A Hawk, A Sapsucker, and A Squirrel Went Into a Yard.....

A hawk, a sapsucker, and a squirrel went into a yard and ... found it appealing enough to stay for a while. 

There is no punchline to this rather pathetic attempt at imitating the old joke.  I'm actually referring to our yard and I get profound pleasure out of sharing it with other animals.  That's no joke, indeed.  It's great fun to see the variety of creatures that peacefully cohabit with us, if not always with each other.

It's even MORE fun when they pose for a picture for me!

So, just for kicks and giggles, here are some of the critters I've been seeing around lately....

About 10 days before Christmas, I was doing laundry and noticed a movement outside the laundry room door.  Imagine my delight at seeing a young yellow-bellied sapsucker female (Sphyrapicus varius) working earnestly on the side of the pignut hickory tree (Carya glabra) that's located nearby.  I got a huge series of shots, but they are all essentially the same, so here's one that shows her classy yellow belly feathers beginning to grow in, as well as her sadly inadequate ability to line up the holes that she was boring into the side of the tree.

A question for anyone who's a serious birder: is this a common phenomenon in young sapsuckers, or is this particular individual just having unusual difficulties with her grasp of horizontality?  Here is an expanded version of how she "lined up" the holes she was drilling.

Speaking of pignut hickory trees, the Eastern Gray Squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis) love the hickory nuts that the trees produce abundantly each fall and they frequent our yard and gardens throughout the winter.  They don't necessarily like to pose, generally being much too busy to wait around that long, but sometimes one will humor me. 

Once I downloaded the photos this guy "sat" for and looked at him a little more closely, he (I'm just guessing at the sex) looked like the squirrel equivalent of a tomcat.  Seriously - do squirrels fight each other?  How else would this guy's ears have gotten so tattered? 

Most often I see the squirrels using our trees as a sort of squirrel highway along the lakeside, but they obviously stop and refill their bellies, too, based on the number of gnawed open, empty nuts I find.

On the same day that Mr. Squirrel posed for me, February 5th, I was able to get a photo or two of what I believe is a question mark butterfly (Polygonia interrogationis).  It didn't let me get very close, so I was glad that the photos turned out as well as they did.

The lavender wing borders are particularly stunning when you can see them as clearly as you can in these photos. 

Question marks, commas, and goatweed butterflies, which all look fairly similar to me, are some of the first butterflies I see each spring, presumably because they overwinter as adults.

Four days later, on February 9th, we had a pair of stately visitors on our lake:  Brown Pelicans (Pelecanus occidentalis).  We don't seem them often on our little body of water, but I sure love it when they grace us with their presence!

I remember when brown pelicans were endangered, thanks to DDT, which made their egg shells so thin that they cracked from the weight of the mother bird incubating.  Because of the Endangered Species Act, the populations of brown pelicans and ospreys and bald eagles and many other animals have come back to healthy levels and it is relatively easy to have a sighting of many of these species now if you look in the right habitat.  It deeply saddens me that the current administration, with the aid of Congress, is doing away with so many important environmental protections that have helped in so many ways during the last 40 years.

But back to more positive thoughts and sightings....

Evidently a timely pattern had developed for me during February, because another 4 days later, on the 13th, I was out photographing again.  This time I captured the first damselfly of spring, a young female Fragile Forktail (Ischnura posita).

One of the ways to sex many dragonfly and damselfly species (for humans, at least) is by their color.  The pale blue of the damselfly above indicates both her age and her sex.  A few days later, I saw and photographed a male fragile forktail in the same general area, identified by his bright green color in the same pattern as the young female.

Fragile forktails are common damselflies of the eastern United States.  Unfortunately, I have not found any information explaining their common name;  it's an interesting enough name to have a fun history or explanation behind it.  Fragile forktails are fairly easy to identify by the colorful interrupted line that forms an "exclamation mark" on the each dorsal side of the thorax.

