Today was my 8th and final visit for the month of July. I'm surprised I got up to 8 seeing as how how and muggy it has been this month. The rain just continues and this morning was wet again from the previous day's weather. There were plenty of birds out today and among others I saw Cardinals, Catbirds, Downy Woodpeckers, Goldfinches and a Green Heron. One bird in particular was doing it's best to avoid a photograph.
It was a common yellow-ish bird I've seen often, and in fact I remember incorrectly identifying it earlier as a Yellow Warbler. This one was hoping back and forth on the lower parts of cattail stems and I sat there for a long time before I was able to catch a decent photo. I noticed it has a faint eye-ring and mostly a yellow colored throat so I'm convinced now that it's a
female Common Yellowthroat. After I'd almost completed the north side, a young looking Doe popped out of the woods onto the trail and began walking right towards me.
I knelt down on one knee like I often do and it continued toward me stopping only just a few feet away. Her face looked to be peppered with ticks or something but upon looking closer at my photo I think they were engorged mosquitoes. This year has been especially bad for mosquitoes with all the rain. Sometimes I think they're bad enough to drive the Deer right out of the woods. I often keep an eye on the small Willow shrubs now for birds as I've seen just about every kind perched in them at one time or another. But today I noticed something else. Almost everywhere were pairs of these brown and green beetles. The green head is a shiny, iridescent emerald green.
It also looks like they eat the Willow as the leaves were chewed within close distance of every beetle. I looked them up and learned they are "Japanese Beetles." They are native to Japan and thought to have arrived in the U.S. in the 1900's. They've become a serious pest of roughly 200 different plants in America.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_beetle
It was a common yellow-ish bird I've seen often, and in fact I remember incorrectly identifying it earlier as a Yellow Warbler. This one was hoping back and forth on the lower parts of cattail stems and I sat there for a long time before I was able to catch a decent photo. I noticed it has a faint eye-ring and mostly a yellow colored throat so I'm convinced now that it's a female Common Yellowthroat. After I'd almost completed the north side, a young looking Doe popped out of the woods onto the trail and began walking right towards me. 
I knelt down on one knee like I often do and it continued toward me stopping only just a few feet away. Her face looked to be peppered with ticks or something but upon looking closer at my photo I think they were engorged mosquitoes. This year has been especially bad for mosquitoes with all the rain. Sometimes I think they're bad enough to drive the Deer right out of the woods. I often keep an eye on the small Willow shrubs now for birds as I've seen just about every kind perched in them at one time or another. But today I noticed something else. Almost everywhere were pairs of these brown and green beetles. The green head is a shiny, iridescent emerald green. 
It also looks like they eat the Willow as the leaves were chewed within close distance of every beetle. I looked them up and learned they are "Japanese Beetles." They are native to Japan and thought to have arrived in the U.S. in the 1900's. They've become a serious pest of roughly 200 different plants in America. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_beetle
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