cobrien207's Favorites

Mrs. Dee lost her mate, Mr. Dee earlier in the year, but with help, all seven dispersed, amply grown. She soon started a rare second brood with her new mate, Wally, but he was gone before hatching, so only this one fledged.

Hole size was able to keep the non-native invasive house sparrows from entering the nest box, but depth was inadequate to keep out his head and prevent injury to mother and chick.

This was the second year in a row that she was attacked. The previous year in spring, nest location unknown, she arrived one day with a bare spot in the middle of her head, a busted toe(her right middle, seen here raised, not gripping) and Mr. Dee, her mate and my profile pic, also had an injured toe. I believe he may have saved her life from an aggressive house sparrow.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/68456803

Many people in my neighborhood feed birds indiscriminately, giving rise to a huge population of house sparrows competing for insects during breeding season, stealing newly excavated nest cavities, and even food out of the mouths of native birds. Sometimes they feathers too or instead, frequently giving local chickadees black dimples:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/68457469

Please refrain from subsidizing invasive animals!

This shrub reminded me of Black Cherry, Prunus serotina, but it seemed not quite the same. I realized that the flower clusters had lost their petals, and I was looking at sepals--duh! Poking around references and images on iNaturalist, it looks to be:
Chokecherry - Prunus virginiana
Important characters

• twigs glabrous (both virginiana and serotina)
• flowers in elongated clusters of 20+ (both virginiana and serotina)
• sepals blunt (acute in serotina), obvious in detail image of flowers here
• leaves deciduous, widest above middle (egg-shaped), about 2X as wide as long (more than 2X in serotina, widest at middle)
• sharp teeth point out toward leave tip (incurved, more blunt teeth in serotina)
• petioles usually with two glands near blade (visible on one leaf here, indicated in one image; (both virginiana and serotina)
• petioles reddish (both virginiana and serotina)
• midrib bare underneath (often hairy in serotina; not photographed here and not noted by me at the time)

References

• Duncan and Duncan, Trees of the Southeastern United States (Univ. Georgia Press, 1988), p. 191 (fig. 261), p. 295 (key), 297 (text)
• Newcomb and Morrison, Newcomb's Wildflower Guide (Little, Brown; 1977), pp. 314-15
• Petrides, Field Guide to Eastern Trees (Houghton Mifflin, 1988), plate 36, p. 170
• Swanson, Field Guide to the Trees and Shrubs of the Southern Appalachians (Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1994), p. 229, fig. 83

Poor little guy was in the middle of a busy intersection, and cars were just speeding on by him. I got out of my car and carefully shooed him into a corner off the road, but something was clearly wrong as he was trying to fly away, but couldn’t. Another kind driver pulled over and grabbed a big box from a local restaurant and we put a blanket over the bird and put them in the box and brought him to the Schuylkill Center’s wildlife clinic, where he is now. They said he has a severe parasitic infestation and is emaciated. Hope he’ll make it!

I was walking and saw the fox in the field. I kept my distance (camera looks closer than I was) and observed. Fur missing from tail and some patches of thinned fur on back/neck and possibly on hind legs. Eyes remained squinted. The fox appeared to be hunting and may have caught something as some of my other unshared pictures show it chewing/licking something but I can't confirm what it was, if anything. After a few minutes of observing, the fox began running toward me and I stayed still believing maybe it was a bluff charge. The fox did not stop running toward me so I began walking backwards quickly down the road and yelled loudly to stay away. The fox ran into the woods but continued following me closely, parallel to the road. Eventually I got back home and I think the fox might have stopped pursuing once it hit the edge of the field. I thought I kept an appropriate distance but clearly the fox did not appreciate my presence and might already have been behaving abnormally from illness.