Welcome to Sreemala and Pratyay’s BnB, birds and butterflies, that is!

Fall in Stillwater is now over… well, almost. The days are still pretty warm, sometimes unusually so! As we wait for finally welcoming the winter, we are still basking in the warmth of the colorful photos we took this fall!

This fall has been extra special at our backyard. This year our unexperienced hands tried our luck in gardening. Right from choosing the correct plants according to our zone, starting our seeds and planting them in the bed have been nothing but a learning curve for us. We were extremely amazed to see the fruits of our labor. As the temperature got warmer, the plants took off rapidly and in no time our beds were booming with flowers. We mostly chose plants that were native and needed less water and care. The plants did not disappoint us on our first attempt at gardening and we thoroughly enjoyed every step of the process.

Meadows were full of butterflies

As the summer was changing to fall, we started seeing lots of skippers and other butterflies, many of them starting to migrate south for the winter. It was mostly the common species, Monarchs, American and Painted Ladies, Common Buckeyes, Variegated and Gulf Fritillaries, Question Marks, various Sulphurs and Skippers to name a few. But we didn’t mind that since all of them were so pretty! Here are some of them…

From the top: Monarch, Question Mark, Common Buckeye, Gulf Frittilary

Unlike birds, butterflies are most active during the warmest hours of the day which typically happens around 12-3 p.m. here. We have spent numerous hours getting caught by the butterflies and almost missed lunches, meetings and what not. At the end of the day, it was all worth it to witness them doing their thing, completely ignoring our presence.

Playful Gulf Frittilary

Gorgeous Gulf Fritillaries were our favorites. The upper wings are bright orange, but the best part is their underwings with the most beautiful patterns! We were glad to see many of them at our backyard. Sreemala quickly got hooked into some “butterflies in flight” photography, and on one occasion, even went out alone to photograph some Painted Ladies. (Not good Sreemala!)

Gulf Frittilary upper and under wings

A standing ovation form us if you already knew the difference between the Painted Lady and the American Lady. Painted Ladies were more common during the fall migration, and we had so much fun figuring out that we have both the species present on the same day.

Top: Painted Lady, bottom: American Lady

Do you know that the monarch migration takes place over many generations? These beautiful critters have such a short life span. The journey that the Monarchs starts at the origin is completed by its younger generation over time. We cannot wait for them to come back again next year.

The monarchs make any background beautiful

Birding was relatively slow this fall. But we at least got our regular Mississippi Kites sitting at their favorite perch, the top of a bare branch on our backyard cottonwood tree. A good part of these birds’ diet consists of insects and they thoroughly enjoyed the large cicadas before they move south.

Cicadas are delicacy for the Mississippi kites

The number of hummingbirds at our yard was surprisingly low, but our casual visits at the OSU Botanical Garden resulted in some good looks at them. The adult males had moved on with their migration by then. We mostly saw the females and the immatures.

Ruby-throated Hummingbird

The ruby throated hummingbird which weighs about a penny must fill up its fat reserve completely before preparing for the long migration south. We so much enjoy their little wings, tiny feet and buzzing sound when they are nearby. Many a times before spotting it in the flower we often get to hear them first. They look even better during the golden hours.

This little bird was clinging from the petal of the flower while seeking nectar inside. Even though the hummingbirds are super light, it’s still a bit of too much for the petals to hold its body weight. So, it had to keep flapping its wings to stay afloat

The ruby throats were always hooked to the flowers… but they need some rest too after spending so much energy fighting with other hummers!

A rare bird showed up in Stillwater on Sreemala’s birthday! Of course, we went out with the goal of finding it! Luckily, we were successful and were able to get some nice shots. It was a Pomarine Jaeger which is a quite rare in this part of the country.

The jaeger was chilling on the bank right before leaving Stillwater for good

Bidding us good bye and giving us a final good look

We also grew some vegetables, including squash plants with delicious greens and flowers! We were so happy to look at this colorful Cucumber Beetle and admiring its beauty until we realized it’s a pest and harmful for our favorite squash plants. We were almost ready to get rid of it after the photoshoot!

A dainty Cucumber Beetle on one of our favorite wildflowers

Grasshoppers can also be annoying as they can eat up a lot of leaves, and we love our squash leaves! If you have never tried cooking squash (pumpkin) leaves, you most definitely should. It’s delicious! This one was in a group of grasshoppers who were feasting on our squash leaves, but the situation wasn’t too bad, so we let them stay. After all, we are taught to share food with others, right?

Pasture Grasshoppers mostly eat grass, but this one seemed to like some squash leaves too.

We saw many other grasshoppers during the summer and early fall, several of them quite handsome. Here are two such big guys…

An Obscure Bird Grasshopper cleaning one of its antennae using its foot. Those antennae are important tools for them!

A Carolina Grasshopper staying hidden in plain sight on the red soil of Oklahoma.

So long from Stillwater… We will be back with part 2 soon!