There’s something about May

What was it now? Oh, yeah: it’s over. And in recognition of this, we have the month-end abstract.


Up early one morning exploring Our Hosts’ pond during our trip earlier this month, I took advantage of the morning twilight showing the water bowing under the trivial weight of the spider. And that’s all I’m gonna say because I apparently can’t type seven read more

Some quick closeups

Last night I did another check at the nearby pond, not just seeing how active the treefrogs were, but also looking for other, aquatic subjects. They weren’t hard to find, but my first surprised me a little.


This is a juvenile painted turtle (Chrysemys picta,) and unless I miss my guess, it’s this year’s brood, judging from the lack of ridges on the scutes read more

Damn noisy neighbors

… but I can cope with this kind of noise.

A few nights back, not too long after some long overdue rains, The Girlfriend and I went over to the pond to see what sunset was doing, and as the sky darkened… well, the video explains it better.


This was peak activity, but unfortunately the batteries in my video light were almost kaput, so more of the lighting is provided by the headlamp and read more

On this date 22


So it would appear that, fourteen years ago in 2006, I was visiting my family up in central New York, since this is mist rising off of Skaneateles Lake, one of the Finger Lakes in the center of the state – if you want to know how to pronounce that, saying, “skinny-AT-less” won’t earn you too many funny looks from the locals. It looks like a typical NY winter read more

Gotta be either a mantis or a frog

I’m in a rut, I know. And it’s gonna get worse.


This… is the look you receive when you hear someone’s name and make a pun on it, only they’ve been hearing the same pun since they were three and are wondering if the homicide judge will see it the same way.

Anyway, this green treefrog (Hyla cinerea) was perched on the oak-leaf hydrangea (Hydrangea quercifolia) read more

On this date 21


I couldn’t pass on opening the post with a rather bizarre image, could I? Don’t judge, you’d do the same thing in my shoes with the pressure on this way. It’s my homage to the cover of Watership Down. What you’re seeing, first of all, is from 2004, in my favorite snorkeling haunt on the Indian River Lagoon in Florida. This is a southern puffer 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

The last shuddering gasp

These are the final few photos from the brief trip further south, not really fitting any particular category so don’t expect a theme (like you normally do.) Mostly random, while still being in my deplorable style and subject matter.

While I did an earlier post regarding birds, this anecdote didn’t quite fit in. Our Host had been showing off the various nest boxes around their yard and read more

On this date 20


We’re back in 2004, in Florida, with the borrowed digital camera. I was maintaining a small saltwater aquarium in the simplest way possible, which was to get fresh water for it twice a week and run an aerator within, and that was about it. The residents cycled through, being returned to the Indian River Lagoon and being replaced by whatever I happened to find, with a few hardy read more

From the land of lumpy lizards


By that, I’m not referring to any of the arbitrary and silly boundaries like states, but the region where American alligators (Alligator mississippiensis) can be found, which runs from the coastal regions of the mid-Atlantic US across the southeastern and gulf areas, but more so the further south you get. For this post, we’re simply talking about the Savannah read more

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