Apartment complex 4/29/09

This Purple Gallinule has been at my complex since Sunday, hanging around the pool area. Here it's posing on some ornamental shrubbery.

Porch light 4/9/09 & 4/11/09

Two beetles: a ptilodactylid (4/9) and Caryobruchus gleditsaei (4/11)

Neighborhood 4/8/09

I went for a walk during lunch today. (Photo: Common/White Checkered-Skipper by the sidewalk on Fountain View.) In one yard, I saw a female Hooded Warbler and a singing Ruby-crowned Kinglet and heard a singing House Finch. In another, a female Northern Parula, a White-eyed Vireo, and a female Common Yellowthroat were present.

Neighborhood 4/6 and 4/7/09

Some insects on Philadelphia Fleabane. (Top: a dark true bug of the plant bug family, or Miridae, about 1/4 inch. Middle: two contrasting Dermestid beetles, about 1/8 inch each. Bottom: Zethus Spinipes, about 3/4 inch.)

Yesterday and today, around noon, I took a walk and checked a few nearby yards for migrant songbirds. Yesterday, nothing except Yellow-rumpeds and Ruby-crowned Kinglets. Today, I found a female Hooded Warbler, a Nashville Warbler, and an Orange-Crowned that was in very bright plumage for that species. A few Yellow-rumped Warblers were in breeding plumage, and one was singing.

Neighborhood 4/3/09

I went out during lunch today and found a Hooded Warbler male, Northern Parula, Black and White Warbler, and Blue-headed Vireo flitting in some trees nearby.