Summer Photo Album

Maggie LOVES the back yard—smelling flowers, chasing bugs, eating rabbit poo and chasing Marlo around and around. She’s pretty cute, isn’t she? Except the eating poo part.

The peonies are long gone now but they were pretty spectacular this year.

The bee balm is very nice this year too. I saw a hummingbird enjoying it this evening.

Last summer we planted three currant bushes. The berries look like little shiny jewels.

We also planted a pink champagne and black currant bushes. I think the pink ones taste the best. I have plans to make jelly but we’ll see if that actually happens.

This is the very first year that the broccoli formed nice big heads. I think the cool weather did the trick and prevented them from bolting before they were mature.

Mr. and Mrs. Wren set up housekeeping in the new bird house I mounted to the fence in the yard this spring. However, something very sad happened. The four babies, who had been creating quite the racket begging for food, fell silent. We thought they had fledged but Annette found two of them dead on the ground under the bird house. I found the other two dead in the nest. We have no idea what happened but suspect maybe the mom fell victim to a predator (there are a couple roaming cats around here) and the babies perished. So, so sad. I hope they will try again next year and be able to successfully raise a family.

This particular day, we were looking for Bobolinks.

Pearly Crescent Butterfly

Widow Skimmer Dragonfly.

Grasshopper Sparrow

Sandhill Crane

Juvenile Eastern Bluebird

Alder Flycatcher

Common Yellowthroat Warbler

Baby Turkey

Clay-colored Sparrow

How much wood could a woodchuck chuck?

Catbird

Willow Flycatcher – Looks like fall, doesn’t it? Don’t know why the sumac are turning color already.

Tree Swallow

Juvenile Eastern Phoebe

A closer look.