Sunday Bird & Butterfly Blogging

It was such a humidly calm summer morning, we decided to give our seven parakeets a chance to enjoy it while we sat out back finishing our coffees and savoring the green green against the bright hues of sunflowers, zinnias, morning glories and ripening tomatoes. That's the 4-member "girl cage" on the left and the three-member "boy cage" on the right. They're usually in separate rooms so they were quite excited to visit and chat at closer range. You may recall we had to house the keets by gender so we wouldn't have nonstop monkey business and egg production. Despite the divide, Whitey kept right on laying eggs until we learned the trick of covering the birds early in summer, so the longer days wouldn't set off her laying instincts.

Here's Whitey with Hambone, one of her offspring, digging the summer sunshine filtered by gathering rain clouds. The continuing heavy rains have turned our backyard grass and gardens into a bountiful display of new growth popping out all over. Mary Ellen and I were discussing how zinnias are known to attract butterflies, but how we hadn't yet seen any this year, when what should appear but a delicate, graceful butterfly slowly swooping in on our zinnia patch.

What turned out to be a swallowtail fluttered lazily from flower to flower and even headed over to take a look at us up close before flitting off to other neighborhood garden delights.

Summertime, and the livin' is easy, at least in our back yard. (Click on photos for larger images.)