I visited the Philbrook Gardens here in Tulsa and found a couple of butterflies. I love it when I can capture them feeding from flowers.
A Gulf Fritillary butterfly feeding from a zinnia flower at the Philbrook Gardens.
A Buckeye Butterfly feeding on globe amaranth at the Philbrook Gardens.
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A female monarch butterfly in our backyard recently.
And a Pipevine Swallowtail Butterfly on our patio.
And if you live anywhere near Northeast Oklahoma come to Chandler Park in Tulsa for Monarchs on the Mountain. It’s a yearly event about everything butterflies and the environment in general. It is very educational, bring your kids and it is free! No admission fee, free parking, just free. Lots of organizations will have booths and there will be presentations. Check this link for more details including the lineup of speakers and some of the ancillary events associated with Monarchs on the Mountain. If you go, come by the Tulsa Urban Wilderness Coalition booth and say hello. I’ll be there.
(1) Monarchs on the Mountain | Facebook
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Some geese seen near Zink Dam on the Arkansas River as it runs through Tulsa.
A scoop of American White Pelicans near the geese.
Our rescue terrier, Sadie loves playing fetch, and playing fetch, and playing fetch some more.
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Last Sunday morning I grabbed my camera, bug spray, and sunblock and headed to Tulsa’s Oxley Nature Center to see what I could see.
Right at the visitor center entrance I found this bush quivering with all sorts of butterflies. Can’t really see all of them in the photo so check out the short video below.
It was a good start to my outing.
I went a little ways into the trails and found this guy, a red spotted purple butterfly from what google lens tells me.
And later on I found a great blue heron looking for their lunch. A bonus turtle is in the background.
And a female cardinal with her lunch in her beak already.
Another view of the same bird.
And a very fuzzy view of an indigo bunting. Those little guys are active flitting here and then there. I am still learning how to spot the little ones and take photos of them. Sometimes I just have to be happy with spotting a glimpse of them.
So I heard a lot more birds than I got photos of them. It is nice hearing them and the Merlin app is wonderful deciphering what kind of birds there are.
Sometimes I see a lot of deer at Oxley. The Oxley staff says they are overpopulated with deer. There is lots of food for them now, not so much in the winter. Below is a short video of the fawn.
I looked all over for their mom and didn’t see it. They are generally protective of their babies.
So I wibble wobbled around the preserve for a little less than three miles and enjoyed myself thoroughly. And to part, a poem from the former Artist in Residence at Oxley, Sasha. I thought it was pretty cool. And short, I love short poems.
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We’ve been gone for a couple weeks on a family vacation to Orange Beach, Alabama. We love it there. We sit on the beach a lot and typically do a daily walk of two or three miles. I saw lots of shore birds there many of which I found hard to ID. Here’s some examples:
Your garden variety laughing seagull. Please correct any ID that you think is wrong.
A small colony of seagulls. (I love collective nouns for animals of all different types.)
A bigger colony of seagulls and other various types of shore birds.
More laughing seagull? Maybe.
A brown pelican lording over other birds.
A protected sea turtle egg nest. They have always had them in Orange Beach but we saw lots more than years previously. I guess that could mean more sea turtles are nesting or that they are identifying nesting sites that were missed earlier. I don’t know.
A crab playing possum on the beach. I thought it was dead but when I got too close it took off.
Pelicans on patrol, flying low!
Another patrol!
Google lens says a Ruddy Turnstone, doesn’t sound right to me.
Google lens says Sanderlings??? I kind of doubt it.
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I went hiking with a friend on Friday, we came upon this family of deer. My friend is kind of a speed hiker so I didn’t even take time to move myself so the one deer occluded by the tree was free. Oh well.
Various native pollinators have really been at work on my wife’s pink hibiscus shrub in the back yard.
And squirrels, boy do have squirrels. Most of them ignore the habanero flavored bird food but interestingly there are a few that love it.
Lizzie the cat loves to nap but when I get close to get a shot of her napping she always wakes up.