On the same day that I saw the male fragile forktail, I saw this little treefrog resting on the back porch screen.  I had just come outside when I saw it and snapped this photo;  my camera lens fogged up in the early morning humidity and by the time it unfogged, this little guy had taken shelter in some well hidden lair.

With only one, slightly blurry, photo to go by, I'm not sure as to his full identity, but he sure looks hungry from the winter's lack of insects to me.

Finally, last Saturday I was sitting on the ground and waiting beside a couple ground-dwelling native bee nests.

Call me crazy, but I was hoping to catch a glimpse of a bee coming or going, or better yet to snap a photo of one, so that I could identify the bee species responsible for these cute little "volcanoes" in the yard.  While I didn't see a bee, I sat still for long enough that a Red-shouldered Hawk (Buteo lineatus)flew in and perched in the hickory tree right above me.  He/she let me take several photos, but when I turned the camera sideways to fill the frame better, I'd moved too much for the hawk's comfort and it flew off.

Red-shouldered hawks, along with Cooper's hawks, seem to be the most common hawks in our neighborhood.  I hear them almost every day and see them most days, not infrequently perched in one of our trees. 

While I did get the photo of the hawk, unfortunately I was NOT able to get a look, let alone a photo, of the bee responsible for any of the ground nests in the yard.  One of these days I will be patient enough AND be in the right place at the right time to do that - I just have to keep trying!

Meanwhile, I'm pretty happy with the wildlife menagerie that I've been privileged to see and photograph this winter.  Best of all, the experiences are free and right outside my door!

Sproing!!! Spring Appears to Be Here.....

Given that Valentine's Day just sailed by, it seems a little early for spring to have arrived, but here in the panhandle of Florida, all signs point in that direction.

For the foreseeable future, the weather guessers have us in the mid-70's each day, with lows in the mid-60's at night.

The humidity has been so high lately that we've been turning on the air conditioner at night just to dry out the air inside.  When we wake up in the morning, the windows are fogged over on the outside from all the humidity, even though the inside of the house is less than 5 degrees cooler than the external air temperature.

Not surprisingly, with the temperatures and humidity this high, plants and wildlife are responding exuberantly.  The early daffodils are in full bloom.

Looking at the blooms, I realized just this spring that all my early daffodils are multi-bloom types.  I find I'm craving some big single blossoms, so that'll be on my list for next fall.

Gail Eichelberger's "practically perfect pink phlox", a.k.a. downy phlox (Phlox pilosa), has been blooming since December, as it seems to do every year here. 

I love this plant, but it's getting a little hard to find even in native plant nurseries these days - I think everyone must be catching on to the joy of having this beauty in their gardens.

Under the front magnolia tree, the golden ragwort (Packera aurea) is blooming.

It has really filled in nicely this year.  By next year, I may even be able to transplant a little to other spots in the yard. 

This summer it should be looking like a particularly attractive dark green groundcover in a garden spot that has been especially hard to cover with anything but leaf mulch until now.  Between the heavy shade and the rampant roots, it can be difficult to garden successfully beneath southern magnolias.

Based on a couple recent blog posts I've made, you know, of course, that some of the blueberries are blooming exuberantly already.  The rabbiteyes (Vaccinium ashei) are still dormant, but the highbush blueberries (V. corymbosum) are in full spate and leafing out rapidly.  In my yard, highbush blueberries definitely seem to outperform their rabbiteye cousins;  if I add more blueberries, they'll probably be the highbushes.

Low, down at ground level, violets are starting to open up, too.  I have 3 species in the yard;  two have started blooming.

One of the blooming violet species is, I believe, the classic common blue violet (Viola sororia), but I'm not sure what the other one is.  This mystery violet has purple blooms and lance-shaped leaves.  It came in with the white baptisia as a pleasant little hitchhiker that I've been enjoying quite a lot.

Speaking of the white baptisia (Baptisia alba), my single specimen of this beauty has leapt out of the ground as if being chased by monsters below the soil.  Baptisia is one of those plants whose shoots spring forth so quickly that I feel like I can see them growing if I stand still and watch for a few minutes.

