Echinops - Wikipedia

My bees love those too. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echinops

Yentl (film) - Wikipedia

Modern life is such a weird combination of the tortuous and the miraculous. I get a hankering to watch an old favorite movie, and moments later it's streaming for free.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yentl_(...

A clump of delicate pink blossoms rise from stalks above scalloped leaves.

About 5 years ago I collected seeds from a neighbor’s double pink columbine & strewed them about my flower beds. Now they pop up here and there, self-sowing with abandon. Even in the drizzle, they stand tall and proud, nodding their pink faces in the breeze. I love them.
Appreciate every flower.

The cats stay inside or within the catio enclosure, so they would just laugh....

Sounds like we'd be good neighbors!

Ooooh, that sounds like the beginning of a fun project. I love how a space can evolve over time. When I moved into this house 22 years ago, these beds contained only 100+ rose bushes surrounded by bark dust. I dug & gave most away, keeping only ~a dozen, to make it more varied, native & informal.

You are so kind, GP. Thank you.
And I savor reading your stories.
Let’s keep sharing what we love with the world.

A residential flower bed filled with perennials, in the evening sunshine.

A bit of golden light from yesterday evening. I love the flower garden this time of year, everything so fresh and green and full of promise of blossoms to come.

Rainy day mood.

#birds
For comparison, here's a mature male OROR from Panama.

over the food, pieces fall to the ground & attract ground feeders like crakes & rails, as well as the ubiquitous agouti. Rodents related to guinea pigs, agouti are vegetarians. To my mind, they seem like tiny-eared rabbits as they creep about & provide vital clean-up services under the feeder. 🪶

Belize are part of the wintering range for OROR. When in the tropics, fruit makes up the largest part of their diets, & these #birds were drawn to the bananas, pineapple & watermelon scraps, guavas & papayas put out by staff on one of the lodge’s fruit feeder platforms. As birds dine & squabble

assumed these were the female #birds. It was only later when I was organizing my photos that I realized that these are immature males. Females sport a more solid yellow breast with olive-yellow wings/back, while these young males, likely hatchlings from last year, add the black bib. Both Panama &

#Bird of the Day: Orchard Oriole (OROR)
When I was in Panama, I saw mature male OROR in their deep ochre-red plumage. We don’t have orioles at home, so I’m unfamiliar with them; upon seeing these at the feeder in Belize, I didn’t realize what they were! When a guide identified them for me as OROR, I

Portrait of a black and white bird with a bright red splotch on it's chest. One feather sticks up from it's head to drive the photographer crazy.

Rose-breasted Grosbeak
#nature #photography

Sending wishes for safety!

You won’t regret it.

Hmmm, not to me, but that concept sounds Ah-Maz-ing!

A jar holding stems of deep purple bearded irises.

Bouquet of the Day
The scent is heavenly.

A large plastic pot with leafy green herbs: dill, basil, parsley & cilantro. They got a harsh trim too.

@goodport.bsky.social I’m trying something that could be crazy. Took the huge herbs from the hydroponics & transplanted into an outdoor pot for summer. Had to include the plastic cones that were thoroughly encased in root growth. Let’s see if this works! The hydroponic garden now has the summer off.

World Immunization Week 2026 This year’s World Immunization Week theme, “For every generation, vaccines work”, aims to promote how vaccines have safely protected people, families, and communities for generations – and continue to...

“For every generation, vaccines work”

World Immunization Week, 24-30 April 2026

www.who.int/campaigns/wo...

There is definitely stiff competition for suitable sites! In the case of woodpeckers, most of them do excavate a cavity themselves, although if they can enlarge an existing cavity they may take advantage of that. Here, we even have flickers that create nesting cavities in utility poles!

Great question, and I don't know the answer!

😅 An apt analogy!

over their homes. These particular snags are also currently housing Downy Woodpeckers and White-breasted Nuthatches so I hope to see lots of activity as nesting season progresses.

it with only tail feathers still poking out. The male #bird’s feathers look somewhat the worse for wear from all his labors in & out of the splintery opening. It may be that they find this cavity most defensible, as there are European Starlings hanging about who are known to evict NOFL to take

a local park. I also was there to observe a more private moment, the super-fast copulation as the male briefly mounted to female for the “cloacal kiss”. 🪶 Now, after chipping away at a couple spots, they seem to have settled on one to use as this year’s nest; it’s now deep enough that they can enter

will be utilized by many other cavity-nesting #birds in future years, as long as the snag stands. The decaying wood also becomes host to beetles, ants, & other insects, providing a convenient food supply. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been checking in on a pair of birds working at a set of snags at

#Bird of the Day: Northern Flicker (NOFL)
Although humans may consider them unsightly, the presence of snags-- standing dead trees-- are vital to an ecosystem’s bird population. The dead wood is easier for birds like the Northern Flicker to excavate for their nesting cavities, and once made, holes

I can't say I've ever heard them sing anything I would call melodious! More like a thin, high-pitched whistle. But it may be I just haven't been in the right place in the right time.