Live Birds! Multiplying!

Cornell University in Ithaca NY has live online bird cams in a Red Tail Hawk nest, and also a Great Blue Heron nest. Amazing, beautiful, and awesome live views of wild nature up close and personal. Hatching happening! 

               website:  Cornell Ornithology Cams (http://www.allaboutbirds.org) 

     Below are screen shots of the two families. There were three red tail hawk eggs... which have just hatched into three healthy hawklets (eyas). Then, below, are shots of 5 Great Blue Heron eggs... 2 little healthy ugly hatchlings so far ... and 3 more to come!

Watching!

...and then there were two... then three

...get in line (They eat raw meat from birth!)

Mom and Dad Heron

Lots of sitting and waiting

First born (see pip holes on eggs behind)

Awwwww...

These guys eat regurgitated fish.... ewwww!

Growing things are starting to happen NOW!

Snow is forecast for tomorrow night. Average final frost is about 3 weeks off. Still, spring things are happening on schedule. The garden is waking. The plants from seeds are waiting in the wings under lights indoors. New life. New beauty. New food coming!    

giant pumpkin baby

"UFP" (unidentified flowering plant)

tulips

asparagus begins!

have heart

japanese maple show 

basils

peppers

rhubarb

maple view

strawberries

in the thicket

grape drop

who's eating who?

nice bling bling

orchid man

New blue (and the prettiest flower)

This year we finally are trying to grow blueberries. We bought 5 new bushes. They need acid soil, so we prepared that ahead of time. Also blue and new every spring are grecian windflowers. They're up along with the daffodils and the "dandy lions" (as my granddaughter calls them). Spinach and peas are now growing outside, and the peppers and tomatoes are growing under lights inside. Another month until danger of frost is nil. I leave the very prettiest flower until last, at the end of the post below.

Early blue...Grecian windflowers (Anemone)

5 new blueberry bushes!

blue heron rookery (abstract... ya think?)

"gas plant" (dictamnus)

orchid more

spinach ... hatchlings

daffodil

hosta ... reach for the sky

pretty weed people love to hate

Prettiest flower (Adelyn)

Hop Hop Garden

Well, things aren't really hopping in the garden yet, except for a few bunnies. Those darn bunnies manage to find whatever we have planted, and prefer to mow that down rather than any of all the other new greenery available... that's why I've been using an electric fence. They seem to NOT prefer THAT! Enjoy the Easter week photos!

Soon crimson maple leaves will completely obscure this view.

Hard to resist a cloud pic or two!

Just the two of us...

... and our eggs.

bleeding hearts already in bloom

Newest addition to our family (Encyclia - chocolate sundae)

Sandra's origami in morning sun

grape hyacyinth (they're little guys)

poor magnolia blossom... frostbitten

garlic mustard catches the light well ... an invasive weed

blue spruce

Mmmmm, Easter garlic!

great blue heron rookery near us... they're baaack!

hardwood swamp - where the rookery is 

a reflection of the previous year