End of April 2015 - Garden Birds are Nesting and a Broad-Headed Skink

This weeks post finds a cardinal family visiting the garden.  Below is the male.

Here is the female cardinal.  I'm still looking for the nest - I have seen both of them around here a lot.

A female ruby throated hummingbird visited the Salvia Greggii which is in bloom now.

You can see the yellow pollen on her beak. And off she goes.

We found a new herp in our garden!  Unfortunately it is deceased but I was excited anyway to see a new critter.  It is a broad-headed skink.  Here is a link telling some information about it.  http://www.herpsoftexas.org/content/broad-headed-skink

I still have bearded irises blooming.

The Carolina Wren mother continues to flit about the garden.  And guess what?  I found her nest!

She laid her eggs in the petunia basket on the front porch.  I've been drenching those poor little eggs with water for the last several weeks.

I finally noticed her fly out of the basket and when I checked, I felt their sweet downy little heads.  One of the eggs has not hatched yet.

When we shown the flashlight at them, they raised their little heads in unison looking for food from their Mama.

The The Red Hot Pokers are in full bloom now. 

The hummingbirds love these flowers too.

I have a small birdhouse on my back porch - and look what I found in there -  four house sparrow chicks! 

Here is the male with his black chin coming in for a feeding.

He knows I'm watching so he is very wary to land on the house -see him on the right?

I'm closing this post with a word about the vegetable garden.  Here are pictures of our tomato plants.  We found a new way to tie them up - this is an experimental year.  We are using fence posts and twine.  See link for more information.
http://www.rodalesorganiclife.com/garden/cat%E2%80%99s-cradle-tomatoes

And finally, here is a picture of the artichokes.  I planted them last year and they survived snow and ice to come back again this year.