Discovery Journal

Link: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230222-the-beautiful-flowers-that-bees-cant-use

This piece describes the benefits of using native plants and explains why the big showy flowers developed by the horticultural industry may be useless to bees and the ecosystem.

The On This Day page in the Gallery menu now displays all photos taken on the current day (month and day) in history.

Everyone knows that planting milkweed is good for the Monarch butterfly. But did you know that milkweed is beneficial in other ways? In addition to feeding monarch caterpillars and to being a great plant for pollinators, milkweed fibers are particularly suited to being used in the construction of oriole nests.

I happened upon this Cooper's Hawk taking a nap at Oak Hollow Park. Or I thought it was taking a nap. Because it was occasionally turning its head and when it did, I sometimes caught a glimpse of its other eye - wide open and seemingly alert. But then it would turn its head back an return to look like he was napping.

I spotted this interesting sparrow on our morning walk. From a distance, it looked like a fawn society finch, escaped from captivity. On closer examination, color aside, it was much more similar to a House Sparrow than a society finch. It was mixed in with a group of House Sparrows and a few American Tree Sparrows.

Two species that occasionally are confused on bird watching groups are the American Tree Sparrow and the immature plumage of the White-crowned Sparrow. The two birds are easily confused because of a similar rusty-colored head patch and a similar, but not identical eye-stripe.

I will locally be giving away extra milkweed seeds. These are the seeds I will have available and information about them for those who may be interested.

Milkweed seeds usually require cold-moist stratification (CMS) for good germination. This means they are best planted outside in fall or winter, allowing nature to perform the cold-moist stratification for you. You can simulate CMS with a refrigerator following certain processes, but I have never done this, so please be sure to research CMS methods for milkweed if you do not plan to plant in the fall/winter.

We have been wanting to create a special toad habitat for a couple years now, since we started seeing American toads in our garden. We did a little research only to find we were already a good portion of the way there.

I see a number of nonnative plant species at the Ruth Macintyre Conservation center, but one of the most disturbing is Purple Loosestrife.

I have added a new feature to the gallery: the Image Series. An Image Series is a group of images that are related in some way and worthy of being viewed together on the same page.