Creatures of the night

All kinds of interesting creatures live in our woods, but I would imagine we do not see, or know about the existence of, many of them because they only come out at night.

One of said creatures is the flying squirrel. When it comes to eating bird seed, these little buggers pick up where their larger non-flying cousins leave off during the day! Note that none of these photos are cropped. I'm always surprised at how close I'm able to get to them, and they really just don't seem to care. They seem pretty fearless of humans, from my experience.

"I'll be leaving now. I have to save some seed for later tonight!"

Preparing to launch off into the dark of night. Unfortunately I've never captured any images of them in flight.

"Gimme a kiss!"

We got lots of different moths at night, as I'm sure most of you do. I noticed this one clinging to the screen door the other night, but he got spooked as I opened the door and landed on the deck. This is a male Polyphemus moth.

I had to nudge him a little to get him to open his beautiful wings.

Either he was tired, or didn't feel threatened enough, because he still didn't show the big "eyes" in his wings.

A gentle stroke on his back got a little more of reaction. Isn't he fantastic looking? The wing span on this guy was probably 5" at the widest point.

These very large, fluffy antenna are what mark this as a male. They would be less pronounced on the female.

This close-up shows how fuzzy he looks.

And here's a cropped shot to show off those antenna.

A crop of the large "eye" in the wing. One of nature's finer examples of perfect beauty.

One website I came across when I Googled "Polyphemus moth" was Butterflies and Moths of North America, which is very similar to the Bird Guide on the Cornell Lab site in that it has occurrence maps, species accounts, checklists, and photographs. I checked out the range map for this moth in Ohio, and it does not show any record of Polyphemus moths in Athens County. As a result, I will be emailing the coordinator of such information for the state of Ohio to let him know of this sighting. This will be my first contribution to moth/butterfly citizen science! Cool!

Eastern Phoebe perching (BPW)

Way back at the beginning of spring I posted some pictures and videos of the Eastern Phoebe nest that we have on the side of our house. I was remiss in that I did not post many updates about the nest's progress. I am happy to report that 5 (presumably) healthy babies fledged from that nest. And now, our Phoebe pair is in the midst of rearing their second brood, once again of 5 nestlings.

Phoebes might be one of the easier birds to photograph because they tend to perch for long periods of time in one spot. And, if you're lucky to have them nesting on your house, you will soon learn their favorite perching spots that are on the path to and from the nest.

Unfortunately, it has becoming increasingly difficult for me to get decent photos of these birds now that the trees are fully leafed out. Our woods are very dense and filled with shadows, so I have to wait for them to come out to a perch that is in more direct light. They have become very fond of sitting on various shepherd's hooks in the garden, and on a spud bar that is standing up in our driveway, which is where this handsome bird is perched.

Here are some videos we captured of the previous brood.

This first video is of the 5 very large fledglings trying to rearrange themselves in the nest. I call it playing musical chairs. It's quite a precarious venture to move around in there!


This is the video of 3 of the 5 fledging from the nest (1 had already fledged previous to this video). One lone baby remains at the end, too scared to make the leap with everyone else! It seems baby #5 departed within 30 minutes of his other nest mates.


I do worry that once this second brood has flown the coop that we won't hear or see much of the whole family for the rest of the season, which will be a sad thing. I hope they come back and visit from time to time.

This post was for Bird Photography Weekly #42. For more Bird Photography Weekly, go here:

Experimental Ragwort

This is a companion post to Experimental Larkspur, which I posted almost 1 month ago.

These photos of Golden Ragwort were taken the same evening as the Larkspur photos, with colored backdrops used to provide a change of pace. While I'm not overly thrilled with the photos as they came out of the camera, they have once again proved to be great material for manipulation within Picasa. Have a look and let me know what you think...

The original, out of the camera shot w/black background...

Manipulated versions...

The original, out of the camera shot w/grey background...

Manipulated versions...

Funky Friday Fungi

The weather lately has been warm and moist, perfect conditions for fungal growth...



















As I was sorting through all my fungus photos, I noticed that some of them reminded me of food... breakfast food, to be specific


mmmm.... bacon


Blueberry pancakes, anyone?

The real star of the show

Oh my, just so many photos to share, so many cool things to show you. But how do I get to them all before they are "out of season"? I probably have enough spring wildflower photos to get us into December! And now the summer wildflowers are starting to come out...

Anyway, one thing at a time, I suppose. A while back I took some photos of a favored spring wildflower, Two-flowered Cynthia (don't ask me where the name comes from).

Eventually, movement caught my eye, and my focus shifted...

... my attention now on the real star of the show.

Not terribly disturbed by my presence, this long-antennaed friend made its way all around the flower.

Let's get a closer look at our specimen...

Checking out things below

Look at that foot!

Can bugs play peek-a-boo?

I think so!