Late August SE (speshul edition) - Mark Moeller's Blog

I feel like I am spamming. This is the fifth blog in August 2020 and I had no intention of putting out this many blogs in a month. One a week even seems excessive sometimes. However I have four hundred eighty-five pictures to sort through and hopefully an entertaining story to tell.

Boids

To help identify the birds, I downloaded the MERLIN app from Cornell Ornithology Lab onto my phone. I can now download the pictures to the phone and run the app. I learned one of the birds that looked unusual was a yellow warbler. I also learned that there are multiple looks to the blue green gnat catcher depending on sex and breeding status. So hopefully I will up my game a little. Next I need a bird call app.

The female rose breasted grosbeak sometimes is confused with the female house sparrow. We have both visiting our bird feeder on the porch.

We have been seeing these guys in the trees now that we know to look for them.

We are still tracking the melting bluejays. It is entertaining watching their crests grow back in.

Crows

We see the turkeys in the yard routinely. Not all the young turkeys grow up.

We finally had some weather and got some fog and rain. This was leftovers from a hurricane again. This one came from the gulf coast so the weather wasn’t as severe as the one that tracked up the east coast.

Cooper Hawk in the Rain

Mammals

The duhr hang around.

Duhr

We have seen fewer squirrels and chipmunks. I guess there is plentiful food closer to home where it is safer.

Chipmunk Chipping

Groundhog

Fun with Benji

We tried a grand experiment. We got Benji a life jacket and wanted to see how he would like kayaking. Unfortunately we picked a rather windy day for a first time kayaking experience.

Benji is no fool and he would not walk down the rickety ramp to the float. As you can see from the next photo, he was a dubious dog.

Initially Benji went with Meg. When I caught up to them, he decided to try walking on water. It didn’t work out well for him. He obviously has no boating experience. We transferred him to my kayak so all three of us ended up being soaked. We decided to give it up and try again at a later date.