Rayetta’s Butterflies and Birds (Class Aves)

The butterfly situation at the CB, so far during DY 2, is bleak. Butterflies do not like cold, dry, windy, and bloomless. Therefore, butterflies are in scanty supply in these parts. Even yesterday, Day 15, which was warm, dry, windy and bloomless, produced only one butterfly, a sleepy orange (Abaeis nicippe). The sulphurs, including the dog faces and oranges are pretty tough and tolerant of environmental conditions that dismay other butterflies.

Anyway, it is a very bad year for butterflies in these parts. So in lieu of having any butterflies around the CB to study, I am studying my butterfly electropictoid collection from last year. Here is one of those. Long have I perused this one, trying to decide if it indicates a Celia’s roadside-skipper (Amblyscirtes celia) or a dotted roadside-skipper (Amblyscirtes eos). I have now decided it is the former. That’s my hunch. If correct, adds a species to the CB total for DY 1, running the total up to 71 species.

I do not understand why there were so few roadside-skippers apparent at the CB during DY 1. Perhaps, like the ubiquitous snout, they are biennials.

Rayetta’s Birds (Class Aves)

Meantime I have engaged myself in the frustrating business of documenting the occurrence of birds (Class Aves) at the CB. Yet as Mr. Smarty Pants, Crumby, spells, What’s the point? Anyone can tell them at a glance.

Hmmm. Maybe so. But they are good to practice on with the 70-300mm, maybe. Maybe, because my birds are little, move around a lot, hang out high up in the trees and seem to stick to the shadows like glue. Or they manage to put a branch between me and them. Then too, they seem to show up when it is almost dark. All these factors combine to make for a challenging electropictoid taking environment.

The usual bunch in this category at the CB this time of year are Carolina chickadee, black-crested titmouse, rck, orange-crowned warbler and yellow-rumped (myrtle) warbler. As Crumby opines, All can be told at a glance. Nevertheless, I have been practicing on them with poor result. Even at 600mm, the 70-300mm fully cranked out, I tend to get about 90% habitat versus 10% bird, the bird is in the shade, and it is nearly dark. Hopeless, or nearly so.

We also have two woodpeckers, the ladder-backed and the red-bellied. They behave better than the littler ones so I have been practicing on them too, with slightly better results. Then there is our mockingbird who likes to pose, the blue jays that go to the bird bath and pose, the wary cardinals, Bewick’s wrens, Carolina wrens, the red-tailed hawk and the black vultures that occasionally sit around and pose, the hoards of white-winged doves that crap weed seed all over the place, the hoards of great tailed grackles that come into the house to eat the pet food, the starlings and the English sparrows. I need to practice on all those, plus a few more, even though, all can be told at a glance.

Hmmm. Perhaps I shall command the boys, Build me a tree house, worthy of the Lovely Druidess! I could use my tree house as a bird blind. Except that, those cultivar pecans are possessed of weak branches. I might find myself cast down from a great height, tree house and all. Can’t have that!