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| Phoebe this morning |
As if on cue, shortly afterward my Phoebe
made a rare visit to my backyard (she usually stays in the front and side yard,
nearer her nest). Perhaps she was saying ‘so long?’ But not yet, perhaps. The
phoebes are one of the first songbirds to return in the spring and the last to
leave in the fall. Cool fact: In 1804, the Eastern Phoebe became the first
banded bird in North America. John James Audubon attached silvered thread to an
Eastern Phoebe's leg to track its return in successive years.
And, this afternoon, the sun finally
came out after a gray, rainy weekend. I spotted both Desert Hawk and Sky Hawk
(my neighborhood Red-tails) for the first time in a long while, soaring on the
thermals. I wonder if “our” hawks (NYC, Philly, Cornell) have begun their
journeys south?
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| A not-very-good photo of my hawk! |
Hawk Mountain, in eastern PA. conducts
annual raptor migration counts. To date, they have spotted 466 raptors, 47 of
them Red-tailed hawks. Interesting site. http://www.hawkmountain.org/
The beautiful and mysterious monarch
butterflies also make an incredible migration each year. I noted that on the Hawk
Mountain site, they cancelled a program, “Tag your own monarch,” due to the lack of
monarchs this year.
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| Butterflies on 9-13-2012 |
I’ve observed this in my own yard … have seen only a few, while last
year, my butterfly bush was inundated with them. You can find many articles on the Web on
the sharp decline of the monarch butterfly. Click here for one.
(Click to enlarge photos.)
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