This is a picture of us picnicing on the fourth of July. We live in a beautiful garden area. This site was about a 15 minute walk from our house. I think we drove it in about 2 minutes though. We normally walk it, but we had a lot of things to carry.
Normally for the 4th of July you eat hamburgers and hotdogs. We ate bratwurst, because that is what you do in Wisconsin. Before the fireworks we also had hamburgers I wore a red t-shirt that says "Divided We Fail." I was given the t-shirt when I attended the viewing of the Obama/McCain attackfest they call debates. Divided We Fail is supposed to negatively demonstrate the importance of unity. That was my slightly cynical way of being patriotic during the 4th. The best part is that I almost completely matched Farina.
This is the turtle that we found as we were picnicing. I think this was a painted turtle. It looked pretty normal from on top, but underneath and around its head it was bright yellow and red.There is a lot of wildlife here. Today we saw a heron that stood almost four feet tall. We were about 30 feet away from it. We also see wild turkeys around. It is also very common to see raccoons at night. If you look long enough, you will always find one. Other things we like looking for are possoms, swallows, goldfinches, chipmunks, hawks, vultures, owls, and other birds. We live next to the biggest community garden in Madison (maybe all of Wisconsin), so it is fun to walk and see what animals are eating our crops.
Wildlife isn't quite the same where I am. Reading your wildlife listing makes me remember Maryland. I enjoy the warblers and the lesser goldfinches and keep speculating whether I'm seeing a Bulloch's Oriole or a kingbird or an ash throated flycatcher. But I miss groundhogs that climb mulberry trees, pileated woodpeckers, salamanders, and frogs.
ReplyDeleteWildlife here very, very similar to Maryland. I was showing some friends from Arizona around two days ago, and one of them told me that he had never seen fireflies before. It just so happens that right now is around the firefly peak. It reminds me so much of Maryland.
ReplyDeleteWe have swallows, goldfinches, cardinals, jays, purple finches, red-headed and downy woodpeckers, bluebirds (so I hear), lots of owls, herons, pelicans (lake country), chickadees, redwinged blackbirds (bazillions of them), geese, kingfishers, turkeys and more. It is like combining all of the normal backyard birds of Maryland, but adding a lot more wet-land/lake birds.
It sounds like Justin was a good influence on your bird watching. :) I wouldn't mind having that kind of variety around here.
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