More dry weather

After a wonderfully wet spring, the spigot has turned off. We haven't had anything more than a sprinkling of rain since early June. I'm trying to deeply water the vegetable garden at least once a week (and avoid the temptation to water a little bit every day), but it's hard to keep up, with high afternoon temperatures and sunny days.

The goldfinches, brown thrashers, squirrels, and others are depending on the bird bath for water, while the mystery woodchuck is becoming more interested in well-watered squash leaves. It's hard to be too annoyed; there's certainly no succulent fresh growth out there, aside from what's being watered.

The U.S. drought monitor is still showing that we're OK (that's good) and the long-term projections are fine, so this is just a normal LONG droughty spell. But definitely even native drought-tolerant plants that have been recently added (perennials in the last year, and shrubs and trees in the last couple of years) and all of the water-dependent vegetables and container plants need water.

A hummingbird's territory

The old Southern red oak near the house has a number of bare branches, twigs really, that have been favorite perching places for ruby-throated hummingbirds over the years. There are two feeders nearby, as well as flowers to visit, and this particular branch is perfect as a foraging perch, apparently. It's also easy for us to notice them sitting there.

This morning, I saw a pair of brown thrashers courting, while I was checking things in the garden, and thought I'd change lenses to get a better image.

Of course, only one thrasher was visible preening up in one of the hemlocks by the time I returned, but I was able to take a few shots of 'our' male hummingbird, waiting for insects and monitoring his territory.

Hopefully, he has a mate somewhere nearby.

Brown thrashers, robins, and evening

Spring evenings are lovely in the garden -- the songs and calls of birds as they settle in for the night accompany my puttering around checking plants, mulching, pulling the odd weed. It's often a magical time, when suddenly it's almost dark, or it's time to cook dinner. Yesterday, several hours vanished as I planted, dug, and tended.

The brown thrashers were busy protecting their nest; a fledgling, fully feathered, was on the ground, but the parents were protective and attentive. I had seen them yesterday up in the old redbud.

The nest must be in one of the Viburnums or maybe in the butterfly bush. They were watchful again this evening, so hopefully the fledgling on the ground is under cover.

Early this morning, on a rain-drenched (and shortened) birding excursion, we watched a pair of robins doing their courtship ritual, a remarkable display. We also heard song sparrows and saw them foraging for seeds in the lawn.

A nice way to spend the beginning and end of the day.

Brown thrashers and garden toads

Yesterday, I surprised a rather large garden toad next to the hose faucet in the back. I was surprised myself. We had a toad living in the basement a few years back (the basement is bare floored and unfinished), but I hadn't seen one outside for sometime.

This evening, I saw a brown thrasher getting dinner through the kitchen window. She/he was very vigorously poking through the straw mulch into the recently clipped radicchio bed. Interestingly, when I did a web search about the diet of brown thrashers, I found out that they're prodigious insect-eaters and eaters of all sorts of garden critters bad and good -- insects of all sorts, from beetles to grubs and earthworms, etc. They also eat fruits, but insects are over half their diet. One source, I'm not sure how reliable, suggested that a single thrasher ate over 6000 insects a day (this sounds like a lot to me, even for birds with a high metabolism). Brown thrashers build big twiggy nests, and sing beautifully in spring. We've had a nesting pair in the large Ternstromia hedge along the vegetable garden for the last two years. They're also fun when they visit the ground-level saucer and have a bath, vigorously cleaning all their feathers and fluffing up.