A neighbor said they were "so blessed to have witnessed this lizard laying eggs!"

Today we saw a ruby-throated humming bird perching on a limb and waiting to drive off other hummers. He did this all during lunch. His throat more orange than red and the internet says this is common in late summer. The backside is green and he is larger than the typical hummers.

One day we say a bunch of turkeys following a feral cat. Very calmly, very slowly. I was too mesmerized to get the camera. A few days later I did capture this.You will notice the turkeys right away, then my cat in the foreground. but it's harder to see the feral cat in the center. This is the one they followed a few days before. The last thing you might notice is a roadrunner across the road on a large rock watching the whole scene!

I knew turks cap was native, I did not know it was growing wild here on the ranch. Found two plants today.

I never knew where all the animals were finding this plant, as it's seeds are in almost every scat you find around here. When the fruit turns purple it is tasty, but when it is green it is almost invisible. Take a look at any 6 ft shrubs on your lot, you may be surprised too! There are definitely 4 fruit in this picture, maybe more.

Saw this turtle on the edge of the main road after running a mile, so I ran back to get a camera and shot it.
I think it is a red ear slider.

A few weeks ago a lot of these frogs hatched out near the main tank and were crawling all over the road. It's on my porch tile where I carried back home in my hand to get a picture. It's tiny, about 1/2 inch long.

Turkeys honk! Several times lately I've been close enough to turkeys with young to hear them honk like a duck. It is so odd. I think it is a warning. It is much more common to hear gobbling sounds, so I first thought I was hearing some kind of duck, but I've seen that it was turkeys a few times now. These did not honk but the picture is interesting and sharply focused on the stump for some reason.

One of the pictures I took on a birding walk led by Pat Merkord with other SR residents.

I've been seeing  1 or 2 turkeys occasionally and it's no big deal. I almost paid no attention to this one, either, but something caught my eye - 9 baby chicks! I shot through the window and it caught them all with their heads down.

It's hard to get a shot of bluebirds, they don't come to the bird feeder and prefer insects instead.

Study these 4 birds closely and you can see one bird type morph into the other as you move clockwise.

From top left, Male Lesser Goldfinch, Female House Finch, Male House Finch, Female Lesser Goldfinch

Here's what a "country" parking lot looks like. Just like in the city plants seem to grow where they want and not where you plant them. In this case, it is OK!

Do you think this guy might have been the inspiration for AngryBirds?

His mate is not so angry... There were lots of these lately, possibly migrating flocks?

I've been trying to get a good picture of this for quite a while. I think it is a goldfinch but I cannot find anything on the web with this coloring.

Red shouldered hawk taking off from its perch in a tree.

I think this is a rock pigeon, but it is very fat and kind of strange-looking.

Never saw any rock pigeons out here before and never one this big.

We've had a ton of birds, mostly LesserGoldFinch and mostly femals, but this one HouseFinch seemed odd to me. At first I thought he had a lot of red coloring, but now I think it was mostly because he is fat!

This is a new feeder and the top section is filled with dried mealworms. So far the birds are not eating them, but they are mostly for bluebirds (don't come the feeders much anyway), chickadees and wrens.

We see a Roadrunner fairly often near the back fence but today he wandered into the yard and I got a closeup.

The tanks are pretty full and it does not surprise me to see a few little brown ducks on them, but these Redhead ducks were a surprise to me! It's a terrible picture from the road, but maybe Doug & Ann can get a better one.

Today I made a birdhouse from some post oak cut down and milled to 1.25" planks. Heavy duty stuff.

Saw this on the way out the front gate and went back from the camera.
I thought this was a Coopers Hawk, or a Sharp-skinned Hawk, then maybe a Red-Tailed Hawk, (all similar), but finally found it was a Red-shouldered Hawk. I had heard something a few days ago in the lot next to me and went over there. To me it sounded like "squeal, squeal..." but when I heard the "kee-aah" sound I knew for sure that both of these hawks were the same and probably even the same individual.

Today I heard a crash and went outside to see a yellow-billed cuckoo had flown into the window and then hung on the screen. It looked like he was caught in it or was too dazed to get off. I grabbed him with a towel and put him on the chair. I waited at least 5 minutes before he finally flew off. The first time I saw these (June 26 2011 on this blog) in flight I saw a lot of rust colored wings and you can see just a hint of that here. If someone was here I would have spread his wing and got a good picture, but alas I was alone. His eyelid is closed here, he closed and opened them several times - I think he had a terrible headache...

Here he flew up in the tree so I guess he recovered OK.

Seen this little one a few times but this time he was close enough to get a decent picture. It's a female painted bunting.

