Today's Flowers: Preview to spring

Yesterday, I went outside to see what signs of spring flowers I could find. The narcissus below is emerging from the ground.

The hydrangea bud may be a bit premature as they tend to get zapped by frost in the early spring and need to start all over. Our last average frost isn't until sometime in April.

I've posted my lenten rose before, as it started blooming too early even for being one of the earliest flowers. Definitely droopy but still hanging tough.

For more flowers around the world, please visit the home of Today's Flowers.

Photohunters: Daily

The photohunters theme this week is daily. I always check the daily weather report.

When she was growing up, my daughter used to tease me and suggest that I should step outside rather than rely on daily weather reports.

Thursday morning of this week I checked the daily weather report which said there were isolated snow flurries.

The photographs in this post were all taken this Thursday while the daily weather said there were only flurries. Granted, it didn't amount to much but it amused me that it was pouring down snow at the same moment the daily weather was saying it was only going to be a few flurries.

You can find other photohunters at the home of the hunt where participants post beginning Saturday morning.

Nature Notes: A windy day

Before everything turned wet and gray we had wind and blue skies earlier in the week.

Please visit the home of nature notes for more participants.

Today's Flowers: White Camellia now and then

The first shot below is one I took of my white camellias buds this week. Hopefully when they bloom in spring they won't have too many brown spots.

The next two shots are from my archives and show my white camellias during the spring of 2009.

I remember last year I worried about brown spots too but they ended up doing quite well.

For more flowers around the world, visit the home of Today's Flowers.

Photohunters: Cuddly

The photohunters theme is cuddly. The shot below is one I took in 1985 of Bill with our daughter in the cuddly front pack while he mowed the lawn.

For other cuddly photohunters, you can visit the home of the hunt where participants post their link beginning Saturday morning.

Natures Notes: Great Backyard Bird Count

I should say upfront that I bombed out on the Great American Backyard Bird Count although I'm glad I tried to participate. At the end of this post I identify the birds in this post and have links to information about them.

The host of Nature Notes posted about the GBBC and I was all set to give it a whirl.

All you have to do is observe the birds in your backyard for fifteen minutes for one or all of the days (this year it was February 12 through 15).

You tally the highest number of birds from any species that you site together.

All of the birds in this post were photographed during the three days of the bird count. The snowy shots were all on Saturday and most of the no snow shots were taken on Friday.

There are a number of issues which interfered with my bird count.

The first problem I had was the way the small birds flit in and out so fast it's hard to know how many of any given group there are at any given time.

Another issue I had was that I found myself totally incapable of simply observing and recording the numbers of birds for 15 minutes without photographing them.

The problem with photographing the birds while counting is that so many of the birds are flitting in and out that if I focus long enough to photograph an individual, I miss a lot of the other birds.

The odd part about my obsessive photographing is that I have been a bird watcher a lot longer than I've been interested in continual photography.

The positive part in my attempting to participate in the bird count is that I managed to identify a lot of the birds in my yard.

I counted 45 species that call my garden home pretty much year round.

To get ready for the bird count I made a list from my handy Peterson Field Guide of birds that I see year round as well as ones I mostly see in the warmer months.

I also noticed behavior, such as, mourning doves are perfectly happy to all hang out together in groups of 6 or more but male cardinals don't tend to eat side by side.

More than one female cardinal will sometimes hang out in the same area, at the same time, or that was my observation.

I also noticed that some of the small birds like finches, sparrows, juncos, are fine about all being together but the chicakdees, nuthatches and wrens tend to flit in and out pretty fast (in general the latter 3 types of small birds are very hyper compared to the first three types of small birds).

Following I'll identify the birds in this post and if you click on their name it takes you to the Cornell site with information about them. If there are more than one shot of a species the link goes to the same place. The first photo is an eastern bluebird. The second photo is a red-bellied woodpecker. The third photo is a carolina chickadee. The fourth photo is a junco. The prominent bird in the fifth photo is an American robin and if you look closely there are some mourning doves up there too.The sixth bird is a white-breasted nuthatch. I'm not sure about the seventh bird but I think it's a house finch. The eighth shot has a tufted titmouse and a junco under it. The ninth photo is of a blue jay. The tenth photo is of a house sparrow. The eleventh photo is of a carolina wren. The twelfth photo is of a male cardinal and the thirteenth is a female cardinal. The fourteenth photo is a mourning dove. The fifteenth photo has left to right male house finch, female house finch, sparrow, and junco. The sixteenth photo (above) is a female house finch. The last photo below is a male house finch.

I'm posting early but the post day for the home of Nature notes is Thursday.

Today's Flowers: What a difference a day or so makes

Friday morning I checked on my helleborus (lenten rose) which has gotten ahead of itself, become droopy from the cold, and then rebounded.

Saturday morning I went back to the same plant and oh what a difference a day made.

The next comparison is between two days. The tulip tree is always hit and miss but hopefully it's not too far along this year. The shot below is from Thursday.

The next shot is this Saturday morning. In some ways the snow protects buds but this go round it already melted off the trees during the day and then got very cold Saturday night.

One of these days I'll do a Today's Flowers post without the continuing saga of the camellias but I couldn't resist the next two shots.

One reason I keep featuring the camellias is that I expect these winter blooms may be about it as the buds are starting to show black spots.

I like the way the seed head has a snow cap on top turning it into a snow flower.

The last shot isn't flowers at all but these red berries covered in snow look like flowers to me.

Please visit the home of Today's flowers for participants from around the world. Happy Valentine's Day!

Photohunters: Broken

The photohunters theme is broken. There is a broken branch hanging out of the gutter in the shot below which almost looks like it's still attached to the tree.

I have loads of broken branches in my yard, especially after the strong winds we've had lately.

Sometimes broken branches are incorporated into my garden.

I also incorporate broken shells into my garden which I bring home from trips to the beach.

I have lots of broken tiles and granite which were left over from building projects which I use for edging in my garden. A friend told me about a pile of materials like the ones below that I could take and I loaded up my car with them years ago.

All of the shots above were ones I took this week. The last shot is from May of 2009 because I'm ready for some spring visuals. That flower bed is surrounded by broken tiles, broken granite, and stepping stones which aren't broken yet.

For more broken photohunters, please visit the home of the hunt where participants post starting Saturday.