Hummingbirds and Grandmothers Migrating South

Like many birds, and some butterflies, I have headed south for a spell but will be back long before the Ruby-throated Hummingbirds featured below reach their overwintering sites in southern Mexico and northern Panama. Some individual Ruby-throated hummers may decide it is best to spend the winter along the Gulf Coast or the Outer Banks of North Carolina . . . perhaps they are not up to making the longer journey and their survival will depend on how deeply the winter sets in. 

Going back to this past spring at Flower Hill Farm . . . a solitary male Ruby-throated Hummingbird arrives ahead of the female . . . he will tirelessly defend his territory from other males. After he mates, he is fancy-free in the gardens the entire spring and summer, for he does not lift a feather to help his partner in the raising of their young.

As early as mid July or August, the adults depart on their lone journey south . . . weeks before their juvenile hummingbirds take leave of the gardens. Our terrace garden offers a good supply of nectar to fuel their humming motor-motion and there is an abundance of insects, within the gardens and surrounding fields, to build up the needed fat in their tiny bodies . . . so important in enabling them to successfully make the long trip south.

As the daylight hours shrink in September, something alerts the immature hummingbirds to begin their southward trek. Off on an adventure never known, they may repeat it year after year throughout their lives.

One last sip for the trip . . . 

then off they go. 

Safe Travels little Ruby-throated Hummingbirds. We look forward to your return. 

I will be returning to a more normal posting routine very soon. It has been a joy to walk the beaches of North Truro, attend painting workshops and then travel south to hold my precious grandson.

Happy Belated Equinox to you all. 

Stepping into September Haze Ironweed Holds Center Stage

August gave us cool days dressed in flannel and comforter nights . . . the coolest August I can recall since my transplanting to New England just thirty-eight years ago. Mostly busy days filled the weeks that passed in tones of green, with worldly guests and migrations stirring motes of dust, pollen and memories . . . both lived and dreamed. 

The last hours of Augustus suddenly lead into September's first dawn . . . breaking through a thick haze of clouded air with bolts of zagged light only Zeus could throw around this old farmhouse. I was sure the power would go out or worse, but we were spared, this time, and when the new, once seventh, month took hold in a fresh day . . .  the air was less heavy with only empty threats of lightning and downpours. Frightening storms floating off to the east . . . the air refreshed, and heaviness lifted, a page on the calendar is turned . . . and the small purple florets of Ironweed takes center stage in the middle meadow garden.

At last a Monarch settled long enough for me to catch its portrait whilst sipping from the teeny petals of Ironweed . . . this being only my second glimpse of a Monarch Butterfly in the garden, this year, so far.

Ironweed stately stands reaching nearly the eight-foot height of Joe-pye weed, adding a bright brush stroke of regal purple to the landscape painting. Touches of yellow come into play with Rudbeckia and Solidago.

Greater Spangled Fritilaries join in the feast of Ironweed. 

One worn out from weeks of flight throughout August with a fresh Fritillary September emergence.

Autumn, but three weeks away, will paint the apples in deeper red hues. 

By now, many of the bouncy snowballs of Annabelle's Hydrangea are carpeting the garden floor revealing the Tree Hydrangea beginning to blush in the background.

Viburnum seeds, nearly gone, have filled the bellies of Cedar Waxwings, Catbirds, Robins, Flickers and more resident Aves.

Though we miss the many songs and calls of birds, now gone or silent, Katydids and grasshoppers create such a cacophony between every blade of grass falling like a mysterious, musical mantle over the inky nights.

Not quite a violin, but there are actions within these wings striking together in atonal harmony.

Grasses cut a soft and feathery feel amongst green striking stalks . . . catching light while slicing through the canopy of sky, enveloping Flower Hill Farm, and tickling the muse of darkness.

September will summon silky tassels from within these taller Miscanthus greens. 

This tiny, iridescent juvenile's parents have long begun their migration southward bound. I continue to delight in the antics and jewel-like presence of the young Ruby-throated Hummingbirds . . . though knowing they too will be parting soon. Enjoying the days with all the many treasures without clinging . . . knowing ephemeral joys are for moments only . . .  we move with gratitude into September's ways.