I didn't notice the baptisia shoots at first, because they were being camouflaged by the spiderwort (Tradescantia ohiensis) seedlings growing up around them.  Some friendly crowding isn't likely to hurt, though.  I haven't seen any fully open spiderwort blossoms yet, but I noticed a little blue peeking forth from one of the buds this morning.  I won't be surprised to see a blossom or two tomorrow.  The blue of spiderwort flowers makes my heart sing....

Have you ever heard spiderwort called bluejacket?  I've never heard the term used at all, except in referring to actual clothing, but according to the USDA Plant Database, that is the official common name of T. ohiensis.  I wonder if it's a regional thing?

Speaking of regions, the Florida panhandle is part of a region that is known more for its non-native blooms than for its native flowers.  Believe it or not, I do have a fair number of non-natives in the yard and gardens, too.  As far as the classic non-native plants go, besides the daffodils, there are still several camellias blooming lustily...

...and the beautiful evergreen azaleas have started opening up their flowers along the west edge of the yard.

With the masses of magenta blossoms mounding throughout the landscape, I have to admit that I love azalea season, .  Those big old southern Indica azaleas are truly spectacular.  They'll be opening up soon and I'm really looking forward to wallowing in their purplish profusion.  Sometimes even this diehard native plant aficionado has to bow down before the overwhelming beauty of certain exotic plants!

Blueberry Bees!

Looky, looky, looky!!!

I was too quick to get discouraged!  Ten days after I posted about not seeing bees on my blueberries and after several nice days of rain, I went outside on Tuesday to do my 10 minute sit, observing the blueberry blossoms.  Look at what I saw:  southeastern blueberry bees!!!

There were only 2 bees at any one time on Tuesday.  Both of them seemed to be males, based both on the lack of pollen being carried on their legs and on the white face that I saw on one.  But males hatch out first in many solitary bee species, so I had high hopes that I'd soon see more.

And today (Thursday), I did.  While doing another 10 minute sit today, I saw at least 6 blueberry bees!!!  Best of all, today there was at least one female, based on the pileup she caused!  These pictures are all from Tuesday as I haven't downloaded today's photos yet, but if I caught anything especially interesting, you can rest assured I'll add another post!

It looks like we're on track to have blueberries this summer after all!

Kingfisher News

One of the best things about gardening organically and sharing your yard with wild creatures is that you never stop learning.  Your home landscape becomes a constant source of interest, rather than just a pretty setting to show off your house.

Last week I had a perfect example of that when I discovered an obvious pellet on our deck near the water.  While it was definitely a pellet, it was an odd pellet, being smaller than I'm used to seeing and very crystalline looking.

I knew "our" pair of belted kingfishers liked to perch on the railing nearby.  Do kingfishers cough up pellets like owls do?  I've never heard of that, but I'm hardly a bird expert.  So I did some internet research....

Lo and behold, according to Cornell Lab of Ornithology's "All About Birds" website, as adults, belted kingfishers DO cough up pellets composed of fish bones and scales, which are usually found near their fishing and roosting sites.  Kingfisher stomach chemistry actually seems to change between their time as nestlings, when an acidic stomach chemistry allows them to digest fish bones, fish scales, and arthropod shells,  and adulthood, when producing pellets that are expelled seems to be the way these hard-to-digest substances are handled.

Another fun fact I learned on this website is that the oldest kingfisher fossil ever found, dated at 2 million years ago, was discovered nearby in Alachua County, Florida.

So the history of kingfishers runs deep here in the northern part of Florida.  Our resident pair doesn't care about that, of course, but they do enjoy the habitat they've found. 

Based on the fact that they've started dive bombing the hooded mergansers when those birds forage between the southern magnolia overhanging the water and the dock across the lake, I'm presuming that the kingfishers have a nest burrow established there. 

I'm looking forward to watching more real life drama play out in our yard as the kingfishers raise their brood during the next few months.  It's great to have front row seats!

Blueberry Blooms...But No Bees

My blueberry bushes have started to bloom and I am anxiously watching to see if any southeastern blueberry bees show up to pollinate them.

