B-eautiful

I was worried the B Garden was going to be a bust this year after Blossom and friends basically mowed it to the ground...twice...back in the early spring.  Thankfully it survived and is really beautiful right now.  I did a video tour this morning.  Besides being here, that's really the best way to see everything.  Well, almost everything.  Here are a few pictures of some things that I missed.

I think this same butterfly has been here for almost two weeks.  It's not a monarch, but still quite pretty.  I've wondered if she's laying eggs on the milkweed as I'm pretty sure that's what I'm seeing and I'm even more sure that I haven't seen a monarch yet.

We added a second purple martin house last month.  No one has moved in, but at least they know there is more room to expand.  They have been very busy this summer.

Here is a link to the video tour.  For some reason it won't let me embed it here directly like normal.  It's worth a watch :-).

We Are All Over The Migration Map

I looked out the other day and saw at least 15 barn swallows swooping around the front of the barn. Since we only had the two parents and three babies old enough to fly, I knew we had visitors. Sure enough, barn swallows migrate too.  We have another tour group stopping in today.

Dive bombing me and Kate.

See the bug in the closest bird's mouth?  I hadn't even seen any bugs flying around and swoop, another one gone.  We are in really good shape bug-wise around here this summer.  I credit the barn swallows, purple martins and bats.

And now we have four new barn swallows!  I've been watching the "bebbies" grow for the last few weeks - a second group in the same nest - and knew they were close to fledging.  Today was the day. When I first approached the barn this afternoon I saw six sitting on the swing and loft.  Two flew out and started yelling at me, so these four are the babies.

And one brave parent flew back in to keep watch.  Good job, everybody!

We've kept a steady stream of around 20 martins flying in every day or so and then they pretty much stopped last week.  But now some new groups are passing through.  I think it's so neat that they found us or remember seeing us last year or somehow got the word that this is a good stopping point.  

They don't stay long.

Well, most of them don't ;-).

"Hey, where'd everybody go?"

I Believe We Are Officially On The Map

This is the second year for our purple martin house.  The first year we only had light interest from what I'm assuming were local juveniles, late in the season.  This spring we had a pair that moved in and raised two clutches.  Up until a couple weeks ago, we'd regularly have eight or so martins living here.

When the martins are hanging around, the noise is incredible.  When they decide to pick up and leave, they pick up and leave...and it gets very quiet.  It got very quiet last week.  And then a couple days later the chattering was back and I saw 20 martins sitting on the power lines.  And a day or so later they left.

Next thing I knew, 20 more martins were buzzing around.  And then they left.  And today there were 22 on the wire (and maybe even more in this picture now that I look closely).  I guess we meet approval and have become an official stop on the migration tour.  

I love that :-D.

Everyone's Flying The Coop...Or Nest

"What do you think?"

"Looks pretty far down there."

"You go first."

"No, YOU go first!"

"Ain't nobody going nowhere just yet, so y'all just pipe it back down."

They are close though!  This is the first year we've had barn swallows.  I have to say, between the martins, the bats and the swallows, we are pretty happy with our (lack of) bug situation and they are all fun to watch as well :-).