Backyard Cooper's Hawk

I was just finishing supper this evening and happened to look out the dining room window and spotted this beautiful Cooper's Hawk perched on the ground feeding tray. Cool!

It sat there for ages......long enough for me to grab the camera and sneak downstairs to the patio door to take all these pictures.

When no sparrows showed up at the ground feeder tray, the Coop turned around on the tray and looked towards the house. Doesn't it look like it's thinking, "Hmmmm, maybe there's some tasty prey lurking under that deck."

I was surprised as heck to see this Coop hop off the tray and start running towards me.

Did she say running? Yeah, I couldn't believe it either! Here's an action shot in mid-stride.

Still don't believe me? Well, I got a little video clip too! This Coop was probably only about 5-6 yards away from the house. It must have seen something interesting under the deck that was worth running for rather than flying. Isn't it cool to see this raptor up close? Looking all around in search of something to eat?

I never did see it catch anything, and it finally gave up and flew back out into the yard again. It perched on the trail camera for several minutes before finally departing from the backyard to search for a meal elsewhere.

This was definitely one of my most memorable raptor encounters in the backyard and I'm so glad I was able to photograph it. I hope this Cooper's Hawk continues to visit my backyard......I have a ginormous flock of house sparrows that definitely needs thinning!

Backyard Trail Camera

If you've ever wondered what goes on in your backyard while you're asleep, you really should think about getting a trail camera! They've really come down in price -- you can generally find some pretty good ones for less than $100 (watch for sales at your local sporting goods store). Most all of them are digital now and most even capture video. We know the deer are in our backyard, but they usually show up after we've gone to bed. Mr. Johnson decided to put one of his trail cameras out in the backyard where the deer feeders are and here are some "action shots" from this past Wednesday night. We had some bad storms and heavy rain that night, so I didn't even fill the corn tray, figuring the weather would deter the deer from showing up. Obviously it didn't. In this first shot, you can see the raindrops reflected in the flash. I think these two are our neighborhood twins. The closer blue tray contains acorns and the far tray contains just a few remaining kernels of corn from the previous nite. Time stamps are on the bottom of each photo.

Twins have left and now another small doe stops by for a snack.

This last one is my favorite! Baby gets a kiss from mom! Unfortunately, they were so close to the camera and its super-bright flash, but it's still cute and you can see baby's whiskers even.

Trail camera......never too early to start hinting for Christmas gifts!

Narceus americanus

It was a gorgeous late summer day and perfect for a family picnic at our favorite spot: Forestville State Park. In the picnic shelter, we found this large millipede (Narceus americanus). Normally I'm a bit squeamish about bugs that are larger than an inch, but this millipede was really interesting and after my brother and nephew said it was really cool to feel all those millipede legs walking across their hand, I had to experience the sensation also.


It was a really neat feeling and so fascinating to watch all those little legs propelling this millipede forward and backwards! Sorry this video isn't longer......hopefully you'll find a large millipede of your own someday and experience the wonder of this amazing bug!

Wildflower Plantings

I didn't get a chance to visit the health club today, so I took my 2-mile walk up the road instead. Along the way I noticed there was some Stiff Goldenrod growing in the roadside ditch. I've been wanting to get some of this for my backyard for quite a while -- the flowers are an excellent source of nectar and very attractive to butterflies and bees. I dug up at least 8 plants from the ditch. I also dug up some sunflowers -- Woodland Sunflowers, I think. My plan was to put all of these plants out in that wild, unmowed acre of my backyard.

I also found and dug up several of these interesting looking plants. The seed pod on them led me to believe they were some sort of milkweed. When I cracked open one of the seed pods, they definitely looked like milkweed seeds inside. What do you think?