I literally sat about 10 feet away from the bushes yesterday, from 11:40 a.m. to noon and watched.  It was 55 degrees F. outside and sunny.  There were no bees visiting the flowers.

Today I went out at about 3:25 p.m. and watched again for 10 minutes.  Again, it was sunny.  The temperature was 72 degrees F.  Again, I saw no bees.

Why am I so concerned?  I had bees (and blueberries) last year.

Well, last spring I shared with you my excitement over finding a small cluster of southeastern blueberry bee nests in what I thought was a public area down the street from us.  Across the road from this little cluster of nests was a 15 year old hedge of blueberry bushes in the backyard of another neighbor.  Such unassuming little creatures, such delicious fruits, and it was so much fun to connect the two.

Several months after my enthusiastic post, though, the neighbor whose yard abutted that "small public area" where I found those blueberry bee nests chose to rototill up this small triangular area and cover it with sod, effectively annexing it to his yard.  It all looks very "upscale" now, so nobody else seems to be upset, but I doubt any of the bees were able to survive the dual assault - and, like most solitary bees, southeastern blueberry bees only have one generation per year.  Effectively that little population of southeastern blueberry bees has been destroyed.

Even if a few of the bees managed to survive the rototilling and heavy sod overlayment, the sod carpet was almost assuredly grown with neonicotinoid insecticides.  Given the immaculate and well groomed appearance of the property overall, I'm guessing that neonics have been and will continue to be used to maintain the lawn's manicured appearance.

Neonicotinoids affect bees.  They are insect-icides, and very potent ones at that, even at small concentrations.

Sadly, the destruction wasn't done yet.  The house across the street, the one with the blueberry hedge, had sold the previous fall.  Last summer, the new owners yanked out all the blueberry bushes, presumably because they interfered with their unobstructed view of our little lake.

I'm trusting that there are other southeastern blueberry bee nests around that haven't been destroyed and that the little bees will find my blooms before too long.  It IS early in the season, after all.  Meanwhile, when I can, I'm going to keep going out and keeping watch over my blossoms, hoping to see the little "mini-bumble bees" busily poking their way up into the blooms.

There has been a lot of habitat destruction around our neighborhood in the last 12 months or so, all in the name of "sprucing up".  It's been disheartening to watch, since one of the big factors that attracted us to this area was the mature landscaping.  In fact, I'm planning to do an entire post on the topic, so for now I'll stop here.

Please join me in hoping that there are other pockets of southeastern blueberry bees around, ready to find our blooms, producing delicious berries and food for next year's bees in the process.

Slut Shamed, Homeowner Style

Pardon my French, but "slut shamed" rather perfectly describes what I feel like about this....

I came home last Wednesday night to this unsolicited message, gathered up with the mail and lying on our dining room table:

Presumably Greg found this tag, a "lawn report card", if you will, hanging on the handle of our front door.

Apparently, a total stranger happened to come by our house and felt compelled to stop and leave a written note for us, telling us that our lawn needs weed control, fertilization, pre-emergent treatment and pest control.  Our lawn is also apparently suffering from freeze burn.  This stranger repeated that our lawn needed pre-emergent and weed control.  Evidently the situation is dire because he exclaimed about how badly it needed these things.  He also told us that grass plugs would be available soon.

Call, he said.  It was underlined to underscore the urgency.

I am rather amused by the depth of my angst about this.  Of course I understand that this is purely a marketing ploy, done to drum up business, but it still really bothered me when I read it.

Because I consciously and conscientiously garden to provide habitat for pollinators, birds, and other wild creatures, I don't use commercial pest control or pre-emergents or weed control.  Insecticides, herbicides, and even standard fertilizers work against my goal.  After all, "-cide" means "-killer" and there is no pesticide, herbicide or insecticide that can differentiate between "good" and "bad".  They just kill what they are designed to kill:  "pests", broad-leaved plants, grasses, insects, etc., depending on the chemical formulation of the -cide being used.

