Hummingbirds And Butterflies

Hummingbirds and butterflies are two of my favorite summer visitors.  That makes it double the pleasure, double the fun, when I see both at the same time.

You Need More Than An Edge

Sometimes you need more than just an edge.  Sometimes what you need is a whole lot of space!

Take for instance this futile attempt by some birds to build a nest on our front porch.

I guess they tried and tried, but couldn’t get a nest started on such a skinny bit of an edge.   Maybe they thought because some other birds had done it successfully –

– that they could too.  In fact, the first set of birds have a second set of babies in this nest now.

Unfortunately for the bad nest builders (and me!), they didn’t take into account the other birds had a bit more edge to work with in that corner.

Now I get to clean up  the mess they left behind from their sorry attempt at nest building.  I sure hope they did a better job the next place they tried or there aren’t going to be any babies from that couple of birds.

Come to think of it, maybe that would be just as well.

I See A Skink!

I mentioned back in an earlier post, “Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are!” that we have Southeastern Five Lined Skinks hiding in the crevices of the retaining walls of the rose bed.  They’re other places as well – that just happens to be where I most often see them.

Now I may not be right about what kind of skinks they are.  These are interesting little critters and the young Southeastern Five Lined Skink and immature Broadhead Skinks look pretty much the same.  It seems small skinks are “best identified by close examination of the scales: broadhead skinks have an enlarged row of scales under the tail and five labial (along the upper lip between the nose and eye) scales.”

Well, to check that out, first you’ve got to catch one, and these little devils are FAST. 

As it happens, this weekend on the way out to do evening chores, we happened to spot one that had skittered up onto the back porch and was trying to figure out how to get away again.

Now I might have caught this one to check out the scales, but they have another interesting little quirk – they drop their tail and run.  Yeah, seriously.  If you catch one, it will let its’ tail break off so it can get away.

I figure that’s a lot of work for the poor little skink to grow a new tail, so I didn’t bother trying to catch it so I could look at the scale patterns, especially as I wouldn’t guarantee I’d know anymore than I did before I looked. 

As for it getting back off the porch, that’s not quite as simple as it seems, since there is wire mesh under the decking so he couldn’t just slip between the cracks of the boards there.

However, the porch is far from being entry or exit free if you’re skink size!  For that matter, there’s a huge dog door there that Toby goes in and out, so there’s 82 pounds of critter getting on and off the porch without any trouble.

One way or another, the little guy had figured out a way to get off the porch by the time we got back from doing chores as he was no where to be seen.  His brief moment of modeling was over with just a couple of pictures, and now he’s back in obscurity hiding somewhere.

Fame is fleeting (and so are skinks).

A Southern Hummingbird

Yes, I know that’s not the correct name for this hummingbird.

It’s a Ruby Throated Hummingbird, but I call it a Southern Hummingbird for a couple of reasons. The first and most obvious reason is because, well hey! We’re in the south!

The second reason is because this particular hummingbird is enjoying a sip of nectar from an Alabama Crimson Tide Honeysuckle blossom.  Even if you’re not a BAMA football fan, I think you can appreciate that this is a lovely colored honeysuckle.  I think it looks especially pretty in the golden evening sunlight.

So when it comes to honeysuckle, I say:

Roll Tide!

One Tired Turtle

Sometimes we find critters in odd places around here.  Okay, a LOT of times we find critters in odd places.  A while back, for instance, we found a turtle snuggling up to the tire of one of the vehicles.

Fortunately, we saw the box turtle before we drove off somewhere and accidentally retired the turtle for good. The turtle didn’t hang around long however.  In fact, just a short time after I took the above picture, I went back outside and couldn’t see the turtle anywhere.

It may have been one tired turtle, but it sure could move FAST.