5 July, 2015                           The eyes have it         

The hawks have been wildly active this week. To the detriment of the local squirrel population. Last week’s post was Warning: graphic images – hawk catches a rabbit. This week’s post could be identical – except it’s “hawk catches a squirrel.” I don’t believe it will cause much population reduction, but those hawks are spending a lot of time on top of the power line eating squirrels. You’ve heard the expression “eyes like a hawk”? Check this out: 

Hawkeye

Here’s the same hawk; the squirrel is underneath. See its foot sticking out?:

Fortunate hawk (upper right) / unfortunate squirrel (lower left) 

The young hawks have fledged. One was sitting in a low pine tree next to the parking lot at Freeman last week. Right next to the tennis courts. I took another of my unprofessional videos of it. It was, I suspect, calling its parents. Take a look; it lasts eleven seconds and I called it (brilliantly, in my opinion):  “Hawk talk”

There are also plenty of beautiful flowers left. This somewhat garish orange lily is growing next to a driveway near the end of my street:  

THAT is an orange flower. My Dad would have loved it.

[[This just in (see comment at the bottom of this blog post, from Monday, July 6.) My older sister Katie informs me that riot of orange is a “daylily” (genus Hemerocallis) rather than a true lily (genus Lilium). In addition to being my older sister, Katie is a member of my elite cadre of flora and fauna identification verifiers. Thanks Katie!]]

Rose of Sharon begins to show off in July. I have two in my backyard, a purple one and a white one. They’re sort of unruly and crazy but they’re big and bright and beautiful. And I like to see big, bright, beautiful flowers this late in the season:

A big, bright, beautiful purple Rose-of-Sharon (in my backyard)

A big, bright, beautiful white Rose of Sharon (also in my backyard)

I’m also delighted (always) to see some remaining honeysuckle. This is climbing up a big Loblolly Pine growing above those orange flowers a few pictures ago: 

My all time favorite flower.

There are also (back at Pony Pasture) lots of pawpaws on the ground and in the trees. They’re still quite small. When they fully mature late next month, they’ll be the length of one leash handle. Some even bigger. And so delicious: 

Paw paw with leashes (for scale) (what can I say)

I did take one decent dragonfly picture today, but only barely decent. It’s an Eastern Pondhawk; they’re excellent looking dragonflies. When they’re perched in direct sunlight they look like emeralds with wings. But the clouds were solid this morning and the sky was the color of cottage cheese – not the best light for photography. And perched on a dead manila-colored leaf makes an unspectacular image: 

Eastern Pondhawk with matching chlorophyll colored leaves

Many dog breeds are named after what the dogs do – retrieve, shepherd, point, etc. Blue “dashers,” white-tail “skimmers” and pond “hawks” are all named after what they do as well. In the case of the pondhawk, “hawking” is the term for the way they hunt insects.

This will be a brief post – Fourth of July weekend has been hectic! Looking forward to next week, 

Jay