This is one of my favorite animals. Here in northern Indiana, and in much of the U.S., they call in Spring and made terrific spiral flights.  To see it calling, check out the site of  great wildlife recordist Lang Elliott:

http://www.musicofnature.org/home/test_youtube_embed/

Look who came to my book signing! This tortoise lives outdoors on the grounds of the education area of the Phoenix Desert Botanical Garden. Someone left the door open during my signing and the tortoise walked in and up to my signing table. No joke!

Time for some desert animals. Jeff and I drove all the way to Phoenix so I could give talks at the Phoenix Desert Botanical Garden. LOVE this place. Full of plants. Wild birds, butterflies, squirrels, and bunnies wander freely. These Gambell’s Quail strut around, then dash, dash, dash when startled.

This is a moth on our window. It was attracted to the kitchen light. What a beauty. I don’t know the species. Photographing through the glass is a tad tricky. Still working on capturing their fluffy loveliness.

Now listen to the night time insect sounds of an insect that has perfect green leafy camouflage. These were also recorded in our Indiana yard, later at night than the July sounds.

Aug22011 SBendIN

To find their name and more information on them, click here. Then celebrate by reading Ant, Ant, Ant: an Insect Chant!

This insect calls during the day. Sometimes it emerges in great numbers after many years. These were in our yard.

To hear them, click here: Aug 22011SBendearlyev

You can also hear some other insects in the background. (See next month’s sound.)
What are these creatures ? For the answer, click here.

We just returned from seeing these creatures, the second longest whales in the world, in the St. Lawrence Seaway, near Tadoussac, Quebec. Their common name has three letters and is also part of a fish. Answer here.

In the month of May, Jeff and I take a special vacation just to watch warblers that migrate through the Midwest at this time of year. This is a Northern Parula at Magee Marsh in Ohio.

Here is one of our favorite squirrels.

It is a Gray Squirrel. Small, local populations of gray squirrels have this gorgeous coffee color. This one lives in our neighborhood because a wildlife trapper released it here. As a Gray Squirrel, it is noticeably slimmer than the local Fox Squirrels. And it spends more time up in the trees. It’s the only one that can leap to our platform feeder, too.