Yesterday late evening as there was no wind, I decided to try some recording in Shindagin Hollow. It was comparatively quiet, except for a couple of distant Hermit Thrushes, one Wood Thrush, an Eastern Pewee, an American Goldfinch, a couple of hesitant American Robins, a Song Sparrow and a Swamp Sparrow.
I just got recording of some Swamp Sparrow song in between the planes that continuously fly overhead. And of course I got a bumble bee humming on the flowers as it flew around. My home front catbird story: My catbird stopped singing for about three weeks in between so I thought either he might have got killed by car accident or a hawk or he must have found a new mate and disappeared with her as I still saw at least a catbird in the yard. But again recently from about a week or so he ha started singing. But he sings for a short time, that too an unhurried song but he is still there. So I was wondering why he stopped singing in between, was he busy feeding and taking care of his young as they had fledged probably by that time? Any thoughts or anyone else has observed this? I am also doing an inventory of all the insects, birds and plants in my yard. So I have been keeping an eye on my dogbane or also known as Indian hemp plant Apocynum cannbinum. I found at least twenty species of insects including bees, moths, flies and butterflies feed on the flowers' nectar. I found moths and butterflies take a long time to feed on these flowers and they visit the same flowers again and again after feeding on the next flowers for a few mintues. While bees and flies spend very short time. I was wondering why. I have some theories but need to get more data. Yesterday there was a beautiful Sesidae moth - Peachteree Borer, which mimic wasps feeding on these flowers and spent lot of time on the same flower head and visiting same flowers again and again. I have uploaded the video if anyone is interested. I had seen this moth four days ago and I mentioned it to Sue, her immediate reaction was did you kill it or not as it is supposed to be detrimental to the peach tree. But gleefully told her I did not and it was the fourth day the insect has been hanging around the same plant!. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_ymy2kRKxg&feature=youtu.be Cheers Meena Meena Haribal Ithaca NY 14850 42.429007,-76.47111 http://www.haribal.org/ http://meenaharibal.blogspot.com/ Ithaca area moths: https://plus.google.com/118047473426099383469/posts Dragonfly book sample pages: http://www.haribal.org/dragonflies/samplebook.pdf -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
