Painted Turtle

God Save the Queen

 At first glance this butterfly may look like a monarch butterfly to a casual observer. This is actually a photo of a queen butterfly. The queen butterfly is found in the south United States, Mexico, Central and South America. It is in the same brush-foot family as the monarch, which is common through out most of North America. The queen caterpillar feeds on milkweed just like the monarch so that it to is toxic to most predators that might try and eat it. This photo was taken in the gardens of the Edinburg Scenic Wetland in south Texas.

Northern Cardinal

This time of the year is fun and exciting, if you happen to live in a northern climate. After several months of winter, with very few birds to photograph, you get an explosion of life. Each morning you wake up to birds singing outside the window. Most of those birds are males. In most species it is the male that does the singing. However both the male and female northern cardinal sing. Even when on the nest the female will sing. Her song is often longer and more complex then her male counterpart.

Tuesday Tweets

The pied-billed grebe is a small grebe that can be found through out most of North America, Central America and parts of South America. Here where I live in Minnesota pied-billed grebes are here breeding during the warmer months. They are most often seen in the water and hardly ever seen in flight. When they migrate they usually fly at night. When potential danger is near they will sink under the surface of the water, sort of like a submarine, and swim to safety.

Welcome to Tuesday Tweets. To join in the fun, just post a photo of a bird on your blog then come here and enter your information in the inlinkz tool down below. Don't forget to put a link back to here on your blog and the pretty little banner photo. Then visit all of the sites that participate to see a lot of cool bird pics.

European Skipper

In North America this butterfly is known as the European skipper in Europe however it is called the Essex skipper. It is an invasive species to North America, introduced in Ontario Canada in 1910, it has quickly spread through out much of the north East and Great Lakes regions of North America.

Texas Lantana

 While we were in Texas I spent most of y time photographing wildlife, but I did stop to take some pics of interesting flowers that we found. Texas Lantana is a flowering shrub that is sometimes called the calico bush. It is a member of the verbena family and native to parts of Texas.

Killdeer

Its spring time, soon we will have baby birds all over the place. Already many of the early nesters have already hatched their broods while other species, like warblers, have just made it back to the area. I have been asked to help out this year on the Minnesota Breeding Bird Atlas. I have not volunteered in the past because of time constraints but I decided to help out this year when I found out that they were not getting much data back from the area that I live in.

The killdeer, like the one in the photos above, probably have not yet laid their eggs. These pictures were taken at the Sherburne NWR in July. This bird nested in the loose sand and gravel on the side of the wildlife drive. Not a very safe place to nest. Staff at the refuge did flag off that part of the road to make life a bit easier for mom. In the top photo you can see the empty egg sitting in front of the killdeer. In the second photo I managed to get a chick.

Oceanside Sunset by Betty Kulawik

 The ocean is aglow as the sun

starts to set,

Sending an artistic pattern as

God's creations met.

What a glorious experience to

behold such a sight,

Knowing full well it will bring

on the night.

Savoring the moment ere the sun

sets behind the sea,

Inhaling all the beauty which

God gave us for free.

So calming, so serene, is this

moment in time,

The ultimate of beauty, the apex

of sublime.

As darkness descends and the sun

is no more,

The waves rolling in, lapping at

the shore,

An evening of splendor was mine

for the taking,

As will be the sunrise upon

awaking. 

Halloween Pennant

Pelicans

There are two different species of pelicans that can be found in North America. The brown pelican is primarily found in coastal habitats along the East, West and Gulf Coast. The American white pelican breeds on fresh water lakes in the north central plains of the continent. Here in Minnesota white pelican breed on some of the lakes in the northern and western parts of the state. Here in the south eastern part of the state, where I live, we often see them while they are migrating to their wintering grounds in Mexico, Central America and along the southern coast of the United States.

White pelicans are large birds, one of the largest found in North America. Their diet consists mainly of fish which they catch by dipping their beak into the water as they swim across the surface. The bottom portion of the beak expands allowing them to capture a large volume of water. They then sift out the water and swallow the remaining fish and aquatic invertebrates. Often groups of white pelicans will hunt cooperatively swimming in circles to round the fish up. 

Tuesday Tweets

The black-necked stilt is a shorebird that is found in shallow wetlands of the western United States, Mexico, Central America and parts of South America. They inhabit both fresh water and salt water habitats. They use their long legs to wade through the water looking for fish, shrimp, and aquatic insects. Proportionately their legs are longer then those of any other bird except for flamingos.

Welcome to Tuesday Tweets. To join in the fun, just post a photo of a bird on your blog then come here and enter your information in the inlinkz tool down below. Don't forget to put a link back to here on your blog and the pretty little banner photo. Then visit all of the sites that participate to see a lot of cool bird pics.

Broad-winged Bus Katydid

 Katydids are part of the Order Orthoptera which also includes crickets and grasshoppers. Like grasshoppers katydids have strong hind legs which they use to propel them selves. Like crickets, katydids are nocturnal singers. During mating they call to each other by rubbing the base of their forewings together. A ridge on one wing rubs across a file on the other creating different clicks, chirps and buzzes. The potential mate hears these calls with their ears which are located on their front legs.

Flowering Cactus

One thing that I took a few pictures of when we were in Texas were flowering cactus. Here in Minnesota you can imagine we do not have a lot of wild cactus growing. So it was kind of a novelty to me. Last time we were down in 2010 it was earlier in the year. All of the yucca were in bloom but it was too early for the cactus. This time most of the yucca were finished blooming but I found quite a few blooms on cactus almost every where that we went. 

Calendar Canids

 Our trip to Yellowstone last spring turned out to be a good one. We usually go at the end of May and in years that we have a late winter, like last year, we usually have a pretty good year photographing in the park. Maybe it is because in years where there is a late winter the mountains still have a lot of snow so the animals head down to the lower elevations of the park which are conveniently close to the roads.

We had the opportunity to photograph all three types of Canidae that can be found in the park. Two of these species made it into the 2012 calendar. Coyotes are fairly common in the park and usually not too difficult to see but the coyote in the first photo was one of the best looking coyotes that I have ever seen. We also managed to photograph several different wolves. I featured this wolf a couple of weeks ago to help bring some attention to the plight of wolves now that many have been delisted from the endangered species act. If you care about wolves and our environment you might want to take another look.

Lake Yellowstone

Typically most of the pictures that I take, and thus most of the pics in the calendar, are of wildlife. However I do take some scenery pics and over the years i have occasionally chosen a scenery pic to be on the cover of the calendar. The cover of the 2012 Ecobirder calendar is a piece of drift wood that I photographed on the shores of Lake Yellowstone. The ice, and reflected clouds that are slightly out of focus in the background help to give the picture a mystical and serene feeling.