With each dawn the sky creates a new painting and the songs of birds are as varied and welcoming, even when they do start just before sunrise, which these days is around four thirty am. With the light the birds take flight and comb the trees and bushes for caterpillars, moths and butterflies. The butterflies have a great disadvantage that early, as it is too cold for them to fly about, so they must hide well within the leafy canopies. They are not long in this life before the perfect stunningly painted wings will show a tear or two. One even feels for the little caterpillars in the Blue Birds beaks, but there is comfort in knowing they will become part of the precious babies inside the nest box... a different sort of metamorphosis for them. The young birds do get a colorful diverse diet of beetles and other bugs along with the caters. I can now hear the babies crying out each time their blue winged parents alight on the bird house. The Baltimore Orioles are busy harvesting insects too... in the photo above the male seems to be standing guard over their woven nest. There is a before and after photo of the view out of the barn studio ... before pruning new growth shoots and after. The wild honey bees seem very lively... especially when the sun is falling right on their Rock Maple hive entrance. All the butterflies are sipping from Miss Canada pink Lilac and Beauty bush except the Viceroy which is on a Viburnum. There is also a little Chestnut-Sided Warbler in a Viburnum too... most likely eyeing a butterfly!
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