David's Images of the Day Photoblog
First sighting of a Clearwing Hummingbird Moth this year. Last year I saw them on the Rhododendron flowers, but those shrubs were damaged by snow and early spring storms. This year they appear to like the same Zinnia blooms that have also attracted a Monarch Butterfly. They also like the Wild Bergamot flowers. Individual images in the slide show can be viewed here.
Male House Finch working the Bird Feeder. Unlike the Blue Jay, the House Finch is able to crack a sunflower seed in its mouth, and extract the seed. Much more efficient feeding, since it doesn’t need to go away to crack the sunflower seed open.
The Blue Jays are the alpha birds at the bird feeder. Even though they are a bit too heavy for the feeder, and need to take the sunflower seeds away to hammer on the seeds to get them to open. This morning, all of the birds flew away, and the next thing we heard were all of the Blue Jays in the neighborhood squawking and screaming. All of a sudden a Red Tail Hawk flew away being chased by the Blue Jays. Too bad I didn’t have a camera in my hand at the time…
Individual images in the slide show can be viewed here.
My first Monarch Butterfly of the season. I am glad I planted this small section of wildflowers right next to the house, as the other sections have been devastated by “mile-a-minute” vine and deer. The deer like to munch on the plants before the flowers can bloom. I am going to have to go back to an electric fence. As soon as I saw the Monarch Butterfly, I ran back inside and grabbed the first camera I could find with a telephoto zoom lens. When I see more, I will come back with a macro lens.
At this time of the year, the dawn clouds don’t seem to be as impressive. Dawn is earlier (before 05:30) so I might miss them, and the sun is further north so some of the colorful clouds may be hidden behind the trees to the north-east. During the day I spent some time with a new camera/lens combo (Nikon D850 camera and 70-300 mm AF-P lens) doing a flower/wildflower walkabout. It is an interesting combo. Individual images from the slides hows can be viewed here.
