Saturday, April 30, 2016

Birding 2016

10/8/16, Millennium Park:
Pied billed grebes, 4 sandhill cranes, osprey, swan, Canada geese, herring gulls, red-winged blackbirds, sandpiper.

7/22-29/16, home:
love the backyard birdfeeders. This week: lots of juvenile titmice, chickadees, cardinals, robins. Female Evening Grosbeak. Immature male Rose-breasted Grosbeak. Yellow-shafted Northern Flicker. 6 Blue jays all at once. Male Red-bellied woodpecker. This afternoon Amy saw a puzzled juvenile blue jay that learned how to eat out of the feeder after watching a downy woodpecker.

7/29/16, GVSU arboretum:
Pileated woodpecker

5/20/16, Aman:
Thrushes singing

5/17/16, Blandford:
Indigo bunting

5/5/16, Aman Park:
Black-throated green warbler, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, thrush (probably Swainson's), vireo, pair of Red-breasted Grosbeaks.

4/29/16, at home (morning), GVSU - Allendale (early afternoon), then Blandford Nature Center (early evening):

House Finch,
White-throated Sparrows (a whole flock feeding on the ground at Blandford in the evening), White-crowned Sparrow, House Sparrows, Song Sparrow?
Red-winged Blackbirds,
Tree Swallows,
Canada Geese, Mallard Ducks,
Rose-breasted Grosbeak, Robins,
Nuthatches, Chickadees, Titmouse,
Bluejays,
Cardinals,
Mourning Doves,
Red-tailed hawk, Turkey Vulture, Crows,
Red-bellied Woodpecker, Downy Woodpecker,
Ruby-crowned Kinglet (female?),
4 warblers at the top of a tall tree, mostly yellow, perhaps Pine Warblers?

Usually at home feeders, also lately:
Hairy Woodpeckers,
Bluebird (Amy saw 4/28)
Starlings

4/27/16, neighborhood:
Great Blue Heron, mute swans

Saturday, April 23, 2016

Wildflowers

6/2/16, Blandford Nature Center:
White: Campion, blackberries
Yellow: Goat's beard

5/20/16, Aman Park:
White:  Mayapple,s False Solomon's Seal, False Lily-of-the-Valley, Wild Strawberries
Yellow:  Golden Alexanders
Red: Columbine
Pink/white: Honeysuckle

5/17/16,  Blandford Nature Center:
Pink/purple: Dame's Rocket

5/8/16, Blandford Nature Center:
Blue: phlox
Green: Jack-in-the-Pulpits
Yellow:  Marsh Marigolds, Winter Cress, Buttercups, Downy yellow violets
White:  Trillium, Squirrel corn, Canada white violets, False Rue Anemone
Pink/purple: wild geraniums, spring beauties, violets

brown - Garter snake!

5/5/16, Aman Park:
White: Canada white violets, squirrel corn
Pink/purple: wild geranium

4/29/16, Blandford Nature Center:
Pink/purple: wild geraniums

4/27/16, Blandford Nature Center:
Yellow: winter cress and downy yellow violets

4/22/16, at Aman Park, I saw: myrtle (not a wildflower), redbud trees blooming, and:

White: bloodroot, trillium, Dutchman's breeches, cut-leaved toothwort, false rue anemone
Yellow: dandelion, trout lilies, buttercups, large-flowered bellwort
Pink/purple: spring beauties, spring cress, violets
Green: blue cohosh
Maroon: wild ginger

I was sorry to have missed the hepatica blooming.