red, white and blueberries

red, white and blue berries --

summer tanagers peck open

the sweet juicy fruit

A pair of summer tanagers are feasting on our bumper crop of blueberries. Like me, they choose only the ripe blue orbs, not the unripe pale green or not-quite-ripe red ones. I pop the whole berry in my mouth but the tanagers peck each berry open, extract the juicy pulp and leave the skin hanging on the branch. The tanagers are also insect eaters, specializing in the stinging variety. I'm happy to trade berries for wasps, since the pair are doing a great job of keeping these insects away from our house. Today I spotted the all-gray female in one of the blueberry bushes but she flew off before I could get a photo.
          I read that red birds get their carnelian color from the carotenoids in berries. Someone did an experiment in which they fed a goldfinch red berries and it turned orange, while a cardinal on a diet of yellow berries turned pale. Now I wonder, why is it that the male summer tanager keeps his scarlet feathers when he eats blueberries, while the female remains gray when she eats red goumi berries?

checkerboard rows

checkerboard rows

of purple, blue and yellow 

plums in blue boxes

Saturday at the farmer's market. White tents shade produce and people. A band with a fiddle, guitar and bodhrán plays jigs and reels. Parents with kids, babes in bright red Radio Flyers, boys being boys, girls sitting and chatting, farmers weighing produce on scales. Each tent shelters the farm's specialty, many with free samples: potted or fresh cut flowers, plums in blue boxes, blueberries in plastic containers, crates of green beans, summer squash in cartons, bunches of carrots, beets and onions, heaps of corn on the cob, piles of tomatoes, jars of honey. All of the produce locally grown, fresh from farm to city.