After I got everything planted and came back in to my computer, I went to the MonarchWatch website because they have photos of all the different varieties of milkweeds. To me this plant looked exactly like Plains Milkweed, which supposedly is not found in Minnesota. OK, now I was really curious, so I googled "Plains Milkweed" and here's what I found on the USDA Plants Database website for Plains Milkweed. Check out the range map on this website -- it also shows this plant is not found in Minnesota! I got all 4 plants in the ground and marked so I'll be able to check and see if they make it through the winter. I hope they do because I want to see if it grows and spreads on its own and how attractive it will be for the monarch caterpillars and other butterflies and insects next spring.

Most of the wildflowers I've planted previously in this wild acre haven't survived (the soil is really crappy), but I was happy to see that this plant and another just like it had survived and were thriving. It's one of the hyssops and the leaves have a wonderful sweet minty-licorice scent when you rub them between your fingers.

While I walking through the tall grass searching for spots to plant my new wildflowers, I noticed there were lots of spider webs created and populated by these beautiful Banded Garden Spiders.

The webs were hard to spot in the bright afternoon sunshine and I hope I didn't accidentally destroy any of them.

It was a beautiful afternoon to be outdoors, a light breeze, and about 65 degrees. The only negative thing was the swarms of hungry mosquitoes just waiting for me to walk through the tall grass. Where are those dragonflies when you need them?

Backyard Doe and Fawn

Just before dark one evening last week, I looked out the kitchen window and spied the little fawn feasting on corn in the birdfeeding tray. I tried to get some photos out the kitchen window, but managed only this one poor quality image through the window screen.

I decided to head downstairs and see if I could get a picture from the outside patio. Once downstairs, I saw that Mama Deer was also in the backyard under the apple tree. As soon as she saw me come outside, she went into full alert mode to protect her baby. I switched my camera over to video and managed to capture their hasty retreat from the backyard.

State Fair Trip

Yesterday Mr. Johnson and I visited the Minnesota State Fair. I took a whole bunch of pictures of animals (like this adorable baby pig) and posted them on my Facebook page.

I was able to narrow the photos down to 94 and I hope you'll be able to enjoy them by clicking on this link to see the album.

OMG!!

Here's what I saw in the monarch ranch when I got up at 4:45 this morning.......9, count 'em, 9 chrysalis have turned black because there's a monarch butterfly in there ready to emerge!

And here are the 9 beautiful new monarch butterflies that greeted me when I got home from work this afternoon!

I will be using my last 9 monarch tags when I release these butterflies this afternoon, for a total of 50 monarch butterflies tagged and released this summer! This is a new personal best for me and more than doubles my totals from the previous 2 seasons of operating a monarch ranch. I'm already planning to purchase a larger enclosure and expanding my monarch ranching operations for next summer. 75 sounds like a really good number, don't you think? (tags can only be purchased in lots of 25)

Sadly, this concludes another season of monarch ranching. It will be strange to not have monarchs sitting on the kitchen counter anymore, since they've been taking up so much of my time at home for the past couple months. But, it gives me something to plan for and look forward to for next summer. I'm already collecting milkweed seeds from plants in my backyard to start new seedlings next spring and figuring out where and how to expand milkweed plantings to encourage and accomodate more monarch activity in the backyard.

I strongly encourage any of you who are interested to try monarch ranching. I think you'll find it a fun and rewarding activity for a minimal $$ investment. I'll even send you seeds if you want to try growing your own milkweed plants! "Try it, you'll like it!"

Monarch Milestone

Today marked a milestone in my monarch ranching experience -- 6 monarch butterflies hatched and released on the same day!!

Two were already hatched by 6 AM this morning when I left for work and the rest emerged during the morning. So they were really fluttery and anxious to fly by the time I got home early this afternoon. Since I don't tag them until I get outside in the backyard, I decided to take a chance and open the ranch to see if I could get photos of all 6 butterflies.

Not to worry.......I did manage to capture the escaped monarch behind my computer desk and he was released unharmed out in the backyard.