Peace blossoms with justice . . . would that it could be alive in the hearts of all humankind. Our voices, pens and keyboards must be loud like the Katydids wing-songs filling congress and our president's mind with woe for what they may be about to sanction. Life is precious and fragile.

A Sultry Summer August Day Full Moon and Clouded Sulphurs Play

August is a wild time of year in the gardens here at Flower Hill Farm. The daily lives of wild things blend and move about with ease. There is an understanding between the land and animals . . . we all take what we need . . . but never too much. I do wish to call a court in session to introduce charges against our resident rabbit's rabid rapacity, however.

We rarely see young bucks, such as this one, sporting unique antlers. He will shed the lopsided headpiece this winter or early spring of next year and begin to grow new ones. Careful attention must be paid to this teenager to be certain his curiosity does not get the better of my Liatris for a second time.

The deer have much to munch upon within the acres here, and many more surrounding, so they are kind to me and my gardens. I continue to cut oak, maple and birch saplings allowing new tender growth that deer find nutritious and delicious.

This is the main color show of the gardens now . . . last year Ironweed, Joe Pye weed and Rudbeckia were magnets to butterflies . . . this year there are mostly native bees . . . but few fluttering wings go by.

I did finally see one restless Monarch butterfly last week, but she did not approve of our older milkweed and moved on right away, in search of tender leaves to fasten her eggs upon. I miss the enchanting process of metamorphosis but do have one little Black Swallowtail ward who has now become a chrysalis. 

There were many Monarchs last year enjoying the nectar of Ironweed. The image above was taken a bit later in August than the one above it . . . so perhaps more butterflies will find their way here again.

Nearing the last week of August . . . but there is still time for frolicking. Clouded Sulphurs exhibit their tiny orange and black full moons, while sipping runaway marjoram and courting or cavorting in the field below the middle garden.

Wild Morning Glory is taking over the Bluebird nestbox . . . I am allowing it, as the larger Bluebird family has taken off, beyond the cotton clouds, for now. Nearby, Rudbeckia 'Herbstsonne' reaches for the light to a height of over seven feet. This great plant will never catch up to the stately tips of the Hydrangea paniculata it stands before.

Hydrangeas, though tired and somewhat spent, still offer sustenance to many pollinators. There has been not a plant/weed lifted from this area for all the days of summer. I am surprised by the diversity of small and simple flowers that seem to delight both butterfly and bee.

Our much beloved (NOT) rabbits devoured the planter plantings but now volunteers of pineapple basil, verbascum and salvia are content being squatters. The gardens are on their own this year . . . once the rabbits ate my first food plantings, sigh, I gave up and decided to just be on the land and see what happens when all is left to grow on its own. I do confess to cutting many winding, meandering tendrils of bittersweet, grape and bindweed.

 Apples are ripening and some falling . . . creating an edible carpet for wildlife. There are so many more than enough for us all. Last days for the daylilies too . . . as each day unfolds and closes another fresh and droopy bloom.

'Journey's End' final blooms . . . true Lilium reflecting summer's closure coming soon. Not far off

summer's end and beginning autumn, as syrupy sweet petals fade and fall.

The south field is overgrown with sumac, which will paint the landscape red in weeks to come and then all will be mowed revealing the form of land again by November. Here, the Tree Swallow nestbox is overrun by bittersweet. I recall less height to the field and wildflowers but weeks ago when a Tree Swallow pair tenderly care for their nestlings.

Migrations are in motion . . . today there were at least a hundred Tree Swallows swooping and scaling the sky just above these fields and spreading over towards the middle garden. I like to think that among the many are the two families of swallows from our north and south field nestboxes and they are all on their way to Cape Cod where I may chance to see them once again later in September.

Lavender giants boldly tearing through the sky in dusky twilight . . . our Rock Maples on the south side of the 1790 farmhouse are ever dramatic and inspirational . . . to the painter in me especially.

Upon the edge of the north field looking south . . . a simple place to be . . . to watch waves in canopies of trees and the great blue yonder . . . while chasing ephemeral light stretching over Mount Tom in the Pioneer Valley beyond.

August is nearly full as is its swollen, golden, 'Sturgeon' or 'Blueberry' moon . . . yet, many surprises are to be found in moments lived within the realm of our wondrous Mother Nature. Summer seems longer in moments.  Shall we seize the moment then . . . for as long as each new day gives forth fresh butterflies and our young resident hummingbirds are still dipping and humming into my dreams . . .  I cannot say summer is gone.

