Snowy Egrets

A snowy egret coming in for a landing.

Dramatic in flight. Click to enlarge.

Elegant at rest with stylish spikey breeding plumage.

Note the black bill, yellow face, yellow feet, and snow white feathers.

There are snowy egrets and lots of other birds right now at Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge in Oceanville in Galloway Township, New Jersey. Here's a picture of the wide open spaces from the 8-mile one-way wildlife drive that loops through the refuge.

BUT... this is the season of the green head fly and they seem to be very hungry. As we went slowly bird-watching along the refuge road, flies followed the car and threw themselves against the glass, hoping to break in and feast on mammals. It was just a little bit like a horror film. But we stayed calm, stayed inside, and took photos like this one through the closed windows.

Sundews!

I've been hunting for, and finding, carnivorous sundew plants in the New Jersey pine barrens. Three kinds grow there: spoonleaf, roundleaf, and threadleaf. The common names tell you the shapes to look for. All of them are covered with sticky tentacles that secrete mucilage that is attractive and deadly to insects. Click to enlarge this spoonleaf, also called oblong- or spatulate-leaved sundew, Drosera intermedia.

There are spoonleaf sundews growing all over this floating log. If an insects lands on one it will get trapped and digested and its nutrients will be absorbed.

The threadleaf sundew, Drosera filiformis, is slender and lovely.

And it has tiny delicate flowers that are open right now.

The one I have most trouble finding is the roundleaf sundew,
Drosera rotundifolia. It's small and low to the ground and blends in remarkably well for a bright red glittering thing. This whole plant is about two inches across.

Look for sundews in places like this.

Happy Fourth of July!

A holiday meal of grapes for the red cardinal. He took every one of them home.

An elegant egret, white and sleek. Click to enlarge.

And a blue jay. (There's a color coded message here.)

Remember when the Grinch stole Christmas but it came anyway? Happy Fourth of July!

Turkey Vulture

A turkey vulture showing off its good side.

The other side is pretty much the same. Notice how you can see right through the nose. It has no septum! The big nostrils plus a big olfactory lobe contribute to the turkey vulture's good sense of smell, which is uncommon among birds; it helps them locate the carrion they eat. Click to enlarge.

Grooming a feather. Keeping clean.

The red featherless face might not look great to us, but it makes it easier to clean up after sticking one's head inside carrion.

The turkey vulture. Well designed.

Happy Father's Day and Happy Solstice

It's a two holiday weekend. Here is a handsome male mallard to wish everyone a happy father's day. Click to enlarge.

And a summer flower for the solstice that marks the longest day of the year. Remember in December when the sun was setting before 5:00? Around here, it's setting just after 8:30 these days. Yay! 

Puddling Butterflies

Two of many spicebush swallowtail butterflies that I saw during a socially distanced walk in a park this week. Click to enlarge.

I was at this lovely spot in the New Jersey pine barrens.

When I noticed little dark things fluttering on the shore of the lake.

They turned out to be spicebush swallowtail butterflies congregating on the mud to suck up minerals. The behavior is called mud-puddling or just puddling. Other insects puddle, but it is conspicuous and cool when big butterflies like this do it.

They flew up when I got too close.

But settled back down again.

I love stumbling upon things like this!

So pretty.

And there were dozens more butterflies around. Sometimes you are just lucky and end up in a park on a spicebush swallowtail puddling day.

Pitcher Plant Flowers

I found purple pitcher plants flowering in the rain last week on the edge of a bog in the New Jersey pine barrens.

Downward facing flowers with thick red petals.

I had to crawl underneath to see a face.

Gracefully curving stems.

A strange pterodactyl of a flower.

Click on the photos to enlarge. 

The insect-trapping pitchers at the base of the flowers are well developed, too. Note the new little ball of a flower beginning to rise on a red stem in the left rear of the photo.  Pitcher plants -- one of many great things to see in the Jersey pine barrens.