My Garden: Sunny Knock Out Roses

This year I decided to plant a rose bush, mostly for the sweet fragrance. After a big storm this weekend I was watering and to my surprise my rose bush had blossomed! 2 beautiful white roses! Beautiful smelling. With over a dozen yellow buds to boot! After planting the rose bush over a month ago, my hopes for buds this year were low, so this was an awesome surprise!

My petite rose bush! Look at those 2 roses!

Sooo fragrant!

Daily Bird Count: 21 Species!

1. Rock dove
2. American robin
3. Mallard
4. Wood duck
5. Chickadee
6. Domestic goose
7.  Canadian goose
8. Great blue heron
9. Ring-billed gull
10. Green heron
11. Black-crowned night heron
12. Redwing blackbird
13. American goldfinch
14. Northern cardinal
15. Cedar waxwing
16. Barn swallow
17. European starling
19. House sparrow
20. Crow
21. Greylag domestic goose

City Living: Front Porch

One of my favorite things about where we live is our front porch. We're on a tree-lined street that is nice and shady, and we have four large planters that I take care of. This summer I was so happy because several of the flowers planted last year returned. I  added petunias this year-as annuals they won't return next year, but they are so colorful and pretty I couldn't resist! Even though it's hitting 90+ degrees this week with absurd amounts of humidity, the flowers are thriving with daily watering. Although our front porch is compact, I like working on the front porch, while I'm watering/sweeping/weed pulling/checking the mail, I meet and chat with neighbors, local business owners, the mail woman, fed ex man (who calls Jon "Mr. Pederson" because I order all our packages!), construction workers, dog walkers, maintenance men. Taking care of my front porch is one easy way to make my neighborhood more beautiful, friendly and loved!

Our front porch

A close up of one of the planters

Quincy hanging out

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Semipalmated Plover

My first plover in Chicago! This little fellow was feeding along the shore of the small island in the middle of South Pond.  A plover is a tiny shorebird, this particular type has yellow legs and white underbelly. In my identification attempt, of course I jumped to the conclusion that I saw a piping plover, but given its endangered and rare bird status in Chicago I continued to search and was able to correctly ID it as a juvenile Semipalmated Plover. Common things are common...

Identifying specific bird species is tricky. For the most part, knowing heron vs. duck vs. goose vs. swallow vs. plover vs. wren isn't very difficult. I imagine it's like a regular person knowing colors compared to an artist knowing colors. Different shades, tints and hues. Sure we know blue, but do we know azure, periwinkle, indigo, cobalt, cyan?

For this particular bird I was happy that I could immediately identify it as a plover, but then when you have to identify what type of plover it is, the specific markings, colors, and habitats become very important. Without binoculars it's almost impossible. I saw another new species today but it was too high up in the trees with the sun behind it and it was very difficult for me to clearly distinguish it's markings so I couldn't properly identify it once I got back home.

I was too far away to get a photo. Up close courtesy of AllAboutBirds.org