Long lines at the camera feeder. It is very popular.
Scattered birds
A bluejay (I think) at the peanut feeder
A 22 second video of some of the birds that visited the feeder.
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We continue to get a lot of rain here in Tulsa. When it rains and I want to go hiking I use one of the sustainable trails in town rather than splash through the mud on my regular haunts. So this time I went to Ray Harral Nature Center in Broken Arrow, OK. Their trails are mainly asphalt with some gravel.
There are always lots of birds at Ray Harral but I hardly ever see them. At least with the Merlin App I can figure out what they are. I got lucky this time.
I spotted a couple of cardinals and they stood still long enough for me to get a fuzzy photo (or maybe phuzzy photo) of them. One in a shrub.
And one on the ground.
I saw a couple squirrels as well. In town they are not shy at all, out in the woods they hide. So I got one in a tree.
And another on the ground.
And this is our son, Logan, captured mowing the yard with my trailcam. He got offered a job yesterday (and accepted it) as a full-time paralegal for a law firm here in town. He’s worked very hard to get to this point. We are very proud of him. He’s going to have to give up shorts and tee shirts in exchange for a shirt and tie but hey, he can do it.
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Here’s a real critter, out sweet Lizzie.
And another real critter. This is Sadie, our rescue terrier. She is very energetic and wants all the love. She is very sweet.
And sculptural. Somebody made an Adventure Lab geocache using some of the animal sculptures on Tulsa’s RiverParks trails. This is what I call the Bear Fountain. It’s a nice place to rest on a bike ride.
And a bobcat trying get duck or something. Very lifelike.
And some otters frolicking.
I completed the Adventure Lab. Completing it is its own reward!!
And here is a 20 second video showing some of the birds that visited my camera feeder this week.
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One of the little darlings chewed through the wire between my camera feeder and the solar panel. This is the second time. This time they ran off with the wire connector. They did last time also but I found it elsewhere in the yard. This time no dice.
So it’s going to be splice time. I think they are mad because I am using habanero flavored bird food which the squirrels won’t eat.
So I don’t have any bird videos but how about a photo of our Pom, Kodi with his patriotic tie. Doesn’t he look like a dapper dog? He had a spa day. He loves the people at the groomers.
And here is our rescue dog Sadie. She loves to play. In this photo she wants me to quit snapping pics and throw that red ball.
Here is a cardinal caught leaving a feeder by jumping off. It looks like a bird version of Tom Cruise.
And this might be a female cardinal (correct me if I am wrong) landing on the feeder.
Between squirrels chewing up solar panel wire and Sadie chewing up my laptop power cord, I am getting pretty good at splicing wires.
I am linking with Eileen’s Saturday’s Critters.
I went on a bike ride the other day. I saw this great blue heron and a turtle hanging out together on Zink Dam here in Tulsa.
Nearby was this egret fishing for their lunch.
An isolated American White Pelican was paddling around.
I rode my bike over to the other side of the river and saw these geese wandering around.
Slim pickings on the backyard trailcam except for a couple of dog pics. This is our pom, Kodi.
And our rescue terrier, Sadie. Her tail is always straight up in the air.
With my camera I captured this mourning dove on the camera feeder.
And a sparrow with a bit of fluff it found.
A squirrel checking everything out.
A brown thrasher
A house finch
Another sparrow, tiny enough to sit down on the flat part of the fence picket.
I went hiking on Turkey Mountain on Wednesday. I heard all sorts of birds and even spotted some but I wasn’t quick enough to take their photo. Oh well, I saw this guy though out in the open and it was polite enough to wait for me while I got my camera, focused and took a few shots. Merlin and google images tell me that it is a Western King Bird. I had never heard of such a thing but there it is. Number 19 on my recently started life list.
Here’s the Merlin screenshots on the smart aleck birds that I could hear and not see.
And here is a short 57 second video of some of birds showed up at the camera feeder the past few days.
That’s about it for this week. I am linking with Saturday’s Critters.