Just two today – or is it three? How does one count these accurately? I don’t want to get in trouble with the IRS…
This one comes from the same session as these, but I didn’t notice this detail until I had brought the image up at full resolution to see if it retained
… that it was Earth Day, but I’d gone out to the neighborhood pond for the first time in weeks, just to see what was going on, and so I have some pics for it anyway.
The turtles were out of course, but it was more necessary this time, because yesterday and last night it had gotten pretty cold. So we have yellow-bellied sliders (Trachemys scripta scripta):
I have a more
Was checking over the potted plants out front of Walkabout Estates this morning, and spotted this tiny guy.
Now, I have several mantis egg cases/oothecas scattered in various locations and have been keeping an eye on them, and saw no evidence of hatching, but obviously this one came from somewhere – I might have missed the hatching while away, and subsequent winds eradicated
Plurals among the animal kingdom are always fun, and occasionally up for grabs. ‘Prey’ is a collective term, but bears no relation to ‘osprey,’ and so the plural of that is ‘ospreys,’ even though I’m probably none too consistent on that aspect myself. The plural of ‘ibis,’ as I recently checked, can be either ‘ibis’ or ‘ibises,’
For reasons unknown, I never went looking for these after returning from the trip, but I also never had any such images pop up anywhere in my usual haunts, so I suspected that no one got anything worth keeping. Until now, that is.
Astronomy Picture of the Day features someone who actually got comet 12P/Pons-Brooks
Initially, I find it no surprise that this species has only been featured here once, since I don’t recall seeing them often at all – perhaps only at this very location, which is Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge in (wait for it) Merritt Island, Florida. This is a glossy ibis
Well, okay, that might be giving a slightly overblown idea of the efforts, since all but one of these images were taken within seven meters of the front door here at Walkabout Estates. The one exception? Within seven meters of the back door. But I have a few spring photos handy and I’m gonna use them (in between more raptor images, so there’s a dual purpose.)
We’ll start with one
The Insuperable Mr Bugg (who has abandoned his blog and now relies on [urk!] social media, so you can only see his photos if he’s your ‘friend’ or whatever, while I welcome everyone) and I went down to Jordan Lake for sunrise yesterday, and it performed as typical for this area, which is to say, not very well. Colors peaked a little
These two are small, so it’s no surprise that I only have one example of images of them, though I think I might have seen another last year when I didn’t have the camera in hand. This is a type of Syrphidae, or the hover fly family, known only as Orthonevra nitida, and the eye pattern is apparently specific to the eastern half of the continent.
Why do the eyes look like this?
I don’t know who comes up with these holidays, I really don’t – it’s makes little sense to celebrate something so banal. Why don’t we have National Spaghetti Day or Stay Away From Seattle Day while we’re at it?
[Oh. We do.]
But anyway, today/yesterday is/was Encounter Extraordinary/Rotten Luck Day, and since there