Today's butterflies increases the total of monarchs raised, tagged and released from this summer's monarch ranch to 37! Initial observations show that at least 4 more monarchs will emerge tomorrow. With the monarchs still to emerge in the ranch and including the 4 wild monarch butterflies I caught and tagged last week, I should be able to achieve my goal of tagging 50 monarch butterflies this year by Labor Day.

Cutest Twins in the Neighborhood!

I finally got the opportunity to photograph the cutest twins in our neighborhood! We've been watching these two since early summer, but now they've become more independent and are venturing out in the neighborhood without the watchful presence of their mom. Typical teenagers, I guess!

These annoying flies keep biting my legs!

Aren't my spots are adorable?

If we don't move, will people think we are lawn ornaments?

It's so nice here in the shade.

Do you mind people? I'm trying to relax here!

Look out for cars!

Are you still taking pictures?

Pet Update

Penny has "faved" another one of my current knitting projects. This is Jennifer's Afghan, a pattern from a book I read recently entitled "Dropped Dead Stitch." (I bet you non-knitter's didn't even know that there was such a thing as knitting-themed murder/mystery fiction, did you?) Anyway, I stopped mid-row on this afghan, so it ended up being a nice little tube and Penny was able to tunnel inside for her afternoon nap!

Here's my sweet Sophie terrorizing a streaked gopher we caught in the live trap the other day.

I was so happy to see her getting so excited about this little gopher because a week ago Sophie almost died! She had injured her paw in a leap off the bed a few weeks ago and was unable to walk on it. A visit from her vet determined there were no broken bones and I chose to pursue the less expensive Ascriptin therapy (vs. a pricey NSAID prescription which also required a liver & kidney blood test prior to starting the medication). I received all the standard warnings about aspirin's affects on the stomach lining and was told to watch Sophie's stools especially for anything that might indicate internal bleeding due to aspirin irritation.

After a week of trying to restrict her activity, Sophie's limp was almost gone, so I discontinued the Ascriptin therapy. Then after another week, she jumped off the bed and re-injured the paw, so I started her Ascriptin again (half a pill in the morning and the other half in the evening). Last Monday, she was much more lethargic than usual and napped on the couch for almost the entire afternoon. I didn't really think anything of it until suppertime rolled around and she was only mildly interested in her treats and then left the table without even begging for plates to lick (extremely unusual for her!) I asked Mr. Johnson if he had noticed any change while on "poop patrol" earlier in the day and he said he hadn't. Then shortly after supper he had her out and she conveniently pooped for us and Mr. Johnson reported that her poop was black! Uh-Oh! I knew that wasn't a good sign and lifted one of Sophie's lips to find that her gums were an extremely unhealthy shade of light pink (almost white). That's when I knew something was really wrong. We loaded her into the car and whisked her off to our local Affiliated Emergency Veterinary Service hospital. A battery of tests (including blood, x-ray and ultrasound -- to rule out tumors) were done and it was determined that Sophie was severely anemic, due to a GI bleed triggered by the Ascriptin I'd been giving her for the previous week. Poor Baby! She had to spend the night and part of the next day at the hospital. I brought her home Tuesday afternoon with a couple weeks' worth of special intestinal diet food and she's been receiving lots of TLC while she recovers from this GI bleed and associated anemia.

Sophie's almost back to her old self now and that's why I'm so happy to see her getting so excited about a streaked gopher in a trap again -- because a week ago, this photo wouldn't have been possible!

(and in case you're wondering, this gopher escaped unharmed because once the trap's tipped over, they just have to run onto that door and it opens right up--guaranteeing a speedy escape!)

Let's Release Some Monarch Butterflies!

Quite a few monarch butterflies are starting to emerge in the monarch ranch. It's always cool to see the wing colors develop and know that a new butterfly will be born in a couple days.

This picture isn't very clear, but this is what the chrysalis looks like on the morning the butterfly will emerge -- dark and almost ready to pop. No surprises about what's going to happen today!

Last Thursday morning, 4 butterflies emerged from their chrysalis. This is what I saw when I got home from work that day. The monarch ranch is a very busy place these days.

