On this date 25


This week, we have entries from 2010, 2013, 2015, and 2016 – just to make it easier to fill out your scorecard. Our 2010 submission above is a cluster of stink bugs, lacking a common name (well, other than ‘stink bug’) but bearing the scientific name of Menecles insertus. read more

Bug fix

Normally, when you see those words, it means some techie details about software issues that are being corrected, but here, it’s nowhere near that exciting. Instead, we’re going to talk about breaking news on the arthropod front – cue triumphant newsreel music.


Just after sunrise the other morning, I was examining several of the plants in the yard and noticed that read more

In local news…


I finally got out and did a couple of shooting sessions, all local (meaning the front and back yards and the pond nearby,) so I have a few photos to post – no real theme, so these will be all over the place. The most recent is above, a very young eastern cottontail (Sylvilagus floridanus) sitting motionless in the back yard as I did a little nighttime exploring, about read more

On this date 18


So, listen: this time of year is mantis season, soon after the Chinese mantids (Tenodera sinensis) have hatched, and they’ve been a favorite subject of mine for a while now, so we might see a lot of these even in the posts from the past years’ photos – like this one. But c’mon, you can’t fault me for featuring this lovely alien read more

For the time being

What, exactly, does that phrase mean? I mean, we all know how it’s used, but how was it coined? Being what? Can time be anything else? Do we want to know how ‘idiom’ got its name?

Anyway, the point is, I’m going to be a little busy and I don’t know what I’ll be able to produce for a little while, so I’m throwing down (actually, I’m tossing diagonally) read more

On this date 16


Oh, cool! Our first entry from this date comes from 2009, and way down in Sanibel Island, Florida, on so-far-the-only trip The Girlfriend and I have taken together to that state (which we must rectify soon.) We kinda missed our timing on this, we meaning “you and I in regards to this post,” because a day earlier we, meaning “The Girlfriend and I in Florida,” read more

A post


I have found myself fairly busy for the past several days, but not in a way that can be reflected here too well, so with a few minutes to spare, I’m just doing a small update for my millions of imaginary followers, who have already flooded my inbox with imaginary e-mails asking me if I’m okay and when the hell I’m going to put up something new. This is read more

Big honkin’ bug post


That title’s an homage to a coworker of mine from history back, who described a spider in that manner and sparked a bizarre mental image…

So around Walkabout Studios, as I said earlier, are arranged several egg sacs (“oothecas”) of Chinese mantises (Tenodera sinensis,) specifically so I can photograph them in various life stages, including hatching. Along for the read more

Closer than last year

… or the previous one, for that matter.

I’d mentioned earlier that I’d primed the yard with egg cases of the Chinese mantis (Tenodera sinensis) – seven of them, to be exact – and this morning I found the first of them had produced progeny. Unfortunately, read more

Not through lack of trying


The topic for the day is “snow,” at least, anywhere in public among North Carolina natives. I honestly can’t say if I’m overstating or understating the anxiety that’s been present all I can say is, from a New Yorker’s standpoint, this barely counts as snow. The surfaces are too warm to retain it so the roads are only wet, maybe read more

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