Come With Me For A Walk

I took a little walk down to the end of the yard this evening and here are some of the things I saw.

The wildflower garden has more flowers starting to bloom.

Purple coneflowers have just started--I will have varying shades of purple and all different sizes and shapes of petals once more start blooming

Lots more of the coreopsis blooming

Here's the first of the gaillardia

Ah, the neglected hammock--I've only relaxed in it once so far this summer.

Farther down the hill I came upon some wild roses that grow near the road ditch. Some of the blossoms are almost done.

But here is the promise of more to come.

I walked to the very end of the yard to check a couple bluebird boxes (no tenants yet) and caused some consternation for a red-winged blackbird couple. They must have a nest nearby because both of them raised quite a ruckus at my presence--especially the male. I didn't stray off the trail, but they sure didn't like having me down there.

On the way back, I checked on the mourning dove nest in one of my neighbor's evergreens. Looks like these two are almost ready to fledge.

On the way back up the hill, I saw a bird fly out of one of my other bluebird houses (the other one of the pair where bluebirds had nested in a few weeks ago). It didn't look like a bluebird, so when I opened the nestbox expecting to evict a house sparrow, here's what I was surprised to find:

"Holy mackerel," I said to myself. Six eggs--I think this might be the same pair as before, because she had six eggs also. I haven't been checking these houses at all because I thought that pair would still be busy with their first brood and I've never had the same pair nest to close to their previous nest. Shows you how much I know! I have no idea when these eggs will hatch, so I will have to be a little more regular in my nestbox checks now.

The other thing this leads me to believe is that the pair of bluebirds that hangs around in my dead tree in the front yard is a different pair! So it looks as though I have two pairs of bluebirds in my yard this summer.

Almost back home now, let's walk through this little trail in the woods.

I have a small grove of aspen trees that started with a few trees I dug up from Mom and Dad's backyard around 1990. I finally got tired of mowing around each one and just let them grow all over. I mow three little paths through the grove. It's grown to be really dense and it's nice to have my own little "woods" in the backyard. The birds really like hanging around in here too. Every summer I let a few more trees grow up so the grove continues to expand.

Thanks for coming along.