We saw about 40 species of birds there. Only 15 were passerines.
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Great photos. Our internet is awful also, living about.5 miles from town. We get maybe 3 mpbs connected with ATT through a cell mobile. Only other option is a radio link, which is worse, especially in high volume hours. Plus, both options are expensive.
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That’s essentially the same for where I am. I have the 3mpbs package which is the fastest I can get where I and and it’s never pushing above 2.3. But go down 1/4 of a mile and they have 5 and if you want one street down they have 50 mpbs. I think it’s because my street is weird. Then beginning of my street is one town and the other end that goes over a bridge and dead ends is the next town over. There is always weird debates over the street.
Give that one a whistle instead of a kazoo? ; - )
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More like a very squeaky, high pitched kazoo: Black-bellied Whistling-Duck - eBird (scroll down a bit for the sound recordings).
My favorite local bird is the brown thrasher, this area’s answer to the mocking birds I grew up with back east (did I grow up? 
).
We have both Northern Mockingbird and Brown Thrasher pairs in our or adjoining yards at present. Gray Catbird (call sounds like an unhappy cat) and Yellow-breasted Chat are the “demented mimics”, i.e. random odd sounds, rather than precise mimicry.
Green Catbird calls are just weird Green Catbird - eBird (scroll down and listen to the second recording), but they’re closer related to crows (not very) than to mimic-thrushes. Wouldn’t that call on repeat make a great ringtone?
Lyrebirds and sturnids are also quite impressive mimics.
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We had a gray catbird come and entertain us during lockdown in 2020 and again last year. It would periodically flit up and tap solidly on the window, and I think it was seeing something in the reflection, but I don’t know what.
The downside was that it soiled the outside windowsill and then later the upper window from its feet dirtied in its own poo on the sill.
And speaking of lockdown, some will remember this:
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Thanks for sharing this. So cool.
Yeah, the rays I’ve encountered have all been “de-barbed.” I think you are wise to keep your distance.
I’ve got a short aeonium from the island of Madeira getting ready to bloom for the first time. Frankly the flower isn’t the main show so flowering is worrisome as any head that flowers will be done for. A. glandulosum grows on vertical walls often near water in habitat. I’ve had it growing at the top edge of a raised planter for several years and any water is incidental from watering its neighbors. It’s a survivor. Each head is about 16 inches across. This plant had four heads but one was always buried under its neighbors so I cut it out, repotted it and finally planted it out last winter. Here is what it looks like in the winter when the new growth comes in.
The outer leaves get redder as the season wears on.
You can see the new foliage developing toward the center. Eventually it’ll flatten out and replace the old leaves.
Here are flowers forming on just one of the heads so far (and hopefully the other two won’t follow suite).
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Four inches of snow in May (it depends how you measure – four inches slid down on the windowpane, nothing sticking on the ground ; - )…
And badly needed moisture!
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So this is currently what I’m working on. It’s actually very detailed info. Very technical and really helping me to understand the minute forms of the plants. Will be beneficial in helping layering them around the ponds and obviously inside them. Definitely want to do rain gardens and bog filters leading up to them.
I’ll write down all the families from there and cross reference them with this link so that I can then look up all the genre under them and all of the species that are native to my area. Once I get that info I’ll begin to look up subspecies , cultivars and hybrids of them and then begin filling out that info with their foliage type, flowers, bloom season and heights and so on. Once I get that I’ll be able to begin searching out contacts from nurseries, brokers , collectors and plant enthusiasts around me so that i can use them in installs. I imagine many will be commercially unavailable and will require me to get permits to collect them and maybe eventually some commercial property to grow them for my business.
This is the link to the flora mapping system I’ll cross reference them with.
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I love reading about your plans and the research you put into your work. What a great research project!
Awesome resources. Thanks for sharing them. The Fed Doc (Federal Document) SE US plant guide is fantastic. The drawings have enough detail to actually be useful. I am about to throw all my Audobon plant guides out. They never have the information I need, unless I already know the plant. I’ll check to see if there’s a guide similar to yours for my area.
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Botany in a Day is a fantastic one. It really helps narrow down on a lot of plant families and genera. ( I don’t know why my phone always changes genera to genre ). As you learn them, and how to interpret a plants anatomy you can then really get some good with typical plant ID books. If you look up plant keys for your region or area you may find more technical field guides.
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Thanks for the title and the term “key”. That is opening up a new range of reference tools more like what I need.
I’ll be extra happy to find tools that address all 4 seasons as well. When I am looking at woody plants in the early spring, I’m sure I have enough information to get closer to a good id than my books allow that rely on flowers and leaves.
Friends keep telling me to use the Picture This app. It’s been a joke so far.
P.S. This talk about keys gave me an idea at work today. One of the things I do is create book lists of books on different topics in our collection to share with our patrons but also with public libraries we serve, who want to have book lists to share with THEIR patrons, but don’t have time to come up with them. I’ve done a list on gardening books for Michigan a few years ago. But I never did one on good Michigan botany books for plant I.D. I found some cool stuff today, and some of them are primarily keys.
So, thanks a lot for an interesting idea as well as interesting information. Somebody in Michigan will benefit from this exchange.
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These are all of a gray rat snake I found earlier while on a short hike. Really pretty color. Decent sized. Little under 4 feet. The red circle is showing how well the snake blends in with the tree limbs. In the first pic you can see some of its bite marks. I got bit quite a bit because I was holding it single handily.
That’s a baby ring neck snake. Probably the southern rink neck subspecies.
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The rat snake is incredible. First I saw a stick. On the tree it sure looks like a hefty vine of poison ivy, even the way it slalomed up the tree.
Ring neck snake is fascinating. How did you find it? Itks so tiny!
Terrible year for wildflowers with the drought here, but had a few pretty pics of drought tolerant plants in the yard.
Cactus flower on a tree chola.
bird of paradise plant as is commonly called., Erythrostemon gilliesii, unrelated to the true bird of paradise but pretty closely related to the more showy pride of Barbados that is commonly sold. This one is winter hardy whereas pride of Barbados freezes to the ground each winter.
And a little grey tree frog tucked under on a fence post. I have not seen that one around here before, but hopefully will survive the dry weather. it is close to my garden, so maybe it will find shelter.
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Gorgeous! And maybe especially the frog. ; - ) (I love the ‘wheel wells’ and ‘fairings’ its legs tuck into. ) I can tolerate the markings too.
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The Coral Bean. I’ve shared this species before. It’s in the Pea Family.
Prepping for a job. Got a call for another pond repair and rebuild that’s 3 hours away at a really nice house that’s a summer home up for sale. It’s a few acres on the backside of a national forest in florida. The job will take about 15 hours plus the 6 hours of commute. So I’ll leave at 3 am and get there around 6am. I’ll work 12-13 hours. No one is living at the place and so I have permission from them to stay there that night. They have a small garden room that’s 10x10 with a ax unit with a grill. So the next day I’ll spend the final 1-3 hours to fine tune it and fill it all the way up. Then I’ll spend a few hours hiking the forest and come back making sure it still holding and head back home.
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