BirdingGirl

Here's a lovely macro shot of a tomato hornworm caterpillar taking a little break from gorging himself on my tomatoes. Ever seen one before? They're huge and pretty startling to come across when you're pruning your tomato plants. They blend right in, until you accidentally touch one- hopefully not with the horned end! This picture was taken near the end of the season so I wasn't SO upset, but I definitely want to prevent hornworms for next season. I started doing some research on how to get rid of tomato hornworms and the good news is you don't need to use insecticides or crazy home remedies- birds will do the work for you! This great website I found- the Yardener has a whole section about insect pests in the vegetable garden. According to the site, feeding birds year-round will help you control the tomato hornworm problem in your garden. For bird lovers, this shouldn't be a chore at all. Just keep your feeders full with desirable seed like black-oil sunflower s...

The second half of our 2010 BwBTC New England Trip (held in August) was spent at Trustom Pond National Wildlife Refuge in South Kingstown, Rhode Island. (photo credit: Dawn Fine) At this point in the day I was more focused on socializing and simply spotting birds- not taking pictures, so I'm sorry to say all I have is a single video of the Ring-necked Pheasant we all had fun watching: This was around the time that the alligator was spotted in Rhode Island , so that was a topic of conversation as we were all gathering for our group photo on one of the viewing platforms. We didn't see any alligators, but I did see a huge snapping turtle sticking its beak out of the water to breathe. BUT I am happy to spread the link love, and share links to the outing recaps on my BwBTC friends' blogs. Check out Dawn (our BwBTC outing organizer)'s recap for some terrific pictures of the ring-necked pheasant, and the black-billed cuckoo (or red-eyed vireo?). Not to mention a fantastic grou...

Maybe it's the feet of snow we have on the ground that's got me reminiscing about warmer, sunnier times in New England. One fond memory I have is the 2nd annual BwBTC New England Trip. These trips are organized by Dawn of Dawn's Bloggy Blog . Last year we did some Plum Island birding , and this past August Dawn organized a trip in beautiful Rhode Island. On-hand we had: Jeff and Dawn @DawnFine on twitter/Dawns Bloggy Blog Dan @Docforestal on twitter/ Nature Observances by Forestal Larry from the Brownstone Birding blog Cindy Cage from Living in Brooklyn and Longing for Maine John (Tucker) from The Birdman of Bridgewater Susan @ natureframingham on twitter / The Nature of Framingham Cindy @gemswinc on twitter Bird List for Charlestown Breachway (thanks to Dawn for compiling): Double-crested Cormorant Great Blue Heron Great Egret Snowy Egret Green Heron Turkey Vulture Osprey Cooper's Hawk Red-tailed Hawk Black-bellied Plover Semipalm...