Here is a White-throated Sparrow from back in the fall. White-throated Sparrows can be either tan morph or white morph, and this is a tan-morph individual. Color morph does not indicate the bird’s sex, but individuals almost always mate with a bird of the other color morph. So, a male tan morph will made with a female white morph, and a female tan morph will mate with a male white morph.
Even though it’s November, here are some images from the summer. In the first one, an amber snail sits on flowering grass. The silky looking filaments topped with pink or yellow are stamens.
Here, two meadow plant bugs (genus Leptopterna), wave their antennae at each other while perched on another flowering blade of grass. Meadow plant bugs feed on developing grass seed.
I always enjoy thinking about how a photograph can show not just a cool animal, but how it can also convey part of a story. Eastern Bluebirds stay in Maine year round. If you have a bluebird house and leave it up in the winter, you may see a stream of bluebirds leaving the house on chilly mornings after they’ve all packed inside to stay warm at night. Here’s a bluebird in my oak tree after an ice storm – puffed up and sitting in the sun for warmth.
SwampSparrows (Melospiza georgiana) are one of 33 species of birds I’ve seen in my pokeberry bushes. Swamp Sparrows are medium distance migrants, never leaving North America. They have longer legs than other sparrows, and will sometimes wade in shallow water when foraging.
Back in July I had a couple different doe and fawn pairs visiting my yard. Here are photos of two cute interactions. The fawns pictured are quite young, but they’ll stay with their mothers for at least their first year of life. White-tailed deer fawns lose their spots when they are 3 to 4 months old, and start growing their winter coats.
Jagged ambush bugs, like this one, sit motionless until a fly, bee, butterfly, moth, or other bug gets close enough for the ambush bug to grab with its muscular front legs. In North America, multiple species of jagged ambush bug can be found from northern Mexico to southern Canada. This individual is lying in wait on some fleabane, a plant the same family as asters and daisies.
Here’s a male Yellow Warbler from back in May. Yellow Warblers breed across Maine and are some of the earliest warblers to migrate north in the spring, and earliest to head south again in the late summer/early fall.
I always love seeing new species, of course, but I also love seeing a common animal do something that I’ve never witnessed before. Early in May I got to watch this gray squirrel eat oak flowers which was a new sight for me.
A Dark-eyed Junco sits on a snowy and icy white pine tree. I took this photo after the ice storm in early April.
This bobcat was my most unexpected wildlife encounter of the month. It explored my property, marked a few shrubs, pounced when it heard rodents rustling around in the long grass, and eventually wandered on. As always, my photographs show wild animals. I use a long lens and crop for composition.
I’m also sharing this photo, because it shows how excellent the bobcat’s camouflage can be.