Who’s this? Give me an “E” and think Africa. One of my favorite sites is Safari TV, which features three daily game drives led by knowledgeable naturalist guides in Sabi Sands. You can email and ask them questions and they often answer, live.

It eats worms.

Its common name begins with the letter “R.”

It fills in this game phrase:  round _____

There is a bird in Britain by the same “r” name. But it’s a different bird!

This is not a Fox Squirrel. It is another kind. Some people call it the piney squirrel. It is actually the Red Squirrel. We have seen photos of these squirrels elsewhere and those populations of Red Squirrels look much more red all over. This one is adding material to its nest in Spring. Usually we see them add material in Fall. Perhaps the baby squirrels are making a mess so this adult had to take out some material from the nest and replace it?

This beautiful bird puffs up and looks hilarious sometimes. It visits us each March in Indiana. People sometimes think of it as a black bird. But look more closely. It has gorgeous iridescent feathers.  Starts with a “g.”

Got it? It’s a gr____.

Jeff took this photo in our driveway.

I could have featured this creature in November.

Want to know the answer? Click on the photo!

Yes, I know it’s hard to see. Click here to see it larger. This is one of my all time favorite birds, the brown creeper. Talk about camouflage! It looks like bark. It walks on bark. Sometimes it nests on bark that has slightly pulled away from the tree. I photographed this one December 2009, here in Indiana.

I see this on the tree trunk outside my window. The animal’s name rhymes with whirl. One of its more specific common names is the traffic light color that indicates “stop.” It often sits and chews open pine cones, so it’s sometimes called “piney.” Got it? I’ll say more next month.

The orange thingy on the head of this black swallowtail caterpillar has a wonderful name: osmeterium. It’s a sense organ that comes out when a caterpillar is threatened. It may also spread smelly pheremones. Okay, so I just like the word osmeterium. We grow bronzen fennel and parsley to feed these creatures. Mostly they show up on the fennel.