You Can Take The Hound Out Of The Hunt, But ...

Baby Mockingbirds 

The Northern Mockingbird is the state bird of Texas.  I took this picture of two fledgling mockingbirds as they were getting old enough to hop from the nest.

When they first started leaving the nest and ended up on the ground, I kept picking them up and returning them to safety after my dogs found one and almost caused an untimely end.  Just goes to show, you can take the hound out of the hunt but you can't take the hunt out of the hound.

Eventually  I realized I couldn't keep them safe in the nest because they were trying to learn to fly and couldn't accomplish that feat unless they had a running start out in the open, which is a very dangerous place to be when one is a baby bird.  I've noticed it takes the fledglings several days out of the nest to learn to fly up to the taller boughs of nearby trees, all the while they make a little bird call for their parents because they are still too young to capture food for themselves.  The parents continue bringing them food as well as keeping an eye on them in case predators or danger is in the area.

I heard an adult mockingbird make the most precious, calming sound to one of her babies the other day while I was nearby - it was kind of a trill of notes unlike any other sound I've heard a mockingbird make before and I knew the parent was trying to make sure the baby stayed quiet.

Right this very moment I have two sets of adult mockingbirds trying to raise more babies in my backyard.  One set is in my old man's beard vine and another in my sapling live oak tree.

Mockingbirds mimic 50 other bird's songs. They have also been known to imitate other sounds they hear such as rusty hinges, whistling, cackling hens, and dogs barking so expertly that even an electronic analysis could not tell the difference between the mockingbird and the original. Scientists have found that female mockingbirds are attracted to males that can make the most different sounds.

I Saw Sawfly Larvae "Saw" :: Buggin' Out On Thursdays

© Hungry by biologie-me.blogspot.com

Alice would have a thing or two to say about these hungry munchers.  It  is a  Caterpillar Wonderland and the wild green vine is the complimentary buffet.  They may look like caterpillars but these are actually sawfly larvae.  

The sawfly is a mystery to most people.  The insect is part of the family of Hymenoptera and some species are considered "pests" because the larvae eat farmer's crops and damage foliage, eating the leaves outright (like mine) or eating the leaves from the inside-out.  

The adult sawfly can easily be mistaken for a wasp although they do not have stingers and do no harm to humans.  The female adult sawfly has a little "saw" called an ovipositor on her rear-end that she uses to cut open plant tissue and lay eggs inside.

I often use the leaves of my vine (which grows wild in my backyard near the fence-line during the spring and all throughout summer) to photograph my jewelry for sale in my Etsy shop because the leaves are a beautiful green and compliment a lot of my pieces:

Etsy Biologie

Caterpillars and other insects love the vine and can devour large portions of it in a matter of hours.  This doesn't phase me a bit because the vine grows back as thick and pretty as ever within a few days to a week!  

Dr. Dave Smith, a sawfly expert, at BugGuide.net identified these "bugs" for me and also told me this vine is part of the Cissus family.  This is a host vine for my sawflies, whose scientific name is Ceratulus spectabilis.  Further research shows the plant is a native of Central Texas and is commonly known as Sorrel Vine (Cissus incisa).  It's a great vine to grow in my area because it has a high heat tolerance and can be used in place of ornamental ivy.  I love the idea of growing native plant species in my backyard as opposed to using imported exotics.

Apparently, sawfly larvae choose to ignore the rule about not crapping where you eat:

 POO! © biologie-me.blogspot.com

What kind of bugs have you seen lately?

Hummingbird Live Cam :: Nestling hatched on Mother's Day!

This is Phoebe, a non-migratory Channel Islands Allen's Hummingbird living in Southern California where she is raising two newly hatched baby hummingbirds named Hope and Hoku.  I love hummingbirds!

I'm a blog follower of TexasEagle Talks and today I ran across her post about this Live Hummingbird Nest Cam.  Visit the Phoebe Allens Web Cam to see Phoebe and her two nestlings!

As soon as I laid eyes on them I instantly fell in love with Phoebe and her two new hatchlings.  She's built her nest in a rose bush.  The nest is made out of feathers, spiderwebs, plant fibers and lichen.  When she laid her eggs the owner the of webcam, Joe, said they were about the size of a tic tac mint!  His website, phoebeallens.com, has the live streaming webcam as well as facts, a chat room, and other information about how it all began when a little hummingbird kept coming back each Spring to their rosebush to make a nest.

Hope hatched on Mother's Day and Hoku just a day later.  To tell the babes apart, Hope has a blue tint to her body and is a little bigger than Hoku, who is brown in color.  

In addition to the Live Hummingbird Cam, I love to look in on the Sydney, BC Eagle Cam which has a nest with one baby eagle named Solo being reared by his parents.

Live Wildlife Web Cameras including channels dedicated to falcons, loons, eagles, robins and a house wren can also be found at WildEarth.TV.

Do you have any favorite live wildlife cams?  If so, leave a comment and please share them with me.