hatchlings

The hot weather has brought out a lot of insects as well as the flycatchers (daytime) and the bats (nighttime) that feed on them. The bats are now a regular evening feature here although I cannot identify the species. Butterflies are seemingly everywhere, inside and on the edge of the woods; alas, most of them are actually not butterflies at all but Gypsy Moths; in this heat, they seem to have the energy to keep up their darting, looping, flutter flight and they never seem to perch (so I never get a good look). My guess is that these short-lived daytime moths are trying to find the floating pheromones that the flightless females emit from their tree truck perches; the scent trail leads them right to reproduction.

There are some actual butterflies around and I did see a Summer Azure (Celestina neglecta) on our old right-of-way -- now considered a separate species from the more common Spring Azure. Numbers of dragonflies are also active right now, particularly over the pond and marsh. I saw a Pennant -- possibly the Halloween Pennant -- and a clear-winged smallish specimen with a dark stigma and a brown and yellow thorax. I'm guessing female Blue Dasher but the truth is I have a lot of work to do on the local dragonflies!

Found a 'new' Box Turtle. This good-sized fellow had a dirty yellow plastron with rather thin black lines running through separating the large yellow patches. I'm sure I've never seen this pattern before.

There are now three very young chicks in the American Robin nest that I've been following and I suspect that the three sizes may correspond to the oder of hatching. The femsle remans much less timid abot coming in to feed her chicks. This morning, I saw her feed the hatchlings while the the male -- with a beakful of scrumptious caterpillars
-- would not come in at all; I eventually left the site to give him a clear path.

Eric Salzman