On first look, it may seem like a giant bird took a poo on our Meyer Lemon tree, but upon closer inspection, you'll see it's an Eastern Swallowtail caterpillar taking a nap! This is one of the biggest Swallowtail caterpillars I've seen here. I wonder how long he's been nibbling on our tree without us noticing...
I believe it will be the yellow Swallowtail, based on the fact that I saw one laying her eggs on the lemon tree a couple of days ago.
I've spent most of my life in South Florida and have NEVER seen a hummingbird here. I just recently found out (last year, in fact) that hummingbirds do, indeed come to the Sunshine state. :)
Even more exciting, they actually DO come as far south as Palm Beach county (and beyond).
We planted a section of the yard to attract butterflies, bees and (we were hoping) hummingbirds.
Looks like all of my research paid off.
Two nights ago, we had our first hummingbird visit the yard!
Our hummingbird moths are back again! They love the male papaya tree we have out back. We get about 5 or 6 each night. When they zoom by your head, you can really hear their hum!
The pictures aren't all that great, because they come by JUST as it's getting too dark to shoot. Looks like I need to learn my camera a little better! :)
I do love this shot, though. You really can see the features of the moth. I'm not sure why the one on the top, right looks almost transparent, but I kinda like it. :)
By far, the most exciting thing to happen in our yard is what happened inside this box that Ken built:
A screech owl moved in!
One April night, my sister in law and her family came by and noticed 3 screech owls checking out the owl condo. While outside a few days later, I saw some movement around the opening of the box. Then, finally, when it got dark enough, I saw this:
We have a tenant!
Every day, around 7:30 at night, this cute creature would poke her head out
of the box, rock back and forth a bit (as she tried to squeeze her plump
self out of the little hole) and fly away. Then, one day, she started sitting in the hole of the box all day. We figured something was going on in there, so we waited for her to leave one night and Ken climbed up the ladder to look in the box and found this:
Squishy overload!!
Meanwhile, on the other side of the yard (but with a good view of the tree containing the babies), we found who we believe to be the dad:
View from the bathroom window
We noticed him mainly because I went it to take a shower and heard and saw a mocking bird acting weird, flying back and forth and screeching. When I called Ken in, we saw the screech owl, sitting in the tree, minding his own business, trying to ignore the mocking bird. I guess he was too close to her nest!:)
One day, in May, we noticed one of the little ones poking his head out:
He fits a little bit better than his mommy did ;)
We also started noticing a second owl coming to the box at night with food. I believe each adult owl was coming back to feed a baby.
One day, early in the morning, momma owl came out of the box and flew into a nearby tree. Thinking this was really odd behavior, we watched out the kitchen window to see what was going to happen. We saw a little one stick his head out and then start to rock. We recognized that as an owl getting ready to fly, so Ken grabbed his camera, ran outside and caught the whole thing on tape:
I was afraid if I went out there, he'd get nervous and go back into the box, so I watched out the kitchen window and, as a result, wasn't able to capture a good video. Ken has no such fears...thank goodness! :)
As expected, he didn't fly right away, in fact, he sort of stumbled (or fell) out before he was ready I think, but he was out of the box. He walked around the area for a little while until he found a comfortable hiding spot to rest. Momma was never far away. She switched between watching the "toddler" and her condo all day. We're not sure if the other baby was still safe up in the box because we had been away for a few days, so we don't know if this was the first or second baby to leave the nest.
Momma watching us and her baby
She let us get pretty close to her and the baby (once we finally found him). Both owls spent the day in their respective places until night fell and the baby came out for a walk:
Sleepy owl's first night out
That night, we watched as two owls tried to teach this little guy to fly. We were too close and I felt like we were obstructing the lessons, so we went back inside.
We hope to be lucky enough to have the owls come back again next year. Guess Ken will have to build a couple more boxes before April! :)
Over the hiatus of this blog, Ken and I have traveled the country in a 24' RV (http://www.horkavy.com/travel/), bought a house in South Florida and gotten married. :)
We spent 3 months fixing up our "handyman special" and have turned our grass-covered yard
into a Certified Wildlife Habitat (it's true...we have the flag to prove it!)
A lot has happened over the past year and a half and for some reason, I haven't been recording it. I will try to go back and recreate the events of the past year as best I can in the posts to come :)