We've had a Roadrunner pair frequent our backyard. They like the back fence a lot. Here I caught the pair going in opposite directions.

I don't have a picture yet but I've been hearing these Chucks Will Widow a lot lately. Never have seen one, they are so elusive. Click on the link and play the "Typical Voice" button under the owl-like picture in the Identification section. I think you may have heard it before, too!

I was working from home yesterday and every time I looked outside I inspected a large nest of sticks I recently discovered in a tree - to see what might have built it. Late in the afternoon I just happened to glance at the owl box I put up two years ago and something was watching me back!

Cedar Elms are exploding into leaf.
You can almost see it get greener by the hour.
Since Friday we've had 3 turkey shows, one with a deer running through 21 turkeys, 3 rabbit sightings, a squirrel dance, turkey vultures everywhere and the (non-turkey) birds have drained the bird feeder twice.

There are 21 birds in this flock although 2 toms seem to hang on the periphery as well as 3 hens. This might explain why I only thought there were 16 yesterday when they came though. The toms are strutting and the hens are scratching for food and ignoring the toms - not unlike people.

They came back a 3rd time today in the backyard and I could walk outside and get this closeup:

Nice fat birds

All bunched up and posed for the camera

I loved the tail feathers not quite laid back down. This picture was taken seconds after the next one below.

I really like the left on in full side view

It's very hard to get all 21 birds in one shot but here's 9 of them

Got lucky, he stopped right under the whirlygig...

Trying to do my taxes when Lynda hollers - there's the fox! He was running down the road and went behind the back fence, jumped over it and headed for the bird feeder.

Roadrunner visited us again. It's hard to get a good picture, they are wary...

I've had to cut several trees down that died as a result of the drought. This one was so straight I want to find someone to mill it into lumber for me. I put it in the shop to dry, now if I can just get it into my pickup...

Been to busy or too cold to post much lately, but a hawk has been sitting in a tree for two days and I had to get a picture. Next time I'm gonna take my camera when we walk and get 'em with the sun shining on his breast, I hope.

I saw a flock of birds a few yards away so I snapped this shot. I thought they were just some sparrows but the were about 40 cedar waxwings!

I took this fox shot a few weeks ago and forgot to post. I've seen him twice in the back yard in the daytime, and twice at night near the front. Beautiful animal. I was actually talking to him at the time and he was a bit curious and listened some before he finally ran off.

Finally, here are a cardinal and house finch ...

This was a good morning. I was sitting at the breakfast table when the cat walked in the backyard heading out for the trees. Not a big deal, but then 25 feet behind her, all of a sudden a turkey comes into view as it came out from behind the BBQ grill that was blocking the view. Oh my god! They just keep coming. Big ole blue-headed birds as close to me as they have ever been. The show didn't stop until there were 13 total. I froze as they looked back at me through the window. When they finally moved out of sight, I jumped up to get the camera. There were so many I could not get them all in the same shot. Wonderful episode!

We've been seeing a road runner over the years in one corner of the backyard. At lunch today we watched a pair investigate the back fence of the yard and later this afternoon, we saw one of them again close to the front porch. I managed to go outside and get this shot.

Today we saw a Lesser Goldfinch (if you visit this link page down and look at the one by GregPage, it's a better match. It flew around a bit and visited the feeder, but the odd  thing was it wanted to land on a vertical wall and even hovered some. It has a very bright yellow breast and under body parts.

When my wife calls me to come look at something, I know to get my camera first. This is a giant centipede. It was about 8 inches long.

This huge moth fluttered all over the porch and finally settled down and let me get a pic. It's a Black Witch Moth.

We worked outside all weekend but took a break Sun afternoon. I looked outside and saw two turkey hens and 8 chicks. Couldn't get everything in one picture but all the chicks are in this one. They are hard to see!
Funny they showed up in the heat of the day ...

I  saw a reddish bird on the power line over the creek near the front gate - I have not seen it since. I did see a Yellow-breasted Bunting in the next few days trying to look for it again.

After the 3.5in rain and lightning storm, I expected some road damage, but nothing like this! I noticed one tree, not far from the shop, that seemed to have lost all of its bark on the main trunk. When I got around to look at the back side there was a gaping hole where violent twisting seems to have popped oout a big chunk of wood. This tree was not showing any signs of distress and no other trees on the lot have any damage like it. It's as a small twister or some freakish wind did it in. I put the piece of wood back (3rd pic) in, sort of, so you could see the trunk was rather smooth, but the piece doesn't really fit any more. UPDATE: I found bark from this tree 75ft away - it must have been violent!