NATURAL DETROIT

This is our blog of birdsó, animalsò, insects!, and other things{ from nature that we see around town.  In addition to our entries, see the photo albums and links on the side panels.  To enlarge any of the photos to full size, just click on them and if you see something that we haven't, send us the picture and the location in the City of Detroit where you spotted it and we may post it.

The Scarlet Lady

 Unlike many songbirds, both male and female cardinals sing. the female often sings from her nest. I love how the female’s beak is so orange against the tan feathers of the bird.  See our prior post on Cardinals (with photos of the males).

Lady Purple Finch

Took us a while to figure our what this bird was - it kept showing up at our feeder with a couple Goldfinches.  Found out that female Purple Finches sometimes travel with Goldfinches.  The breast streaks of female Purple Finches do not converge in a central spot as on many sparrows. We've haven't spotted a male Purple Finch yet.  

Around the Feeder

Black-capped Chickadee

 Winter American Goldfinch.

White-throated sparrow.

Madame Dark-eyed Junco

 We've seen Dark-eyed Junco's before but took some pictures of the female Junco's this time.  They have that pink beak with the black eye. 

 

 

More Cormorants With Wings Wide Open

We've seen Double-crested Cormorants before on the Detroit River, but this time there was a cluster of them spreading their wings while resting on stumps in a lagoon.  Pelicans, turkey vultures, and some other birds will also spread their wings like this while standing. Scientists believe that the birds do it to help dry their feathers.

Ghost Squirrel

We saw this squirrel just before Halloween.  It was all white!  The New York Times tells us that white squirrels are a genetic variation of gray squirrels - just like the black squirrels that we see around town.  If the squirrel was an albino squirrel, which would also look white, it would have pink or blue eyes.  

 

Don't Move Its A Great Egret

We had a prior post on the Great Egret, but this one was too close to pass up.  It didn't move at all while we were there. 

Phoebe In The East

I think this is an Eastern Phoebe.  We watched while it flitted between a row of trees. The bird looked almost a shade yellow, but we think that was the light from the sun as it was going down. A phoebe was the first bird in the United States that was banded to track its migrations.  In 1804, John James Audubon tied a silver thread around one's leg to record when the bird come back the following year. 

Wasp In The Hole

We saw this huge bug during the late summer and it pretty much freaked out everyone in our family.  My mom saw it first when she was taking out the trash at night.  It was very active and was digging a hole between the slabs in our driveway. She thought it was a mole or a snake digging a hole.  We used a flashlight and watched for a while before figuring out it was a big shiny bug.  Its a called a Cicada Killer Wasp, which makes sense because we see a lot of cicada's in our yard.  Females dig a hole for their nests.  They use their jaws to dig and then push dirt out of the hole backwards. The female will then find a cicada, sting it and then carry it back to the nest.  She will then bury the cicada in a chamber and will lay also lay an egg there before burying the cicada and her egg inside.  The cicada will be used for food by the baby wasps (larvae) when the egg hatches.   

Squabbles

During the summer, rock doves built a scruffy nest outside a window of my father's office in the Cass Corridor.  I finally got to see the babies after they had grown a bit.  Pigeons don't keep a very clean living area, but the baby birds were cute.  Their skin looked dark blue. Baby pigeons are called squabs.