Taken yesterday, this is a photo of our front lawn, 4 days after our failing report card was hand delivered to us.  We have done nothing to the lawn or to the gardens in those intervening days.  To be honest, we really haven't done anything in our yard or gardens in several months now, and there IS obviously work that needs to be done as spring begins to sneak up on us.  There is also lots more gardening, planting, and growing that I want to accomplish.  However, given all that, I am comfortable with the general appearance of our lawn.  It seems to balance reasonably well between looking rationally maintained and providing healthy habitat.

Here is our front lawn in early October, while it is still green.  Far from perfect, but it still seems acceptable to me.

Truthfully, I am rather astounded by how unsettled having this "report card" left on my door actually made me feel.   If receiving this little "reminder" upset ME this much, when I am knowingly making the choices I am making for reasons that are very important to me, what does an unsolicited report like this do to the average homeowner, who is just worried about property values and neighbors' approval? 

I KNOW our lawn is full of non-grass plants, also known as weeds.  Some of these plants are native, most are not.  I remove the really problematic ones by hand, but if the non-grass plants will handle being mowed, I generally don't worry too much about their inclusion in our lawn.

What I DO manage for - and worry about providing - is a healthy mix of plants and animals in our yard overall, a mix that includes pollinators, predators, and a good selection of native plants to feed leaf and seed eaters, as well as pollinators, birds, toads, anoles, and all the other wonderful life forms that I've observed just in our little 0.4 acre lot over the last 2 2/3 years.

Is our yard "pristine"?  No.  I don't want our yard pristine, I want it ALIVE. 

Is our yard alive?  Yes, it is.  Our yard is alive with chattering chickadees and flitting yellow-rumped warblers, with brilliant gulf fritillary butterflies and little solitary bees, with stalking preying mantids and shimmering long-tailed skippers, with watchful green anoles and fat saucy toads. 

That's worth a bit of lawn shaming any day.

Native Container Plants

Last spring, for the first time ever, I intentionally tried to find native plants that would work well in containers to sit on our back patio.  While I found a few, I would love to have a wider variety in my "stable".  I thought I'd share what worked and what didn't work for me - and I hope you'll share your favorites in the comment section to guide me this spring.

First of all, a disclaimer:  All of the photos in this post were taken on October 3rd, when I actually decided to post about this topic.  Most of the plants were well past their prime at that point, for which I apologize.  I find that I didn't take pictures of the full plants earlier in the summer;  I just took photos of the bees and butterflies and assorted other insects that were using them, especially their blossoms, for food and shelter!

Since we have no plant nurseries closer than about 45 minutes away, in trying to develop a native plant container garden, I started out at our local Home Depot.  There, I looked for plants that weren't labeled with the "sweet" little tags that essentially say, "I've been treated with death-causing chemicals so that you can have pretty flowers."  As I looked, I found that I had to be very careful:  some plants that were obviously from the same grower and batch weren't labeled, while others were.  Most disturbing were the numerous "butterfly" plants that I saw touted...while they bore that telltale, nasty little tag.

At Home Depot, then, I bought 3 "butterfly milkweeds" and a Coreopsis?/Rudbeckia?  As they grew, the butterfly milkweeds turned out to be Tropical Milkweeds (Asclepias curassavica) rather than Butterfly Milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa), but at least they weren't treated with neonic pesticides. 

Know how I knew for sure the milkweeds hadn't been treated with neonics?  They had aphids on them, including one individual with a pretty bad case of them.   Yes, I intentionally bought a plant that was seriously infested with aphids - and I was glad to get it.  Once I got them home, I didn't do anything but pot the milkweeds up.  As I've discussed before, the aphid populations cycle up and down, based on natural predators, so I wasn't too worried about them.  The 3 milkweeds are doing fine, even if they aren't actually native here.  In fact, these three tropical milkweeds from Home Depot are the plants on which I've observed (and photographed) most of the aphid/predator cycles that I've shared with you on this blog.

