I saw this wonderful native Bristly Sarsaparilla wildflower when we were up in Provincetown last week. It was so pretty and unusual. It has flower clusters at the top of erect, bristly stems and grows 1-3 feet with blooms June and July. The flowers turn into dark blue berries. Pretty cool, huh?
Have you ever seen a Bristly Sarsaparilla wildflower?
This Hairy Woodpecker just loves the suet feeder in our yard, once he figured it out. We had so many Starlings that would come and eat all of the suet, Phil came up with this brilliant idea!
You know how suet comes in a plastic container where you pull the paper cover off and insert it in the suet feeder? Well, he kept the plastic container with the suet still inside it, peeled off the paper cover and put it upside down in the suet feeder. The woodpeckers are used to eating upside down, so they mastered the technique of finding the suet on the bottom of the feeder in no time. The Starlings…have had a much more difficult time trying to figure out how to get the suet through the plastic on the top and sides.
Pretty ingenious, don’t you think?
I was taking a hike at Fort Hill the other evening when I saw this little bit of purple out of the corner of my eye. It was on the side of the trail at Fort Hill and pretty hidden in the climbing vines.
But, I was able to take a photograph of it and then look it up in my wildflower book when I got home. It is a Climbing Nightshade wildflower and very delicate and pretty. Its flowers almost look like the Shooting Star wildflowers that I used to see out in Colorado.
The Climbing Nightshade is a climbing vine with purple shooting star shaped flowers with 5 petals which grow in clusters at the end of long stems. The flowers are just 1/2″ to 1″ and bloom from June to August.
This is my first Climbing Nightshade. Have you ever seen one?
I planted a lot of flowers in my yard here on Cape Cod to try to attract the butterflies and hummingbirds. This White Cabbage butterfly liked my Zinnias the best!
A White Cabbage butterfly is about 1 and 5/8″ with black on its forewing tips. The male has one black spot and the female has 2 black spots, so this is a female.
After she had her fill of the Zinnias, she alighted on the rock slab at the base of our bird bath and spread her wings, showing her true colors.
Pretty butterfly, don’t you think?
