Striped Hairstreak & bird puns

[Clay Taylor]

Found my First of the Year Striped Hairstreak (decent photo, too) at the Horse Hill Road (Westbrook) powerlines, right at the big pile of logs (Lenny's Obstacle Course).   Also present were many Great-spangled Fritillaries, a very nice Hoary Edge and a territorial Silver-spotted Skipper, a few Least Skippers, and lots of odes.

Also flushed a family group of Indigo Buntings - Mom, Pop and three fledglings.  Mom and Pop were quite excited, chipping and flying around me, while the kids kept the bushes between themselves and me.  That got me to wondering - what do you call a group of Buntings?  You know, like a Gaggle of Geese, a Murder of Crows, etc...

I finally decided that, it there was no proper term for it, we should refer to them as a Squeeze of Buntings (get it?.....Squeeze Bunt(ing).....like what the Orioles did to the Yankees the other day, heh, heh....???).   And then, parent Buntings that try a little too hard to defend their babies against a cat or Cooper's Hawk or Ford Taurus could then be called Suicide Squeeze Buntings!

OK, it's been a long week. 

 I'll try to send the Shoreline SBC results before I go to Austria on Saturday (Geez, there are a lot of Euro butterflies to study, as well as birds!).

Clay Taylor
Moodus, CT
ctaylor at att.net 
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