .   I missed a great picture as the mother duck leading all of the eight babies to the shore. Assuming I had plenty of time ( which I didn't) I decided to put the window down in my car to get a good clear photo without shooting through the window glass, however the slight noise of the window lowering alerted the group to my pretense and they were in a hurry to scatter to safety! to the nearby shore!

These pictures were taken yesterday and I returned to the location this morning( it is a light rainy morning having had no sunshine as yet) and I was not able to find the ducklings today... Maybe tomorrow?  I do hope so!

Female Common Mergansers

  The female I am showing today was all alone on a rock in the river.  Her location would be a good spot for nesting for there was vegetation nearby and these ducks are fresh water fishing birds and there are lots of fish in this river.  The  beautiful thing about these photos is the beautiful display of the female's( hair? ) crest of reddish feathers on her head.

Eastern Bluebird

Yesterday morning I saw a small bird perched on the fence in our backyard and from experience I have learned when seeing an unknown bird to try to get its picture and try for an id of the bird.

  So shown above is the picture I took while standing inside our back porch shooting the picture through our French doors with my new 200 mm lens. I wasn't sure if my 200 lens was strong enough to capture details at such a distance, but I did want to see what species of bird it was.  I thought I had detected a red breast through my camera viewfinder and thought it maybe was a Robin.
So inside I went to download my mystery bird picture. and below is what it was!!! Wow! I was thrilled!

    It was a handsome male Eastern bluebird!!!!!!
Although this bird was not a rarity to our yard, It was an uncommon visitor as occasionally we have noted one in our backyard.  We even made and put up bluebird house one year upon seeing one around we had hoped to entice it to stay .  However it did not,
checking the archives of my blog I see that I had blogged about an Eastern  Bluebird visit on May 26, 2008
my sighting yesterday was on May 27, 2017 and the link to the  May 26,2008 page is found by clicking on  the link posted  below.
HREF="http://naturetales.blogspot.ca/2008/05/eastern-bluebird.html"
 

Beaver for Saturday Critters

Each day I  often drive by a large beaver pond and lately on two occasions

I have seen a Beaver swimming across the pond.  Look carefully to see the beaver as it is not far out of the water but you can see it  and the water movement it is making n the water which is full of reflected colour.

And in this third and last picture  shown below the Beaver has reached its destination and dam and at this point it disappeared among the brush and twigs at the edge of its dam.

I am connecting today to Saturday Critters which is hosted by Eileen very kindly each Saturday. this meme can be found at :
http://viewingnaturewitheileen.blogspot.ca/