Hot Colors of Cool August Butterflies and a Bestiary of Birds

What is normal or average anymore? It seems that days are spread out more like a delicately hand-stitched quilt laying loosely across a large bed . . . not in triangles or squares but in free-form patterns that hardly relate to one another except in hues. Vivid colors, with a play of values, fills the eyes and dreams of those that slip beneath basted layers of wrinkled cloth . . .  pieces torn and recombined.

Such are our New England August days, once felt to be the warmest of the summer. Somehow the year has been taken apart and reset with September's cooler temperatures now placed where August's heat used to be. Memories of summer ways, warm fronts, cold fronts and days get reshuffled into another sort of design.

Climate change is not simply hot and cold, wet and dry . . . sadly we must visualize another sort of quilt made of ancient dead organisms, fossil fuels, dirty values and sooty tints pieced in carbon footprints across an unimaginative covering that is choking, liquefying and slowly reshaping shorelines and beloved landscapes over the huge berth of our earth.

The little glass globe, that we all love to handle and shake, in order to see clean snow falling over a quaint home, has cracked in large proportions never to be repaired. A nightmare creeps in between the fragments of fabric presenting a globe where pesticide and other unimaginable poisons fall as deadly flakes into a world where all life is sickened. As we place the fragile memory of a child's more beautiful dream back in a protected case and slide back under what we believe to be a safe and cozy blanket, we fail to see how it too is becoming unraveled while we kick away the cover of truth too often and go about our usual "Oh Well, What Can I Do?" ways.

It is in the little things we do everyday, in our pennies we fail to count, where we might see a change. Collectively, in our right minds, with our voices and dollars demanding a greener world; where families are not displaced, wooly, white bears may safely stand and butterflies continue to fly, we may yet save the fine flora and fauna that we are so intricately a part of.

This morning when I woke, I thought to just write whatever came out of me for an hour and so the paragraphs above appeared. You may skip them and simply join me in this landscape I call home, where our native Joe-Pye Weed stretches towards Walnut Hill and the sky above.

Where Red-spotted Admirals extract vital life-enhancing nectar.

Tiny colorful American Coppers pollinate marjoram.

A more muted beauty with great eyes . . . Common Wood Nymph sipping marjoram. 

A garden falls over into itself.

Yesterday, for a split moment at least, I was excited to think I eyed a Monarch butterfly. Alas, the Monarch was but a Viceroy. Though a beauty in its own right, this butterfly is not one I can raise and observe its metamorphosis. It is a joy I have had for thirty years and the absence of Monarch butterflies in our gardens this year and across parts of the country is greatly felt. Pesticides from GMO's is greatly to blame.

Daylilies are fading but there are still some to delight certain butterflies. Hydrangeas in the middle garden are still offering beauty and nectar too.

A Spicebush Swallowtail wearing pollen dust enjoys a dip and sip from deep within the well of this flower and soon flies on to another. I am exhibiting two separate blooms visited by two different butterflies captured weeks apart. I do not know of spicebush growing here . . . perhaps a neighbor grows it or there is another plant, growing on our land or nearby, that this butterfly has decided to use as a host plant.

Even a teeny Delaware Skipper is attracted to the flavor of daylily and casts its proboscis towards the Hemerocallis reservoir of sweetness.

I should love to see from the compound eyes of a butterfly, for a day or five, when the birds are otherwhere and otherwise occupied.

Surely, seeing the world of colors, as this Greater Spangled Fritillary does, could inspire.

The daughter of Zeus may well exchange a glance from within a human eye and morph back into herself within this Aphrodite Fritillary butterfly. Perhaps by seeing our worlds from within other's eyes we may all grow more wise.

For a bird's-eye-view I have taken to writing about warblers and if you might enjoy seeing and learning more about these marvelous feathered friends of our gardens, forest and fields, why not take a click over to Native Plants and Wildlife Gardens to view various installments of my 'A Bestiary: Tales from a Wildlife Garden.'

May your days be filled with butterflies and birds . . . I would love to hear of your Monarch butterfly sightings, if you are of time and mind to share.