David's Images of the Day Photoblog
Views of nature and the natural world. Plants, animals, and wildlife from around the world.
A pair of wary deer, various birds at the bird feeder, and adding worms to the composting tube in the Garden Tower. It is finally warm enough to start planting seedlings in the Garden Tower.
Daily images. In the morning an American Goldfinch at the bird feeder. In the afternoon some late-blooming fancy daffodils, garlic mustard flowers (invasive weed), grape hyacinth flowers (invasive weed), violet flowers, carpenter bees, and a wary doe. I had to spend a lot of time trying to capture the carpenter bees in flight. Ultimately, I managed to capture a couple of images by using manual focus. (Individual images from the slide show can be viewed here.)
Dogwood Flowers. The flowers were so far up the tree that I had to use a big telephoto lens. Image taken with a Nikon D4 camera and 600 mm f/4 VR lens (ISO 320, 600 mm, f/4, 1/2500 sec).
Several varieties of Daffodils are in bloom. The deer ignore the daffodils. I found a couple of Grape Hyacinths (muscari). It looks like the deer nibble on the green leaves, but leave the flowers. I am not sure where they come from as I don’t remember planting these. There are also wild violets in the lawn all through the backyard. Way back from the house is a tree covered with small white flowers. I think it is a Bradford pear tree. I didn’t see any bees near the flowers? My Plum tree is about to bloom, and the Japanese Maple tree is turning bright red. I assembled a Garden Tower to plant Herbs and Vegetables up on the patio (hopefully away from the deer). I also moved the cactus that have spent the winter inside the house out onto the patio.
The temperatures have warmed a bit, so it is time to get started on the red-brick walkway around the house. The path was laid out last fall with gravel and fine stone dust. The Japanese Andromeda shrub is in bloom. This, and the daffodils are some of the few flowers ignored by the ravenous deer.