Crops & Clips: Flashback to May, 2019

Each month I enjoy looking back over my archived photos, taken three years previously, to remember how things were then and what I now am missing this month in our new Connecticut  home.  As usual, I search for images which reflect favorite memes: critters of all kinds (especially birds), skies and clouds, reflections, flowers and butterflies, as well as scenes which speak for themselves. 

We spent the first week of May, 2019 in Florida, then 2 weeks visiting our daughter's home in NE Illinois, ending the month back home in Florida. The timing happened to be the ideal way to see the highest counts of spring migrants as they moved north. However, our local Wounded Wetlands yielded only a few banner days.

My first photo of the month was this capture of a White-eyed Vireo. This species breeds all over the eastern half of the US, but retreats in winter to the southernmost states, northern Mexico and the Caribbean islands. In Florida its population is augmented by returning migrants.

White-eyed Vireo on May 3:

The next day, a much less common vireo made its appearance. The breeding range of the Black-whiskered Vireo includes sparse coastal areas of southern Florida, the Bahamas, and most of Cuba. It winters far to the south into central South America.  

The Black-whiskered Vireo below, its throat markings obscured, resembles the Red-eyed Vireo, a much more common migrant:

The Red-eyed Vireos arrive later in Florida and are much more numerous in autumn than during spring migration. I photographed this Red-eyed Vireo, in a strikingly similar pose, on September 11, 2021:

I photographed another vireo species a week later (on May 9) in Batavia, Illinois, the smaller Blue-headed Vireo:

In the Wounded Wetlands on May 5, a male Bobcat sauntered out into the path and then stopped to stare at me:

A White Peacock butterfly  bathed in sunlight:

In Illinois, migration was well underway. Eastern Kingbirds had arrived:

Other migrant songbirds included Baltimore Oriole...

...a male Bobolink...

...Yellow Warbler...

...Nashville Warbler...

...Black-throated Green Warbler...

...and American Redstart:

Mallards in Flight:

A pair of Sandhill Cranes browsed with their two colts in a field festooned with yellow blooms:

The Twin Oaks at Nelson Lake preserve in Batavia, Illinois were beginning to leaf out:

Back home in Florida, the mangoes were ripening:

Along the path, a female Common Nighthawk warned me not to approach its hidden nest or chicks:

Before carefully stepping back, I found its two eggs, laid on bare gravel

Nearly a half mile across the lake, a deer reflected on the calm surface:

I practiced taking flight shots, of Tricolored Heron...

...Red-shouldered Hawk...

...and Mottled Duck:

Out on the Wounded Wetlands, I stirred up a White-tail buck:

A scrawny female Coyote stared at me before running off:

The south shore of the lake at sunrise on May 31:

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Linking to:

Garden Affair

Nature Thursday

Skywatch Friday

Weekend Reflections

Saturday's Critters

BirdD'Pot

All Seasons

Wordless Wednesday (on Tuesday)

Wild Bird Wednesday

My Corner of the World
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Please visit the links to all these posts to see some excellent photos on display
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