Starlings and a red admiral and gallinules and other stuff

 I've never seen starlings in the backyard before and a whole small flock stopped by to visit today.  I've always thought of them as northern birds and kind of a nuisance.  In contrast, these were a group of juveniles who must have been on the way somewhere and they were well-behaved.  They stopped to rest on my neighbor's lawn for a while as well as various other lawns across the canal.  They never got to my bird feeder.

These juveniles still have some fluffy baby feathers on their heads and wings, but can fly well.

 

 

In another rare event, a red admiral butterfly stopped in the backyard.  I've seen them before but not very often.  I always like to see butterflies of all types, but it's particularly fun to see one that is not very common here.  He didn't bother with the flowers and landed on some bark.  I don't know what was so interesting about the bark, but he tried different parts of it.

The admiral stops for a rest.

The young gallinules are really grown up now but don't have their red face plate yet.  It's just starting t come in, along with their adult feathers.  The three of them can eat on their own but still like a bite from mom, too, and she's only too happy to oblige.  I think they are a little spoiled!

This guy is growing up.

The family still forages together.

A bite from mom is always welcome.

 

There's a small iguana that lurks around the backyard and always seems to get in the way of the ducks and pigeons who eat there.  Today he was trying to snag some duck pellets.  There were  number of pigeons eating seeds on the ground, and iguana really wanted a pellet so he literally walked over a pigeon, right over top of him, to get it.  The pigeon didn't even seem to mind as he was concentrating on eating.  It was really funny to see!  Later the pigeons were walking all over the iguana's feet to get at more seeds.  Iguanas don't eat the seeds.  Though the pigeons and iguana were cool with it all, a duck that came to eat got mad at the iguana for being in the way, and pecked him.  But he didn't seem to notice at all.  They have really thick skin.  It was an amusing little episode.

Chilling on a tree stump and waiting for a chance at dinner.

No offense, but this guy is pretty ugly.

In times past, I used to always see an osprey perched on the dead limbs of a tall tree across the canal.  But that tree was knocked down.  For the last several days an osprey has been diving into the canal with a big splash trying to nab a fish with his talons.  The canal is full of fish, so he is probably going to get lucky soon.  But sadly, his favorite branch is now gone.  I used to love to see him perched up there, sometimes with a fish and sometimes just looking regal.  No more good osprey photo opportunities anymore.

The dragonflies have been out and about along the canal's edge .  There are usually several varieties to see on any given sunny day and today was no exception.  One was a less common type here, a spot-tailed dasher.  It's easy to see how it gets its name.

He has a pretty blue-green face and distinctive spots on either side of his tail.

This four-spot pennant is our most frequent dragonfly visitor

I'm happy to report that there are still five cormorants swimming and fishing in the canal and two sitting on floater ducks.  I hope they hang out here for a while as they are fun to watch.

Today there was an unusual backyard sighting.  There were lacewing eggs on the pool screen outside.  Lacewing insects are handy to have around to eat aphids.  But they have to stay away from my Monarch caterpillars!

See the slender stalks that they hang on.

Speaking of Monarchs, at least four caterpillars hatched and are eating the leaves of the large milkweed.  They are very tiny.  When they get bigger,  I'll actually know how many we have and will move them to the enclosure.  The big plant itself doesn't fit in there, so I'll have to transfer them to a smaller plant.   I also rescued Monarch eggs from several other plants that had briefly been outside.  I put them in a little Tupperware tub on the leaf they came on.  I think these are due to hatch tomorrow or the next day.  When I leave the eggs outside on the plants, they frequently disappear, probably eaten by ants of other critters.  So I am trying this technique that I read about online.  Once they hatch and get about a half inch long, I'll put them in the enclosure to continue eating.  Meantime I'll provide new leaves in the tub as needed.

Finally, I try to grow flowers in my patio garden, and in one pot I had planted a dahlia bulb.  But instead of a dahlia, a giant weed started growing there.  It was a while before I realized that it was just a weed as I had never seen a dahlia plant, just the flowers!  I should have known because it grew so fast, and weeds seem to grow much faster than desirable plants.  I believe it was an amaranth, fondly also known as a pigweed.  It's now been relocated to the trash heap!  With luck the actual dahlia will have room to make an appearance.

This large weed is no dahlia!