Empty Nest

The baby birds disappeared, one at a time. The nest is Empty, but the Mama and Papa and two of their friends are around. We are 99 percent sure, our resident black snake is he culprit. Sometimes nature's food chain hurts our hearts. We learned a lot about our Big Black Dog. He was an angel and did no harm to adults or babies.
I am trying for a pic of the female... She would sit and let me talk to her, if I was outside by myself. I could see her through the branches listening to me assure her we meant no harm.
I marveled at how the female when sitting on the nest, blended as though she were not there. The bright hues of the male are meant to distract from his family. I had never thought of that before when wondering why the male birds are more beautiful.

I talk to lizards and birds and frogs. Do you?

Papa C continues to brighten our landscape

The Cardinals and The BIG Dog

For about 3 weeks we have watched Mama C and Papa C, building a nest, sitting on 2 eggs, sitting on 2 chicks. I could never get a clear shot at any of them. We spent a lot of time watching Big Boy watching the birds. The nest was 4 feet off the ground, just at head height for a stretching Dog.

For the story of how I got these photos and what happened with the BIG Dog click HERE and travel to Big Boy's Blog Fourpawsetc.

Way up high in the tree, Papa sat on a branch, the sun beam touched him, the branch moved, he was in the dark..... the branch blew in the breeze, light to dark, light to dark.. He was watching Big Boy, daring him to touch his babies. I put 4 of the photos of dark and light into this gif...

Cardinals and Lizards on Nature Friday

Can you find Mama Cardinal in above photo? if not see below

Can you see her now?  The problem is I removed her fist nest from this dangerous place and she built another in the same place. She is sitting about 4 feet off the ground, in the powder puff bush JUST at Stand Up On Hind Paws Head Level of Big. She has survived for a week, and I dread the babies.

Glass Snake About 20 inches long

The most obvious way to tell this is a legless lizard, is it has eyelids and snakes do not.  NO, I did not bend close enough to check for eyelids, I just held my cell phone about a foot over him and snapped.
They are common in Florida and eat insect and spiders and they are often eaten by birds or snakes.

for those of you just dying to know more, these are called glass snakes because they can lose their tales and grow new ones. just like lizards that have legs...  You may have missed a few or two of my TWENTY EIGHT posts on lizards. Click HERE to see a few that have legs and no tails


Florida Glass Snake is a Legless Lizard  INFO HERE

Mr. and Mrs. Cardinal Fun

While photographing what the drought has done to our backyard jungle, I noticed movement on the fence up front. Using Zoom I snapped four photos.

See below what the camera saw from a far, above is what Lunapic did when MS the lunatic took them for a spin....the above were made from the two large panels in below collage created in PicMonkey. It amazed me the detail that came from these not so good photos.

Spring..

"Spring"

When Cardinals sing and Lizards Swing Slither we know it's Spring.

I merged Two photos  "Spring" .  Using  PicMonkey, I added the cardinal photo as texture then added lizard photo as overlay and played.

Red Red Red and More Red

I stood staring up at the trees against the blue sky, my eyes lowered and 6 feet from my face sat Mister Carl Five Note. It is rare to see the cardinals sitting still. I called out to Bob, get my camera and slowly bring it to me. I stood frozen in spot, eased my hand out behind me for the camera and here he is..

While admiring him in my LED screen, I realize he was not the only RED in our yard... you know the rest of this story....

 

Amazing two flowers grew out of one limb, they are hooked together at the bottom, back to back.

 

Close Encounter..

There he sat, only 6 feet from my face, the close encounter with this cardinal had me holding my breath and when I breathed out he flew.

this is continued from yesterday post.. Yes We got Bananas

The cardinals are wary of us and I have never been this close to one.

He turned his back on me, just like Baby Girl.

He smiled at me... I know he did...

If you need a Good Laugh... Pop over to the 7MSN Ranch today. Bob and I rolled on the floor with laughter, plus we learned something we did not know.

Black and White Sunday - Cardinal

And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.”  Genesis 1:20

The Cardinal is safe...

photo from kitchen window 2010

This little beauty lives with his wife in our trees... .

He and his lady were really busy for a week or two, sitting on the window sill of the kitchen, then the bedroom, flying in and out of the bush and I thought nothing of it... just watched with pleasure from bedroom or kitchen window.

The flowers make it perfect for camouflage... BUT they built there new home right where you see the arrow.
NOTE: this is Jake Territory... as in he could stand on his hind legs and grab baby birds with no trouble at all.

for a couple of days she sat in the nest and I was fretting big time, afraid she would hatch noisy babies that would become dinner for Jake.....one day after I stared at her many times, she flew away, and I checked the nest.
IT"S EMPTY  I shouted to Bob.... and I removed it from harms way....

Check out the DETAIL... so much work, so delicate and I felt horrible moving it. But I would have felt worse if the unthinkable happened.

They thought they were hidden, but had no idea they were to close to the ground. anything could get to them, and we do have black snakes.

Each piece places carefully, just where it needed to be and the thinnest of pine needles to make the center.