A tough egg to crack

Last summer, I kept seeing song sparrows and gray catbirds coming in and out of a dense patch of rosebushes.

A song sparrow (Melospiza melodia) emerging from the rose bushes.

I guessed that they had built nests somewhere deep inside.  Although I eventually found the song sparrow nest, I was disappointed that I could not locate the catbird nest.  So, as a surprise, my mother put a wooden egg in an old nest and left it for me to stumble upon.

A large, blue egg in a nest.  (Not a real egg.)

 However, something else found the egg first.

When I heard crows squabbling, I looked out and saw that one of the crows was sitting on the ground by the rosebushes and attempting to eat what appeared to be a gray catbird egg.  Of course, not knowing that a wooden egg had been placed outside just minutes before, I assumed that the crow had found and raided the catbird nest.  The truth only emerged when I shared the sad news about the catbird nest with my mother.  She quickly led me to the nest where the wooden egg had been. As she had suspected, the nest was empty.  When the wooden egg finally reappeared in the yard several days later, it was in splinters.  (The photograph of the egg in the nest above showed a reenactment using a spare egg.  We immediately brought that second egg back inside!)

Springing to life, part two

Instead of visiting the bluebonnets, many of the butterflies that I saw this weekend were gathered around several large lantana bushes.

A fiery skipper (Hylephila phyleus) on lantana flowers.

Some of the butterflies, such as the fiery skipper above and the red admiral below, remained focused on the flowers despite the approaching camera (and camera wielder).

A red admiral (Vanessa atalanta).

However, a couple of other species were consistently more challenging to approach.  Common buckeyes have the tantalizing tendency to fly just a few feet away each time I get almost close enough for a good shot (which has led to several very low-speed chases).

A common buckeye (Junonia coenia).

Meanwhile, with cloudless sulfur butterflies, I would have only one chance to approach as non-threateningly as I could.  If disturbed, these butterflies would nearly always disappear off into the woods...

A cloudless sulfur (Phoebis sennae).

...and they were very easily disturbed!

The cloudless sulfur dropping backwards off the flowers in order to fly away.

Springing to life, part one

Just in time for the first days of spring, the Texas bluebonnets spread from sparse glimpses of blue to cover all the nearby meadows.

A field of Texas bluebonnets (Lupinus texensis) in bloom.

Though the bluebonnets were not yet swarmed with visitors (the way they were last spring at the peak of their bloom), I found a variety of insects on the blossoms, including honey bees, lady beetles...

A seven-spotted lady beetle (Coccinella septempunctata) on a bluebonnet inflorescence. 

...and even large, menacing wasps.

A paper wasp (Polistes sp.) feeding from bluebonnet flowers.

However, the many butterflies that also appeared with the mild spring weather were mostly attracted to another type of flower.  To be continued...