Monday, June 11, 2007

Sunny Monday

It's summer here! Last week on the channel 4 weather, Paul Douglas told us that from a meteorological standpoint, Summer begins on June 1st. Lots of places in Minnesota hit 90 degrees today, including us. We're going to have highs in the mid- to upper-80's for the whole week, with very little rain in the forecast. I had to water my vegetable garden last night, but the weather is so beautiful, that I can't complain.

All of my growing things are looking really good....including the birds. Here's the mourning dove nest. The babies have gotten so big that Mama can only cover one of the babies anymore and the other little one is sitting right in front of her.

I planted a yellow yarrow plant (for attracting butterflies) by my "lawn boulder." The robins love sitting on top of this rock (as evidenced by their "calling card").

My delphinium is just starting to bloom. Love those pretty blue flowers!

Yesterday a sub-adult male purple martin stopped by my place. He sat on the TV antenna for quite a while, then would fly down by the gourds, but never attempted to go inside. I'm running out of time for this season to attract a nesting pair. In 2004, I had a pair show up on June 13th, so I haven't given up hope yet.

One of my co-workers and her husband have a huge martin colony and were recently featured in an article in our local newspaper. She stopped by today to tell me they have 140 eggs and babies are already starting to hatch. She invited me to stop over and see them some day after work. (NOTE TO SELF: don't forget your camera--this would be another great idea for a blog post!)

5 comments:

Ruth said...

I love the delphinium! I am always looking for blue flowers as I have an overabundance of yellow and pink in my garden.

RuthieJ said...

I love the blue flowers also. I thought it was kind of neat once I posted the pictures on this blog that the blue of the delphinium petals was almost the same shade of blue as the sky of the purple martin pictures right below.

Lynne at Hasty Brook said...

Pretty delphiniums! I haven't seen purple martins around the Cities since I was a kid.

Mary said...

Love those blue flowers! I haven't seen Purple Martins here at all so you are fortunate that they are even considering becoming residents. And Ruthie, of course you need to take your camera! You need to get into the habit. I recently bought a large handbag so my camera would fit inside easily. And I charge my battery ever night whether it needs a charge or not.

Cute dovies.

RuthieJ said...

Hi Lynne,
If you're interested, Saturday, June 23rd is the date for the "5th Annual Minnesota MartinFest 2007" in Rice, MN (about 10 miles beyond St. Cloud on Hwy 10). Let me know if you'd like more details via e-mail!

Hi Mary,
I'm not good about remembering my camera. I should think about getting a smaller one. I'm always afraid I'll drop this one or forget it somewhere. I don't usually carry a handbag, but I'd like to get something that would work to keep all my birding/blogging stuff together and I can grab at a moment's notice.