Summertime Blues

The indigo bunting is a summer bird for Louisiana. On May 24th, I was thrilled to see one in the wild, no bird feeders in sight. This little guy was quite perturbed by my presence, flicking his tail, flapping his wings and giving me the stare-down. No, I wasn't playing his call on my phone, but once I realized he might be upset, I walked away. I'm sure he thought he won, but I felt like the winner. :)

Linking with Anni's

AND

Stewart's 100th!
WILD BIRD WEDNESDAY

Please visit the links for more
birds around the world!

The Land Between Rivers

Frenchtown Conservation Area, also known as "The Land Between Rivers" is a 496 acre nature area operated by BREC (Recreation and Park Commission for the parish of East Baton Rouge). The acreage consists of bottomland hardwood forest, including small stream forest and spruce-pine hardwood-flatwood forest habitats--both of which are ranked globally as rare or imperiled. It's great for birding, exploring and hiking. At the end of Railroad Trail (1/2 mile) is the Amite River with a nice stretch of sandy beach.

Two notable birds spotted were the painted buntings and yellow-breasted chats. Double D and I were over the moon! But you would laugh at my photos...especially the chat. All I could get was a blurred shot of his underside in a thick tangle of brush. Grrrr. No matter, here are some other things we saw...

Periodical cicada. Some call them locusts, but that is incorrect.
These 13-year periodical cicadas spend their lives underground feeding off the fluids from deciduous trees.
Once mature, they emerge all at once in staggering numbers. The sound is amazing. It sounded like
an ocean or swiftly moving river was nearby. Incredible!

I think this is a Needham's Skimmer.

An Eastern fence lizard, male.

Close up

The only time I've ever seen a pipevine swallowtail that stayed still for more than a minute.

My first time to see an indigo bunting away from a feeding station.
His expression says, "Who you lookin' at?"

Enjoy the weekend, y'all! My 31-year old "baby" is arriving today. We have a very short weekend together so I'll catch back up with you guys on Monday.