Just gonna duck right between ya here

It has been a week without posts, which I don’t even do when I’m traveling, always having a couple of even token posts appear to keep from announcing that the house is empty. Yet I’ve been here in Walkabout Studios and the environs the entire time, just wrapped up in projects, to say nothing of it being ridiculously hot out there and not only is it uncomfortable to be read more

Visibly different, part 23


Our opening image today, a Chinese mantis (Tenodera sinensis,) comes from… I’m going to say 1990, a few months after having moved to NC from NY. I know it was taken with the Wittnauer Challenger (which produces rounded edges on the negative frames,) and was early, so no later than 1991. Long enough ago, anyway. This was most likely as close as I could get with read more

On this date 30


Much earlier in the year, I was noticing (and commented on, I believe) how the weather was showing distinct variability for the same date, but now, going through the archives is only reinforcing how sweltering it is at this time of year. I mean, I wasn’t expecting snow in July or anything, but with many of them I can remember how I felt while I was out shooting, and in most read more

Just because, part 30


I occasionally get the chance to snag a pic or two, but not a lot of time to write up anything at all about them, so I’ll present a couple of ‘Just because’ posts this week. In this case, it’s a cicada, of an unidentified species, that I found molting into final instar (reproducing adult phase) while attached to the tire of the car that I was working on. read more

Not the birds

We now come to that time of the month where we talk about things other than avians, and lucky us, I have a few such topics available from the buttload of pics that I got while on vacation in South Carolina. Let’s dive in, shall we?


On multiple occasions, during the hike back from the beach after doing my sunrise thing, I encountered a mellow little marsh rabbit (Sylvilagus read more

Right place, right time

Just to let you know, this is going to be a long post, mostly because of the number of vertical-format images, and there’s a good chance that you’re going to wear out the scroll wheel on your mouse (because you wouldn’t be so gauche as to surf this site on your smutphone or tablet of course.) This probably isn’t the best time to tell you that I’ve picked up a new sponsor read more

Too cool, part 28: Wholly molty!

Seriously, I really need to stop doing titles like that…

This is going to be the longest post on the blog. Not in terms of words, but in terms of images, since I am going to show a long sequence from the other evening, and they’re nearly all vertical format, so the linear dimensions of the post are going to be exceptional. This may result in some gaps between text blocks, so please excuse read more

Truly, a bug

While redoing some drainage channels around the house, something in the dirt seemed a little too undirtlike [spellcheck doesn’t like that word, but I’ve long since learned that spellcheck is bigoted] so I scooped it up. Lo, it was a cicada, the first I’ve seen in the earlier instar nymph form, the phase that stays underground for freaking years and feeds on tree sap.


Not read more

Coughing up a lung

Once again courtesy of Not Exactly Rocket Science comes an article about a rather bizarre (to us at least) factor in the process of arthropod molting: apparently, they also shed the lining of their lungs while they’re at it.

Now, this is a little bit different from what we might imagine (yeah, like discarding your entire skin at once to emerge bigger is nothing odd.) Insects – and arachnids, read more