Return of the Birding Blog!

I have missed birding so much. This blog has become a pit of random, sad attempts at humor and flatulent children.
But no more! (or, at least until I run out of bird pictures again)
The girls' summer camp is in the middle of a gorgeous field, with a creek on one side and deep forest on the other. I've done programs there before (they liked me so much they wrote an article in the local paper about it!), and the school is high-end. I feel good sending them there for fun-in-the-sun.
And their weather vane ROCKS:



A sweaty yet lovely walk through Kelley's Nature Preserve yielded a few neat things:

Someone tell me. Is this a vireo, and if so, what kind?

I also got to hear a common yellowthroat. Thanks to Kathi, my Audio Birding Guru, I was able to ID the "witchety-witchety-witchety".

The air was thick with indigo buntings. And I mean that.
A male was followed everywhere he went by chipping young ones.

"Hi, Dad!"


"Dad? Dad? Dad? Daaaaaaaaaaad? Where ya goin'?"


"Hee hee! Found you, Dad! Dad? DAD? Daaaaaaad?"


A display of manhood out on the prairie trail:



A very cool find that made Isabelle oh-and-ah when she saw the picture:

I nearly stepped on this dude. I thought, "Hey. A caterpillar that looks like a millipede."
Then: "Whoa. It's a MILLIPEDE that looks like a CATERPILLAR."

I looked it up when I got home and it is Apheloria virginiensis. A pretty name, isn't it?
And thank goodness that I am not the "pick up that bug and hold it close to my face to examine it" type. This pretty thing exudes CYANIDE compound when threatened. Holy CRAP.
If you click on the photo and enlarge it, you can see small droplets of something on its back.
Holy poop on toast.