"Don't Pass Me By"

 I like my hobby of photography, and I often visit local Parks, Wetlands and Zoos to capture most of my animal photos, but sometimes my own yard can be filled with opportunities; Just Don't Pass Me By.

My home in Melbourne Florida is a corner lot with Elbow Creek in the back. Therefore, I only have one neighbor's house. The Creek makes for a lot of interesting visitors from the animal kingdom, and my bird feeder brings in even more traffic. Some of that traffic is unwanted.

Here we have one of the Gray Squirrels that like to eat lots of the bird feed I put out. Here is one of the furry rats sitting in the bottlebrush tree, which also brings some visitors.

Another common visitor I have are the Blue Jays. Once in a while I put out some peanuts for the squirrels, but I have found that the Jays love them too. I usually throw out a dozen at a time, and the first Blue Jay will grab his peanut and then sit in the tree calling for the other Jays to come.

I have planted some milkweed to attract Monarch butterflies, but I actual get more of the Gulf Fritillary. stopping by. They have black spots on the top of their wings and white spots on the underside. Beautiful!

The Banded Hairstreak was a new one for me. The head is on the left and the fake head is on the right. This was taken on the bottlebrush shrub/tree.

One of the plants I have growing is Confederate Jasmine which attracts bees and butterflies. This Eastern Bumblebee was enjoying the pleasant aroma of the white flower.

Honeybees like my home because I have lots of plants and other flowering things. This is actually a weed flower the Western Honey Bee is digging into.

In my backyard, I have been having a large European Rabbit visiting (or maybe living). I like this shot because it sat up and you could see the prominent ears.

This is an invasive species that I do not want around, an Agama. It is about 12-14 inches long and very fast. I was seeing it for a few weeks but I have not seen it for over a month. I hope it is gone.

My backyard rabbit headed decided he wanted to try some of the bird seed in the front yard. I decided to throw it a carrot, which it did like and took it with him.

This is a male House Sparrow on my bird feeder.

And a Northern Cardinal...

And a Red-bellied Woodpecker...

This was the first time I had seen this bird, a Red-headed Woodpecker. It was very quick and hard to get a good picture. I think he was saying "Cheese". The date was June 1.

Another first for me on June 3, a Tufted Titmouse. Now I have pictures of Boobies and a Titmouse.

The feeder got real busy with House Finches. Some of the males have a reddish head while others have a yellowish head. Not sure if rival gangs or just the diet.

Here is a female Northern Cardinal and a Mourning Dove. I through more food on the ground that the feeder since the doves cannot land on the feeder.

In the back, in Elbow Creek, I recently had some West Indian Manatees frolicking around. There are three or four in this picture, just ten feet from my yard.

The frisky manatees brought out this Green Heron who was checking out the activity.

These are pictures from just the last three months. I guess I need to create a spreadsheet of animal visits at BJ's home. 

About Title

I always liked this song...

"Don't Pass Me By" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles from their 1968 double album The Beatles (also known as the "White Album"). It was the first solo composition written by drummer Ringo Starr.

Starr first played the song for the other Beatles soon after he joined the group in August 1962. During an interview, Starr commented on the songwriting process, saying: "I wrote 'Don't Pass Me By' when I was sitting round at home. I was fiddling with the piano – I just bang away – and then if a melody comes and some words, I just have to keep going. It was great to get my first song down, one that I had written. It was a very exciting time for me and everyone was really helpful, and recording that crazy violinist was a thrilling moment".