A handful of pond stuff

Just some images from a few relatively recent trips to the neighborhood pond. I’m not sure if I mentioned, but while over there several days back without the camera in hand, I spotted a green heron that was far smaller than typical, and I’ve been trying to get a decent photo of it since. Or even see it again, which hasn’t yet happened. But while attempting this, I’ve been read more

Gotta stop planning


Yes, it’s World Turtle Day, still for a little while anyway, and I did indeed get out chasing turtles – in two locations, even! Yet, I did not quite accomplish what I was hoping for.

Let’s start with the actual, bona fide turtles from today, which wasn’t too impressive. The yellow-bellied slider (Trachemys scripta scripta) above doesn’t quite count, because read more

Tripod holes, part 8


N 35°59’9.88″ W 79°12’25.05″ Google Earth Location

[Doing something a little bit different this time: I’m still not sure that the old Google Earth Placemark thing works anymore, but when I had a system glitch that appeared to have borked my Linux install*, I reinstalled with an upgraded version, which eliminated too many of my programs, and when I read more

New York (plus): Not the birds

On this recent trip, I went to (meaning, stopped at specifically) New Jersey, New York, and Ohio I went through three times as many states as that, though if I could have avoided that I would’ve. Driving was pretty much a necessity – flying wouldn’t have cut it, but I can’t say how many kilometers I actually did, because I didn’t bother noting read more

Mason Farm 2: Arachnidy


We now return to Mason Farm Biological Reserve, only not really because all these photos were taken during one visit that’s already days past now, so all we’re doing is seeing more photos – vacation slides from your creepy neighbor. And as the name implies (well, outright announces,) it’s gonna be spider heavy.

Part of this is because, late in the season and with chilly nights, read more

Order! Order!

If I could effectively communicate the mental turmoil that I’m going through right now, the seething internal struggle, with mere words, I would, but I sincerely doubt that you’re understanding it on an emotional level. However, with at least two posts in the pipes regarding the South Carolina trip, I’m not only going to talk about photos obtained after said trip, I’m read more

It’s been a bit turtley lately

Back a couple of weeks ago, I featured a teaser image from a recent outing, one that I’m finally getting back to – but in the interim, we did that trip to the beach, which only added to the pattern that had been established. I don’t honestly think there’s anything more than coincidence at work here, but I’ll take advantage of it all the same.

The last outing that I made read more

April deserves three

Actually, there’s no particular reason why April should have three end of the month abstracts, except that a) I had three, and b) April 30th is National Do It Thrice Day (what some people with filthy minds call the “3X” day.) The only stipulation to the holiday is, it has to be something that you do routinely, but not repeatedly. Which ruled out me posting bug pictures…


read more

Scooped

I had another session with the immutable Mr Bugg yesterday, and I figured he’d be trying to scoop me on posting, but here we are. More importantly, I know he can’t show off any images of my subject here, because I encountered it after I dropped him off.

I spotted this common snapping turtle (Chelydra serpentina) heading out from an ornamental pond across the sidewalk as I drove read more

Let’s take a herpetology break

Because you know we’ll be back to the arthropods soon enough…

All of these, by the way, came from the NC Botanical Gardens, just not on the same day. There are reptiles and amphibians to be found elsewhere of course, but the conditions in the gardens are pretty welcoming to them, and they have enough human contact to be less shy than normal.


On a fence where they’re read more

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