Friday fabulous Flowers: at the stage of seed dispersal

Our Magnolia virginiana, sweet bay, flowered well for pollen dispersal, now the flowers are at the stage of seed dispersal, a gentle reminder of what a fruit really is.  The fruits are an aggregate cone-like fruit that is basically green and protective, so not very attractive, but then the individual fruitlets dehisce rather like little milkweed pods exposing bright red-orange seeds that sometimes dangle on a thread. The actual fruit continues to dry out and turn brown. The seed coats are actually dark brown but covered by a fleshy red-orange aril that contains quite a bit of lipid, just what birds need as they get ready for a southerly migration, which is exactly what these seeds are advertising. 
From our kitchen table it was obvious a flock of birds was after this food source, and it took awhile for us to figure out who was there.  Turned out to be a mixed flock of Swainson's thrushes and red-eyed vireos.  This morning all the seeds exposed were gone; there will be more.  Successful dispersal was achieved!

Rainforest birding in Costa Rica

Costa Rica is a hot bed for birders, and the La Selva field station is a hot bed for Costa Rica.  Over 400 species of birds have been recorded here.  TPP is not a very good birder (that's Mrs. Phactor's arena); birds do not hold still so you can pick them up and look them over.  However every now and then a bird cooperates in such a way that even yours

truly can make an accurate identification.  So while looking for passion flower vines for a student deep within the darkest rainforest, this bird happened upon us.  Apparently a nearby fig tree had fruits just ripening and it was beginning to attract all sorts of attention.  Now in spite of its diminutive size and great distance the characteristic markings of a great curassow were unmistakable.  Quite simply TPP would not grab this bird even if he could.  The males (shown here) do some elegant courtship dances and offer their potential mates food treats.  So lots of birds have been seen but so far nothing new for the personal list, but then again, over a 20 year period of visits you do get to see quite a few species even if you aren't a very good birder.  How fortuitous that a curassow shows up so conveniently close to Thanksgiving!

Very amusing bird & flower field guide

For the biologically challenged there's a fun description of an old fanciful field guide provided by Stoat.  All you birders and flower hunters will enjoy this.  It's just fun, silly fun particularly if you've ever been confused by clover and plover. 

Trying to be good, but birdies were in the bush

Our kitty girls have been trying to be very, very good.  Things like sleeping together on Mrs. Phactor without playing biffy games in the middle of the night, and not eating each other's food, at least while a food referee is present, helping with wrapping paper and ribbons, and not bolting out the door as soon as it is opened, especially when cold air and snow blows into their faces.  These are cats after all, so the behavior bar can not be set too high.  Now to prevent idle paws and boredom, the best winter entertainment is Cat-TV, the ongoing show just out side our windows produced by squirrels and birds hanging out at all the feeders.  So much is going on, so much movement, and all of it just out of the reach of cat paws.  A thistle feeder hangs from a balcony railing just outside the sunroom windows, and since it only has 4 feeding stations instead of the 40 or so that it really needs, the waiting line forms a few feet away in a tall rhododendron leaning right up against the windows on the lee side of the house.  The broad window sills make for a good perch for birdy watching, right there at the end of their noses, so close that you'd just bet that if you jumped up there real fast you could grab one of those birds.  So what were those glass candle sticks doing there anyway?  Did you just move them there from the mantle to make room for decorations because we never noticed them there before.  So you know we didn't mean to; it just happened.  And probably it wouldn't have made any difference anyways, so it was just an innocent little mistake.  And does it matter if we take a ribbon or two from packages for some play?  After all nobody else has been playing with them ever since you wrapped that gift up. 
Ah well, keeping breakable things in safe locations is our part of the "we'll be good" program.