It is unbelievably hot in the swamp these days, although it’s actually cooler in the swamp than on the lawn, thanks to the lovely trees and their shade. I’ve also been out at night looking at the stars and planets, and have had my eye on the Neowise comet. My telescope needs some work done on it, so I’ve been a little hampered as far as photographing things like Neowise, Jupiter, and Saturn, but I recently got a Google Pixel 4XL which has a night mode that allowed me to photograph the comet. I think the phone does a fairly good job with night photography and I’m looking forward to crisp fall and winter nights when I might be able to get a few shots of the Milky Way.

In the meantime, here is Neowise at around 9:45PM over the swamp. You can see the comet in the center of the photograph (if you squint, maybe).

On the same night, I tried to photograph Jupiter and Saturn, with a bit of the Milky Way. The summer humidity created a bit of a haze, but I managed to get a bit of a shot of those objects, as well.

Jupiter was just over the tallest tree on the horizon while Saturn was lower and to the left of Jupiter.

These are the first few photos I’ve tried with my Pixel 4XL and I’ve been pretty pleased with the results. In fact, I’m pretty pleased with the cell phone overall–I mainly use it as a cell phone, though–shocking, isn’t it?

In addition to astronomy, I’m still out there birding despite the sweltering heat (I have to carry two bottles of water with me: one plain ice water and the second one with added electrolytes). Most of the birds have “done their thing” and juvenile birds are everywhere, we still have a few determined pairs with late-season broods.

The White-eyed Vireos have been sitting in their nest with a great deal of determination and just a few days ago, four little chicks hatched.

The nest is in a small holly bush and only about three feet off the ground, so I sincerely hope the chicks make it and don’t fall prey to snakes, squirrels, or other predators.

The chicks will only be in the nest about two weeks before they fledge and once they become mobile, the chances of them all getting eaten are reduced greatly, even though individually, it’s still risky.

There are four hatchlings and they are as cute as can be. You can see how small they are when you realize that the big green thing shading them is a single holly leaf. They are pretty tiny.

I’ve also been super impressed with how good the parenting skills are of the Prothonotary Warbler. We’ve had several broods hatch around here, mostly in the swamp, but one brood in our yard. I’m seeing little family flocks of prothonotaries all over the swamp and the small flocks of juveniles are always accompanied by one of the adults. I managed to get a photo of the female adult (but unfortunately not the juveniles) as she was foraging with three of her chicks.

She was looking a little frazzled and had a particle of sand on one of her wings (you can see it in the photo) from foraging near the water line of one of the runs (creeks/streams) that goes through the swamp. The small family flocks peep softly to stay together and Mama here even stopped to feed one of the fledglings even though the juvenile was perfectly capable of feeding itself (and had caught a bug just about a minute before it managed to convince Mom to give it another snack).

Further into the swamp, the Yellow-crowned Night-herons are also tending nests of hatchlings. Again, it seems a little late in the year, but I’m always happy to see them. The photo above only shows two out of the five chicks in the nest–they all seem healthy although I often see them panting due to the heat. The parents of this brood seem unusually attentive–there is always an adult near the nest.

With the earlier nests, the adults didn’t seem nearly as attentive and didn’t seem to want to stay at/near the nest once the chicks got to be about the size of the ones above. I’m glad to see that the parents are nearby and I usually see a lot of blobs of regurgitated crayfish lacing the nest, which is how the adults feed the juveniles, so the young are getting good care.

The crazy Eastern Bluebirds have a third brood in the nesting box near our pond and there are four newly hatched chicks. I can’t believe the birds can stand it in the box in this heat, and I’m always seeing the female bluebird sticking her head out of the box and panting.

The young seem to be doing well, however, and I’m hoping this brood makes it despite the heat and snakes. The first brood was taken by a snake, but the second brood made it to fledging and I often see the juveniles around our front yard. I have high hopes that this third brood will also make it to fledging. To help them out in this heat, I’ve been running the sprinkler in the front yard in the evening. It really attracts the birds and I’ve seen both the adults and fledglings from previous broods taking advantage of it to cool off.

That’s about it for the most recent update from the swamp. I’ve got to take the dogs for their daily walk before they go nuts.

The dogs always get so impatient…