Spring Birds, Butterflies and Wildflowers

Saturday it is supposed to rain all day.  I could hardly stand the thought of working a full day when it was sunny and 65 today!  So....I took the afternoon off!

1st Stop - Bolton Flats WMA, Lancaster, MA

I saw 2 Cabbage Whites, 1 Mourning Cloak,  blooming Trout Lilies, and the following birds:

Black-Capped Chickadee
Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher
Chipping Sparrow
Great Egret
Greater Yellowlegs
Green-Winged Teal
Killdeer
Mallard
Northern Cardinal
Red-winged blackbird
Song Sparrow
White-Breasted Nuthatch
Wilson's Snipe
Wood Duck

Killdeer

Greater Yellowlegs 

(there were 12 present)

 Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher

Both the male and female were working hard on this nest, which is a pretty little cup all decorated with lichen.  I spotted a second nest (but no photo) of Blue-Gray Gnatcatchers near the parking lot, too.  Good habitat for them, I guess.

Again, collecting material

Trout Lily

ditto

Northern Cardinal

Cabbage White

2nd stop - Tower Hill Botanic Garden, Boylston, MA

There were lots of kids with their parents or grandparents, enjoying the last day of school vacation.  I walked a lot of trails, expecting to see butterflies and was shocked not to see any except for a couple Cabbage Whites in the flower gardens.  I thought I'd walk up to the summit, as a last resort, and at the top, I finally saw 3 Mourning Cloaks and 3 Spring Azures.  Bonanza!

The thing that really struck me at Tower Hill today was the perfume of the Magnolias.  Unbelievable.  Wish I could bottle that up and bring it home!

  Chipping Sparrow

Indoors, the African Violet show was set up for the weekend.  I didn't stay inside long, because that wasn't the point of this outing, but here are a few that caught my eye.

Meanwhile, back outdoors...

Chipping Sparrow

Eastern Bluebird

Moth
ID??

Black-Capped Chickadee

Blood Root

View of the Daffodil Fields from the woods

 Mourning Cloak

 Pine Warbler

Spring Azure

 Spring Azure

 ratty Mourning Cloak
(This one landed right at my feet, and I could barely focus my 300mm lens on it!)

Northern Mockingbird

Ruby-Crowned Kinglet

It was so windy today that I didn't expect to see much of anything.  I hiked at Waseeka Wildlife Sanctuary at lunchtime, and I was surprised by  a Spring Azure butterfly almost as soon as I hit the trail.  It flew off into the woods and wouldn't cooperate for a photo.  I didn't see another butterfly the rest of the hike and came home with no photos.

After work, I noticed a warbler land in the tree out front, so I headed outside to see if I could catch a photo.  I believe it was a Pine Warbler, but the photo is rotten, and it flew higher into the trees so I couldn't try again.

Another small bird flew out of the trees and landed nearby, so I chased it down for photos.  It was a Ruby-Crowned Kinglet, and it cooperated for several photos.

 Ruby-Crowned Kinglet

(First of Year)

Ditto

This tiger moth caterpillar was crawling up the driveway.

Tiger Moth Caterpillar

After dinner, George and I walked at Breakneck Hill Conservation Land.   George had one of his really noisy jackets on.  But, at this time of the day, the most common sight is the American Robin any way, so I wasn't too worried.  (It's awful to try to find wildlife with someone in a jacket going swoosh swoosh swoosh with every swing of the arms!)  We saw lots of Robins, but we also saw an Eastern Bluebird, a Red-Winged Blackbird, and several Chipping Sparrows.

Chipping Sparrow

Wayside Inn Grist Mill

You had to be up early today if you wanted to see any amount of sunshine.  Luckily for me, I woke up at 5AM, so I enjoyed some extra time outdoors before work.

First stop:  Hopkinton State Park, Hopkinton, MA

Next stop:  Wayside Inn Grist Mill, Sudbury, MA

As I crossed the bridge to enter the property, I flushed a Great Blue Heron from the stream.  It really didn't seem happy with me at all and soon landed in a tree almost directly above me to squawk at me.  He also had an extremely itchy chin, so I tried to capture its incessant scratching on video.  I was impressed with its good balance doing a one-legged scratch while perched on a tree branch!

The pond was half covered with green duckweed or something like it.  I wasn't expecting to see much of anything in that muck and was pleasantly surprised to flush two wood ducks from quite near the path.  Three more flushed soon after from the noise of my camera.

They all flew to the far side of the pond, where the water was still open, and the sun was still shining.  It was much prettier looking over there!

In the woods I came across a pair of Northern Flickers who had already established their nest hole in a dead tree.

I like the above photo because it shows how the Flicker uses its tail to prop itself on the side of the tree.

The sunlight began fading....

 Turkey Vulture

And that was pretty much it for the sun for the day (until evening when it showed up again for a little while).  It started raining when I was on my way home....

Mid-morning back at home, I heard some squeaking outside my office window, and when I looked, one of the Broad-Winged Hawks was sitting on a branch.  I soon realized it was the female because as I watched, the male flew in and mated with her.  She must have been calling out an invitation.  There was little time to react.  I grabbed my camera, but the male was flying off by the time I was able to get it out of the bag and return to the window!