Driving along I-494 just south of Bass Lake Road in Maple Grove last week I saw a couple of Sand Hill Cranes on the lawn of Prudential Insurance. Around the yard lately I have been hearing Wood Peewee, Broad-winged Hawk, Barred Owl, Red-eyed Vireo, and Great-crested Flycatchers.
Yesterday I cleaned out a couple of my wood duck houses. We have both Wood Ducks and Hooded Mergansers growing up by the house. One house was a successful nest with egg fragments and two or three shriveled eggs and one unhatched Wood Duck egg. The other nest was a disaster with sixteen unhatched eggs, almost all Wood Ducks. One popped in the house as I was cleaning it and two more popped like firecrackers in the plastic bag, releasing the fragrant hydrogen-sulfide. I soon had an assortment of bottle and carrion flies swarming around the bag. The house was a hive of activity with a nest of large ants, I believe, a little smaller than carpenter ants. And, several beetles and something that looked like a large wasp. As I was digging out the nest bedding and rotting eggs with all this insect distraction crawling about, something big startled me as it landed on my bare arm. I almost jumped off the ladder, but despite my flinch, there sitting on my shirt was a gray tree frog. I wondered if it was interested in the insect activity, but it didn't stay around to help me clean up and after a minute or two it jumped into the bushes. Raspberries have not been doing much this year. Hopefully the rain will spur their development. The black cherry tree is dropping cherries. None that I have tasted this year have been sweet. We have several different kinds of lilies in bloom, including a couple that may be turk's cap lilies. We also have false dragon head (light purple flowers), evening primrose (yellow flowers), and bluebells. I also have a couple of feverwort aka horse gentian (Triosteum perfoliatum) plants that are fruiting in my yard. This is a native plant that has clasping leaves around the stem where the plant flowers and produces five bright orange berries about a half inch in size. I don't know if this is an uncommon plant, but I have never seen it anywhere else. With the exception of some non-native lilies, all of these plants found their own way into my yard. Also, around the yard: Cherie saw a "cute" fox head through the yard. I also have been seeing a wild bee with a white band around its abdomen. Steve Weston On Quigley Lake in Eagan, MN swest...@comcast.net ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
