Nature’s Edge
@edge-nature
Working wildlife biologist living at the edge of nature. Naturalist. Macro photo fanatic. Intuitive birding by ear. Friend of pibbles! All original photos my own. Opinions my own.
The cuckoo bees have arrived! They are kleptoparasites of other species nests, indicating a good pollinator EcoSystem because without enough hosts, cuckoo bees couldn’t survive either.
Hummingbird migration is picking up! Yesterday Broad tails started showing up in the garden.
“A Cooper’s Hawk!? I’m coming to help!” A Broad-tailed Hummingbird joins House Finches mobbing a Cooper’s Hawk deep in an ash tree.
A historic campaign bumper sticker seen on a tenant’s leased open space. Do you know who’s this is?
Sometimes you just come home to something special. A Pale Snaketail and a Band-winged Meadowhawk guarding the garden gate, sitting a foot from each other! 😃 #dragonflies #odes
An amazing female wolf spider in the garden. A dynamic ecosystem has predators and prey even though society misconceptions can put negative perceptions on some beasts.
Any day is a blessed day when you open your front door to this. Two-tailed swallowtail on Vermilion Bluffs Sage.
Cruddy phone photo of a super cute Cliff Swallow fledgling sitting next to the gate I was walking through today. Huge year for Cliff Swallows, colonies all over town. Up above this little one were about a hundred more on the power lines. Adults scolded us quite a bit.
The Snowy Tree Crickets have started stridulating tonight and will continue into Autumn! Click alternate text to learn how to tell the temperature with these crickets. #SoundsOfSummer
The amazing Chryxus Arctic, a biennial butterfly which caterpillars take two years to mature, eating sedges and grasses. Thus the adults only fly on even years.
Here is a male. I this photo over 20 years ago with my trusty Olympus 750 ultra zoom.
The dragonfly that started it all for my adult obsession! Widow Skimmer in the garden today! This is a beautiful female with yellow stripes down her abdomen. Do you have a favorite dragonfly?
#NaturesFireworks a Silver-spotted Skipper sipping nectar at the bottom of a pink flower.
#NaturesFireworks a flower longhorn beetle sleeping in the petal of a black-eyed susan.
#NaturesFireworks a juvenile male Twelve-spotted Skimmer hanging out in the garden
Last night at the culvert! I guess everybody likes to see what’s flowing down stream.!
A trio of two-tailed swallowtails in the garden this morning! #NaturesFireworks
About five minutes later, they crossed the levy and jumped into the lower pond.
A well shaped culvert attracts a mama Common Merganser and her ducklings. How many ducklings can you count?
Welcome to the garden Taxiles Skipper! You brightened the morning! Maybe the quintessential Colorado skipper as its range is centered on the state.
Today we counted Western and Clark’s Grebes as part of a national project to check their population. The local reservoir has plenty of fish, most of them stocked for fishing. But low water has not allowed grebes to nest for at two years. They need cattails in water to attach their floating nests.
Last night a raccoon visited! Looking along the edge of the pond for delicious nummies!
Sometimes you have to trim back the plants to help your wildlife camera see the wildlife. Hopefully beavers!
A marsh dagger caterpillar.A widespread moth species that eats cattails leaves as a caterpillar.