Note:  The tropical milkweeds are the leggy background plants in the photo above.

The Coreopsis/Rudbeckia (I can't remember which it was) was the only other "near native" I could find at our local Home Depot that hadn't been treated with neonics, so I bought it to show that some of us would rather have butterflies than poison-filled plants.  Sadly, the plant hasn't done well for me and essentially never bloomed again.  Half of it died;  the other half looks healthy, but remains bloom-less - and insect-less.

I've got a couple pots with Violets (Viola sp.) and Scarlet Sage (Salvia coccinea) that have seeded in naturally, taking over other plants like lettuce that had finished their life cycle.  Both of these naturally occurring container plants are doing well and seem worth keeping as containers, due to their attractive foliage and/or attractiveness to pollinators.

Here is the scarlet sage, which seeded itself into a container where Greg had been growing kale.  It's not gorgeous, but the butterflies visit frequently.  Next summer I'll fertilize it a bit and give it some attention;  hopefully it will be fuller and fluffier.

I've also got some natives that I picked up from native plant nurseries especially to put into containers this summer:  Blue Curls (Trichostema dichotomum), Indian Blanket (Gaillardia pulchella), Blue Hyssop (Agastache foeniculum), Mountain Mint (Pycnanthemum sp.) and Gaura (Gaura lindheimeri 'Siskiyou Pink').

While the Gaillardia hasn't been the "neatest" looking container, it has bloomed prolifically all summer long and has attracted many pollinators; I will continue to include it in future native plant container gardens.  By October 3rd, most of it had started to die back, so I didn't photograph it individually.  It's the pot at the far right of the photo at the beginning of this post.

The Blue Hyssop, above, which is not actually native to the southeast, was overgrown and floppy when I got it.  I did repot it, but I didn't cut it back like I should have.  It has done well, although it has looked a bit ragged because of my hesitancy with the pruning clippers.  I will continue to include it in future native container gardens, as it has been a reliable bee attractant.  I do not know if it will overwinter, or if I will have to treat it like an annual.

I bought and planted 2 different species of Mountain Mint this spring, but I don't remember which ones they are, let alone which is in the pot and which is in the ground.  I have the plant tags buried some where in the garage, but I am too lazy to look for them right now.  Anyway, both mountain mints are doing very well - and I love the fluffy white fullness of both of them.  Both have been good pollinator attractants;  I'll use Mountain Mint in containers again.  Hopefully the one in the pot behind my little girl, above, will be back next summer.

So far I've talked about the "good guys";  now let's discuss the more problematic patio occupants.

I'm iffy about using Blue Curls as container plants.  They bloomed well but, in the pots, the plants look quite leggy and scraggly while the flowers aren't large enough to overcome that deficit.  I think that part of this has been my fault:  I am not the most consistent waterer, and these were in smaller pots that tended to dry out fairly quickly.  In fact, I used the Blue Curls as my "indicator plants" to tell me when my containers needed watering.

This is, in fact, the first year I've grown Blue Curls at all.  Besides the 2 in containers on the patio, I also had 2 plants in the ground, and they looked much healthier and happier than the potted ones.  I may try Blue Curls in larger containers next year, but probably only if I can't find enough other natives to experiment with.  So far, none of the Blue Curls really seem all that attractive to pollinators, despite their reputation.

Frankly, the Gaura has been disappointing.  I think I either need to find a different variety - or just not try it again.  I don't know if it's a watering issue or if it was in too much shade, but it just wimped out.

Although I didn't think to buy any to put in containers, looking at all the wonderful photos of asters, covered in pollinators, this spring I'm wondering about trying pots with a couple different species of those in them.  I'm not sure which species would be best, though, both for good bloom and for nice looking foliage earlier in the summer.

So that's my "Native or Near Native Container Plant" roundup.  Are there any species that you would recommend?

Slow Gardening

With all of the angst over politics these days, I haven't been hearing much about the "Slow" movement - Slow Food, Slow Money, Slow Living...Slow Gardening.

But Slow Gardening is what I've come to consider my own method of gardening.

