Remember this?
My mystery-berry bush from my "My World Tuesday" post?
Well, it seems I was looking at it too late in the season. I should have been looking at it in the spring, and observing the flowers instead of the berries. This, folks, is a honeysuckle. Yep.
Lonicera tatarica "Arnold Red" by name. Its spring flowers are fuchsia-colored and quite lovely, if I'd ever taken time to look at them.
My other honeysuckle is much different. It blooms and blooms and blooms. Plus, it is a vine, not a bush, and I don't remember seeing any berries on it at all.
Its leaves are quite distinctive and quite unlike the Arnold Red ones.
Who knew?
Certainly not I.
Besides, on Tuesday evening, I was outside at dusk pruning the honeysuckle vine as fast as I could because its flimsy arch was about to fall over, at last. It has been leaning for quite some time. Here's a picture of it, below, already pulling to one side, in 2009. Fortunately for the skinny old arch, but unfortunately for the Lonicera sempervirens pictured above, I cut off enough to prevent a crash. Whew, because I'd hate to have anything, even anything that inoffensive-looking, fall and hit the dog. Or me.
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© Photos by Kay Davies |
This still leaves me with one mystery left to solve: the brown and black bird pictured with my "I can't comment on blogs" problems just before my "SkyWatch Friday" post today. So, if anyone recognizes this bird (bigger than an American Robin, smaller than a pterodactyl — okay, smaller than a pigeon, maybe the size of a really cute crow) please tell me its name.
We saw it in the zoo at Florida's Busch Gardens, but you know how zoos are, they're no indicator of a bird's usual haunts. However, it was loose, not enclosed, so if it flew off to Tampa Bay, it would probably survive at least long enough for Dina of
Dina's City Wildlife Adventures to photograph it, although maybe it might not stay to raise a family.
