Readers’ wildlife photos

Well, this is it: the very last batch of photos.  The Black Dog has arrived and scared the rest away.

But we do have some pictures by reader Kevin Elskin from Arkansas. His captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them:

Hope all is well with the readers and that you are having a pleasant summer. Northwest Arkansas has missed some of the most brutal heat so far, but it is early. I am sending along some random photos of plants and animals that hang out at my house.

The first picture shows some kitschy art I created for my garden – a farmhouse and barn. Note the critter in the window. The barn is an homage to all of these barns I used to drive by in Western Pennsylvania.  If one looks closely you will see an American Bumblebee, Bombus pensylvanicus, inspecting a coneflower, which I think is the Echinacea purpurea, eastern purple coneflower. You have  to appreciate Fibonacci when you study a coneflower.

The next photo shows my bumblebee friend of the flower of a mealy sage plant, Salvia farinacea. This plant is a gardener’s delight. I found the plant at random a few years back. It grows and presents beautiful blue and white flowers all year long, then is happy to come back again in the spring. I love perennials.

The next photo is an American Goldfinch, Spinus tristis. This photo makes me a little sad, for when I lived near Pittsburgh I could put out a feeder full of Nyger seed and I would get dozens of these beautiful birds every day. When I put that feeder out in Arkansas, the seeds just rot from neglect. Oh well, the finches do pay a visit to the sage, and they really hit the coneflower seeds in the fall.

One summer night a while back, I was wearing a lamp on my forehead, which has a regular white lamp that shines pretty brightly. I turned the light toward my lawn, and hundreds of little glimmering points of light showed up. At first I thought the dew had settle for the night, but after a moment I realized my truck was absolutely dry. Closer inspection of the “dew” revealed that each little point of light was actually a grass spider, genus Agelenopsis. I tried to photograph the “thousand points of light” in my yard, but I never could really capture how many freaking spiders are in my front yard! So you will have to settle with this one little picture of one little spider:

On to more birds. A common little bird in my neighborhood is the barn swallow, Hirundo rustica. These birds are beneficial insectivores.

I made the mistake of letting the swallows build a nest above my front door last year. They are extremely friendly and not at all afraid of humans, but my god do they make an absolute mess of things. First a photo of the brood:

There were five in the nest but sadly one was lost from the nest prior to learning flight. Here is a photo of the sad fledgling, note the parent watching over and also my cat Rocket considering an early lunch (a very sad story follows…). You can also appreciate the poop creation ability of a nest of swallows (I put down a box to try and catch some of it)

The last bird is the house wren. What a loud-mouthed little bird, but so cute.

They nested in a small ceramic nest box hanging from a shepherd’s crook in my garden. The parent enters with food:

And here is the easiest possible “spot the wren” photo, with the bird among the black-eyed susans and the salvia:

And now the sad story. A few years back, Jerry indulged me and allowed the story of Rocket and JB. Short version of story, when we moved back to Arkansas in 2017 we had just had our last cat put to sleep after he suffered what was probably a debilitating stroke. We just assumed our cat lives were over when in the summer of 2019 a little black and white kitten appeared in our lives. We named him Rocket, and after a couple visits at the vet he adopted a friend named JB. JB was a stray struck by a car, and saved by reconstructive surgery to his right legs. This was all paid for by a donation by JB Hunt Trucking to a local animal charity, hence the name JB. JB and Rocket became fast friends.

Early last April, we noticed Rocket was not interested in eating and was quite inactive. We took him to the vet the next morning, and he was diagnosed with pneumonia. Short story, he passed away before the sun rose the next day. He was weeks away from his 5^th birthday.

We were devastated by the loss of our little charmer, but poor JB wandered the house crying inconsolably, looking in all of the little hidey holes where Rocket used to hand out. We were so sad.

Time moves on and we visited our local shelter and found these two sisters:

We gave them the names Misty and Sam (those big white whiskers reminded me of Yosemite Sam!). At first JB was not happy – he chuffed and he hissed and he would have nothing to do with the little usurpers. But time does move on and it heals many wounds. JB slowly came around, and just this week we captured this little scene:

Life is good.