It's slow gardening because I don't use inorganic fertilizers to speed up plant growth or to boost the size of fruits or flowers.

It's slow gardening because I prefer to hand weed and then mulch to keep the soil free of weeds, rather than sprinkle my beds and lawn with some pre-emergent or other herbicide. As I've written about before, hand weeding helps me hear bird songs, see unusual insects, and generally experience my yard and garden in ways I wouldn't be able to without being quietly bent over and relatively still.

It's slow gardening because I prefer hand tools to power tools, whenever possible.  Greg, who keeps the lawn mowed and trimmed, has switched now to a battery powered electric mower and a battery powered edger which are wonderfully quiet and efficient.

It's slow gardening because I plant a variety of plants, including plants that are known as slow growers.  This is, truth to tell, rather problematic for me, since we move every few years and I rarely get to see said slow-growing plants reach anything approaching maturity.  However, gardeners are nothing if  not hopeful and forward-looking people.

Felder Rushing wrote a book, Slow Gardening, which was released in 2011, and he maintains a page where he outlines his version of the Slow Gardening concept.  I generally agree with his outline of principles, although I am, perhaps, even more of a slow gardener than he is.

Sometimes most gardening seems like it's slow.  After all, you can plant and mow and fertilize and weed, but it just takes time for plants to grow.

One Thing Leads to Another.....

(This post is an expansion on a Facebook post I made yesterday morning.  I wanted to share the photos I took - and add a few more comments.)

I love how one thing leads to another.....

I saw an Eastern Giant Swallowtail (Papilio cresphontes) out back nectaring on the Scarlet Sage (Salvia coccinea), so I got my camera and ran outside.

It flew over to a camellia where it sat for a while to bask, allowing me to get fairly close and to take multiple photos.

Then it flew back to the sage and continued nectaring, allowing me to take more photos.

After the swallowtail flew off, I noticed a battered Gulf Fritillary (Agraulis vanillae) basking, so I took photos of it, following as it, ...er, 

SHE lifted off and laid an egg or two on the Corky-Stemmed Passionvine (Passiflora suberosa) nearby.  It amazes me that this ragged female could still fly - and that she still had the energy to locate passionvine and lay eggs!  It makes me think that, perhaps, occasionally handling butterflies won't overly handicap their success after all.

Movement by the milkweed caught my eye and I was able to get a few shots (although I don't know if they turned out) of a syrphid fly laying eggs near aphids on the milkweed.  Note:  This was the best of the shots I took. It isn't great, but I thought you might enjoy it anyway, and it does serve to keep the narrative going!

More movement made me notice a little tufted titmouse hunting about 20 feet away, so I snagged a couple photos, one of which wasn't too bad....

Still more movement, this time nearby, helped me notice some sort of odd little wasp hunting on the swamp milkweed...  When I downloaded the photos, I realized that this isn't a wasp at all, but rather some sort of fly.  BugGuide has helped me determine that this is a female syrphid fly in the genus Xylota.  These syrphid flies eat pollen from the surface of leaves as adults, which I think you can actually see her doing in the above photo!  The larvae feed on sap runs.  So, my bare eyes said a small wasp, hunting, but increased magnification and more research revealed a fly, eating pollen!

Close to this unusual little syrphid fly was a Milkweed Assassin Bug nymph (Zelus longipes) that may have actually been hunting - attempting to catch the little syrphid fly unawares.

As an added pleasure, I found all of this activity while I was enjoying the sweet fragrance of the blue curls (Trichostema dichotomum) that are scraggly but blooming, in pots on the back patio!

A fun few minutes. Fifteen minutes, to be exact.  And all from the relative privacy of my back patio, while in bare feet and still in pajamas!

As I wrote the original post when I got back inside, I  looked out back onto the patio again and saw a male towhee perched proudly on the top of the statue there! Sadly, I  wasn't able to get a picture of him, but I did get to enjoy watching him from my spot in the recliner!

Gardening for wildlife is like having a nature preserve right outside my back door!