Wildlife Wednesday August 2018

The first Wednesday of the month is Wildlife Wednesday when Tina at My Gardener Says... provides an opportunity to share garden wildlife from July.  A few of these are from June since I missed posting the week of July 4th last month.

Again this year a Whitetail doe has chosen our corner as a base for raising her fawn.

Probably about one day old when it ran to the neighbor's door after being startled.

A snapping camera doesn't seem safe so it's out of there quickly.

Run, run, run



Oh, how sweet!

For just over a week they were likely to turn up whenever I went outside or even just looked out the window as in this photo.  She leaves her fawn for hours at a time to keep it safe but she's never far away and always on watch.  Fawns have no scent to attract predators and they can communicate from quite a distance with a series of sounds.  Deer are highly nomadic moving up and down the creek which runs through the neighborhood so we might not see them again for a few weeks.

A buzzard landing on the roof peak.  There's a small natural area full of typical wildlife like raccoons and possums along a busy road behind us which keeps the buzzards busy.

A Cardinal helping himself to ripe figs as viewed through the kitchen window.  It's always a contest because figs must be picked at the peak of ripeness.  Unripened figs are not tasty and do not improve with age.  We got a few figs this year in spite of the birds.

This month's GIF is a hummingbird on tiny lily-like flowers of an Agave stricta bloom.

I wasn't sure about keeping American Germander in my garden until I saw this Hummingbird enjoying the blooms.

So much work to do it needs a rest on the fence.

Cicadas are a dominant bug in the heat of summer.

I've not really thought of them as pretty but clear wings are interesting.  They chew a hole in soft plant tissue to lay eggs but I don't think this Agave sisalana is the place which is why it moved on quickly.

I noticed this Leaf-Footed bug on the rusty gate while out with my camera.

It wasn't until I downloaded the photo I saw the casing to the right.  I think this might be a newly molted bug leaving its old shell behind.

Bees love this Passiflora Foetida we rescued from an undeveloped commercial property nearby.  The process of collecting cuttings and seeds to get it established took nearly eight years.  Now that the vine has returned three years in a row I think we can say it's found a home here.  We've even successfully transplanted seedlings to other parts of the yard.

Not native but still popular with butterflies is Pride of Barbados which blooms in the hottest part of summer.

Same Swallowtail, different light seconds later.

Wings open reveal bright blue indicating a female Spicebush Swallowtail.

Queen Butterfly defies the heat to enjoy a native Kidneywood tree in dappled sun.  Queen butterflies are here most of the year.

Gulf Fritillaries are here almost as often throughout the year.

After a July thunderstorm the air above the garden filled with flying insects best seen against the shed as a backdrop.  There were hundreds of them.  Flying ants!  I got close to see for sure and just made out the shape of ants against the gray sky.  Mature ants leaving the colony to start a new one is called a nuptial flight.  Only reproductive males and queens do this when they are ready to mate.  The queens are the specks you can see and the males are less visible.  We haven't seen many new ant mounds yet.

Toads emerging immediately after a rain continues to be a mystery to me.  We have little rain in the summer and few sources of water for them.  I even looked it up and they take 7-10 days to hatch.  It's about the size of a thumbnail.  Baby toads and cactus, which of these doesn't belong.  Smart toads find a spot near the hose bib where life is good.

That's the roundup of wildlife in my garden for the last month or so be sure to visit Tina to see the wonderful wildlife her garden attracts and to check out the comments section for more garden wildlife.