Amazing picture! Wonder if any of the ones coming to my feeder now are juvie males? I gotta try to get a picture of them in the morning when the sun would be on them and the camera can capture the detail a bit better.

The black specks are worm poo. As far as getting rid of them....if you have time in the morning, check the undersides of leaves for tiny sparkly round things attached...those would be moth eggs, most likely. If you get rid of those you'll have prevented the hatching of more worms. The least toxic (to people and plants and animals)solution to any caterpillar problem is BT spray. I am going to misspell it, but it's a liquid with bacillus thurengesis in it. These are bacteria that will kill the caterpillar about 24 hours after they take a bite of the leaf. Assuming they do so as baby caterpillars, you won't see much damage, and eventually the population will drop off to just a few every now and then. Follow the directions on the bottle. It is supposed to be safe to harvest same day. I still rinse my maters well, just to be on the safe side. BT is generally considered acceptable by most organic gardeners...(certainly not all). Another thing you can do is to encourage birds to pick off the insects and worms...but if you do, you'll need to pick your maters at first blush and let them ripen in a window indoors.

This isn't the first Bald Eagle I've seen but all of my sightings have come within the past two years. The Eagles are here as a result of a stocking program. According to the woman who rented us our boat this one is probably one of a mated pair who nested close to the lake last year. I grew up in this area 50's and 60's and neither I or anyone else I knew had ever seen one. I guess they were wiped out through a combination of idiots with guns and the widespread use of DDT. This IS the first time I've seen one when I wasn't driving or standing in the middle of a trout stream with no camera to be had.

This is actually a gull with something in its bill. Can't quite get a read on the species. There are some massive gulls out there (Herring, Great Black-backed). This bird is likely an immature gull as it has dark markings all along the underwings and a dark tail. Eagles' body, tail, and wings are all shaped differently than a gull's. Notice the slim, pointed wings on this bird. Also, juvenile/immature Bald Eagles are mostly brown. This bird is mostly white with a dark tail. In a raptor (eagle or Osprey), the massive yellow talons would be visible underneath the bird. If any gull-savvy folks can ID the species, I thank you in advance. This post was edited by TMFF on Sun, Aug 25, 13 at 19:30