Before they're ready to be released out into my backyard wildflower garden, the monarch butterflies spend the morning in the ranch drying out and stretching their wings. That's always my favorite part -- attaching the sticker tag to its wing and documenting another successful release of a monarch butterfly that I raised from a baby.

They always seem to be happy to be out in the sunlight and fresh air.

Sometimes they'll fly away immediately and other times they like to sit on the flowers and enjoy the warmth of the afternoon sun.

Here's a little video I made on Thursday afternoon......please excuse my moment of ADHD in this video. It was the first Great Spangled Fritillary I've seen in the backyard this summer!

In the Backyard

Here are some photos of some random, but interesting things I've seen in the backyard in the past week or so.

My crow family

The juveniles are big enough to feed themselves now, but still try to beg from their parents every once in a while. Sometimes only 4 will show for a day or so and I get worried that one of them may have gotten shot during Minnesota's crow hunting season, but then the next day all 5 are back again and I'm relieved.

Cooper's Hawk sunbathing

I checked with Susan (the raptor expert) to see if she had any opinions about what this Coop was doing and she said she'd never seen any of her Coop's behaving this way. After the hawk flew away, I went out and checked where it had been laying and no ant hills were nearby, so we ruled out "anting." There was also no evidence of a fresh kill in the area, so I think the bird was just trying to cool off a bit on a hot August afternoon.

The backyard wildflower garden/monarch waystation is in full bloom!

Lost of purple coneflowers, but also Joe Pye weed, Canada goldenrod, Queen Anne's Lace, green-headed coneflower, and brown-eyed Susan. It's definitely a butterfly and bee haven.

Common Green Darner (female)

I found this beautiful dragonfly on the swamp white milkweed last week when I was collecting monarch caterpillars. I was really happy she allowed me to get some great photos before flying away.

Newly tagged monarch enjoying her first nectar in the wild

Great Spangled Fritillary on Joe Pye Weed

Hope you're seeing some neat things in your backyard too!

9 out of 10 Cats Prefer

9 out of 10 cats prefer to share their home with a knitter!

And if you're wondering about that 10th cat, it's only because that kitty was unlucky enough to choose a non-knitting hooman to share its life with.

Hope you're not tired of monarchs yet!

I pulled a few weeds in the garden yesterday afternoon and threw them into the wheelbarrow for Mr. Johnson to dispose of . After dumping the weeds, he came into the house and asked me whether I had noticed the monarch chrysalis on the wheelbarrow. Sadly, I hadn't noticed it at all.

The wheelbarrow always sits in the same spot in the backyard next to the compost box. On top of the compost box in a long flower box, I'm growing some more milkweed plants (sometimes known as butterfly weed [Asclepia tuberosa]) from seed. These little seedlings are only a few inches tall, but they're very attractive to the monarch caterpillars. I bet the chrysalis on this wheelbarrow is from one of those caterpillars that was snacking on those butterfly weed seedlings earlier this week.

After taking this photograph, I removed the chrysalis from the wheelbarrow and placed it in monarch ranch along with the 17 other chrysalis still waiting to hatch into monarch butterflies.

Another milkweed plant in my yard that's receiving lots of attention from monarch caterpillars this summer is this Swamp White Milkweed. I planted it last summer and was happy to see that it made it through the winter and has developed into a huge, beautiful plant this summer. It has been blooming for several weeks now and has even developed some seed pods that I will save and try to grow more plants from next spring.

I'm amazed at how much the monarch caterpillars love this plant! It's not unusual for me to find at least 5-6 caterpillars on it every day. I collected 5 for the monarch ranch earlier this afternoon and then found these 2 additional ones a couple hours later.

I think there are at least 16 caterpillars of all sizes crawling around in the monarch ranch right now. At this rate, I shouldn't have any problem achieving my goal of raising, tagging and releasing 50 monarch butterflies in my backyard this summer.