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Garden Gnome caught on the wrong side of the electric deer fence. It looks like the American Crow was on guard duty. The electric deer fence was not effective keeping the deer out and ultimately was replaced with an eight-foot-tall deer fence. A project completed while staying at home during the Covid-19 period.
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I noticed this hairy spider with some iridescent green at my front door. It stuck around long enough for me to get a camera with a macro lens. I think it is fascinating how many eyes spiders have. I just wish it would do a better job keeping the stink-bug population down.
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Back in the days of Covid-19 I had the backyard wildflower meadow as my own private outdoor retreat. This is a Little Planet selfie view of the wildflower meadow. The main flowers at that time were the yellow Lance-leaf Coreopsis. There are also a few Red Poppies, Larkspur, and Blue Cornflowers (Bachelor Buttons). This was before the new 8-foot deer fence. Back then I was using a lower electric fence that the deer would jump over. So, the main wildflowers were the ones that the deer didn’t eat. I wore the overalls to protect myself from the deer ticks.
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I love the smell of the Honeysuckle flowers. I used to have a lot of the vines growing in my backyard. In recent years I haven’t seen as many of the flowers. This week I did see a vine and some of the flowers on the deer fence which I will leave and hope more return.
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I noticed a Mosquito emerging from some standing water in my backyard. I have seen mosquito larvae before, but not one emerging. After taking the picture, I drained all of the standing water I could find as there had been reports of the Dengue Fever, Eastern Equine Encephalitis, and the Nile Virus being spread by mosquitos. And I don’t like being bitten by mosquitoes when I go out at night to watch the fireflies.
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Composite image of the fireflies flashing in my backyard. The composite was created from 564 images taken with a Fuji X-H1 camera and 56 mm f/1.2 lens (ISO 3200, 56 mm, f/8. 30 sec). The raw images were processed with Capture One Pro and the composite generated using Photoshop CC (statistics, maximum). I use the same method to create star trails.
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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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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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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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While working part time in Boulder, Colorado, I would often visit Rocky Mountain National Park. It was only an hour drive away, and I got to see the park during all four seasons. On this morning, a springtime storm was brewing.
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Backlit Backyard Brown Booby Cactus California Capoeria Costa Rica Crystal Geyser Dogwood Fawn Florida Flowers Focus Stacked France Gibraltar Gibraltar Monkey Gone to See America 2009 Green River Guatemala Helicon Focus Landscape Little Planet Macro Maple Leaf Monochrome Morocco MV Explorer New Jersey Parc de Bercy Paris Rabbit Rain Forest Red Poppy Semester at Sea Spain Spring Spring 2010 Enrichment Voyage Spring 2011 Enrichment Voyage Spring 2013 Enrichment Voyage Spring 2014 Enrichment Voyage Springtime St. Petersburg UNE Utah Yosemite National Park
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