Ice Spiders!

For more than a week the pond here at paradise has been covered up in ice spiders, nine large ones to be precise. Where did they come from? I watched a sci-fi movie with the exact title I believe.

No not science fiction, I think they appeared as the pond was melting during a warm spell. The pond then refroze and they have remained on the pond. This is the first time I have seen anything like this on a pond. On Tuesday I did see Cardinals and then Gold Finches drinking out of one of the ice spiders.

 Here is the biggest Ice Spider, notice the clear spot in the center? Water might be bubbling  out as the pond evaporates and the ice falls with the water level.

 Two Ice Spiders a breeding pair perhaps?

There is the pond from this morning, I see nine large Ice Spiders. See the white drain pipe on the upper left of the photo? The top of that pipe is the highest water level the pond can reach.

 After I took the photo of the Ice Spiders this morning I filled the bird feeders off our deck. This Carolina Chickadee was perched on this red bud limb. I went inside got the camera and memory card and went back outside and took this photo. Chickadees are certainly the tamest birds we have here. I know people that have trained these wild birds to eat out of their hands.

In case any of you were wondering who helps me with the blog here. Dot the Wonder Dog is my assistant, here she is helping and doing what she does best. I took this photo while building this posting.

Birds in the garden

Hope all of you with snow and ice are safe! We got lucky Monday night as we only got maybe an inch of snow. It misted all day yesterday you could not see any rain but you could feel it when walking around outside. The mist and my camera did not seem like a great idea, so I set up a chair under the porch and waited for the birds to come back to the feeders.

We had our second visit from a single Bluejay, I do not have any photos of this beautiful bird. The Bluejay was out there before I went out to photograph and never returned. Bluejays like neighborhoods not forest like where we live, in fact I lived here 3 years before I ever saw one here.

 Song Sparrow on top of the hoop house cold frame covered in snow. We have mainly 3 different sparrows in the winter here, White-throated Sparrow(the most common), Chipping Sparrow and Song Sparrow as seen here they are our only year round resident sparrow. A fourth sparrow the Fox Sparrow has been seen in years past but has not made an appearance in years here.

 Pondering Song Sparrow.

 Female Northern Cardinal ready to fly.

 

Here is an image I adjusted in Photoshop by using poster edges, a very simple trick, pretty neat?

 Telephoto shot of the top of the new bottle tree. I added a clear bottle to the top. The second bottle down is an 8 ounce caster oil bottle I found. You also can see 1.5 liter, .75 liter and 6 ounce Riesling bottles.

One special bird returned yesterday while I had the camera out, a Brown Creeper made its 6th appearance this winter on the white oak by our deck. I took photos but they were too poor to post here.

So one might ask what is blooming in out garden. Here is our Helleborus niger covered ice ice and snow. This was the 5th time these blooms have been buried in snow or ice, tough plant don't you think?

One of the front garden pansies covered up in snow and ice. The pansies and violas under the over hang of our porch not covered in snow look pretty bad because they do not have the protection the snow gives them during temps down in the 20s.

Be sure to check out the dog treat or dog cookie  recipe on my last posting.