Category Archives: 2012

Journal for May 3, 2012

There are so many ‘firsts’ this week – most of them ‘first of the year’ sightings.  The Rose-breasted Grosbeaks came back on Monday, Hummingbirds, Giant Swallowtails, and Monarch Butterflies arrived today.  Northern Orioles should be here any day – I’ve got oranges and grape jelly waiting for them.  Continue reading

Costa Rica – Birds, Bugs, Frogs, Lizards and one Snake

Rancho Naturalista is mainly a birding lodge, so the birds – around the lodge, at the feeders and in the jungle behind the lodge – were incredible.  I’m not a good bird photographer, so I didn’t take many bird photos, and the ones I have are all the most common species.

The first birds we saw were the hummingbirds.  There were hummingbird feeders everywhere, and each one had numerous birds buzzing around it almost all of the time. Continue reading

Journal for April 6, 2012

It’s really spring now.  We were in Costa Rica for a few weeks (I’ll do some blog posts about that experience as soon as I get the pictures organized).  When we got back, spring had arrived – at the end of March!  While we were gone there were days of weather in the 70s and even 80s, so leaves are coming out on the trees, flowers are blooming, and butterflies are flying.  Continue reading

Journal for February 18, 2012

It feels like spring has come to the bluff country.  The snow is nearly gone, and in the last few days we’ve heard Cardinals singing.  Yesterday I was cutting brush – the first outside project I’ve done in a while – and a bluebird sang from the top of one of the nearby birch trees. Continue reading