Shuffling off his mortal coil

There is a reason, perhaps, why these birds are almost extinct:

The unlucky photographer is Mark Carwadine, who you might remember from an earlier book review, and of course Stephen Fry leaping catlike to his aid. You might be puzzled as to why Carwadine, um, held still and thought of England, but read more

Odd memories, part four

Every once in a while, some random event in my life makes me remember an encounter from, wow, over 20 years ago now. It sits indelibly in my mind as do those things that must certainly be of some radical importance, and it only remains upon me to gain the understanding of what this importance must be.

A friend, whom I shall simply call, “Wendy,” since that is coincidentally her name, read more

Cleanliness…


Phil Plait over at Bad Astronomy, in recognition of Caturday, posted a photo of one of his icks, so I had to throw up (heh!) this recent photo that I took.

I’ve never had an issue with mantises, and can usually handle them without too much difficulty. This one stopped for a quick brush-up while wandering on The Girlfriend’s hand – the pink form you see at lower left is her thumb read more

Oh, for…


This is what I get for walking around without a lenscap on, ready for action. Swung the camera through a spiderweb without realizing it. Lovely pattern, isn’t it?

Spider webbing usually takes lens cleaning fluid to get off (I know this because I have had jumping spiders leap onto the lens to run around,) but I lucked out this time. The rim of the lens actually suspended the web across it, so read more

Even weirder

Recent downpours have kept the amphibians happy, which means I encounter at least one a day. Sometimes the encounters are closer than I’d like.

I have to draw you a picture here, so you understand what happened. Maybe. It’s still hot outside, so my clothing is loose shorts. In order to get decent portraits of this Southern Cricket Frog (Acris gryllus gryllus), I had to be in read more

Groovy!

I found this little bugger sitting on a shirt I’d left outside near a light. This is an Ailanthus Webworm Moth (Atteva punctella) and my lighting here doesn’t do it justice, since the colors, in bright sunlight, are iridescent and the dark patches are actually navy blue. The reason you’re not seeing it here is that bright sunlight also makes them wander quickly out of read more

Summer trip, the wild ones


Lest you get the impression that all I could get photos of during our recent trip were captive animals, I feel obligated to show off the beasts captured au naturel – which actually means “naked” I think, which also applies, but isn’t exactly what I meant. Anyway…

The NC Aquarium at Fort Fisher features read more

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