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Scutigera Coleptrata also known as a House Centipede crawling on one of my walls. It is not a silverfish. Apparently, they eat spiders and other small insects, so I leave them alone. This image was taken with a macro lens and a flash. It was late at night, and I normally do not see them during the day.
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Harvey the backyard rabbit checking out if it was safe to have dinner in my vegetable garden. Harvey had part of its ear missing. I didn’t mind if he nibbled a bit. It was the deer that did the most damage.
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This was the first of the hatchlings to leave the Eastern Phoebe’s nest above my front door. Was it an Eastern Phoebe, or Brown-headed Cowbird. Since it was bigger than the other hatchlings, I think it was a Brown-headed Cowbird. The Cowbirds lay their eggs in other bird species nests.
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I used to have a patch of Lily of the Valley plants that would bloom in the spring. This is an image of the flower buds just before opening. Unfortunately, I lost the plants when they drilled the well for the geothermal loop.
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I came upon this wet rabbit in my backyard doing stretches following an afternoon thunderstorm. Normally, they don’t let me get very close even though I allow them in my wildflower meadow. This image was taken with a 400 mm telephoto lens. The rabbits nibble on some of the flowers but are nowhere as destructive as the deer.
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This “volunteer” Foxglove plant started blooming on my back patio. The plant was growing in the cracks between the bluestones. Once it started blooming, I put a tomato cage around it so it wouldn’t blow over. Since Foxglove plants are biennial, I must have ignored the plant the previous year (2019) — not removing it as a weed. Where it came from is a mystery. Foxglove seeds are very tiny, similar to the size of Poppy seeds. I have been planting wildflower mixtures (from American Meadows) for several years as I try to convert much or most of my backyard into a wildflower meadow. So maybe the seed blew in from there. I am always questioning when plants start showing up in the spring — are they a desired wildflower that I want or are they an undesired weed that would be competing for space, water, and nutrients.
It is hard when dealing with perennial or biennial plants that don’t flower the first year. Sometimes I can look up an identification with a picture uploaded to the PlantNet app. I do recognize infestations of Mile-a-Minute vine, Mugwort, and Poison Ivy. This spring I have observed at least two Foxglove plants blooming (one purple, and one white) in the backyard wildflower meadow. I also have another dozen Foxglove plants transplanted earlier this spring from a neighbor’s raised bed garden growing in some soft pot planters. Some of them have just started to bloom.
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The Jack-in-the-Pulpits are true native plants growing in my backyard. I did not plant them; they were just here. Mostly hidden in the back shaded sections. The green flowers provide camouflage making them easy to miss. You don’t want to mistake the stem with three leaves which I did at one time thinking they were Poison Ivy. Before having the back frog pond expanded a couple of years ago, I successfully transplanted a number of the Jack-in-the-Pulpit plants into soft pot containers that are blooming this year in my front yard.
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Two Canada Geese parents with six gooselings swimming in the pond at the local Sourland Mountain Preserve. I used to stop by the preserve on a regular basis to see and photograph the birds, frogs, turtles, butterflies, and flowers. There are several hikes out from the pond that go into the woods, or you can follow the natural gas line right-of-way path up the “mountains”. A mountain in New Jersey isn’t that high.
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Six-Years Ago Today. Backyard Springtime Nature in New Jersey.
During my afternoon backyard walkabout, I saw an American Robin with a large grub in its mouth. I think the nest is in the nearby Ceder tree. The Fuji camera does emphasize the Robin’s bright orange breast colors.
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In the late afternoon, I watched two young rabbits playing and chasing each other in the backyard. They only came out into the open away from the hedge row just before dusk. I set up a tripod with a camera and a long lens on my deck and started taking pictures. All of a sudden one of the rabbits jumped straight up as I captured this image. I didn’t know a rabbit could jump straight up so high. While hovering the rabbit is looking right at me. For years, I have been unsuccessful trying to capture an image like this again. I still have rabbits in the yard despite a healthy red fox. So maybe this straight up jumping behavior is part of their escape behavior.
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