It’s true only a few special people would not only notice details like this, but photograph it in fine detail. I’ll let you supply your own definition of ‘special’ for these circumstances…
In clearing out some areas of the yard the other day, I disturbed some wet leaves and wood pulp and exposed my friend here, obviously suited to a hidden and protected existence. I
Anyone is free to pick on me regarding my definition of ‘abstract’ for this one, and I won’t argue – it doesn’t really fit with my own definition. But it’s what I have from a month that included few choices for a month-end abstract. This fritillary butterfly, which might be a Speyeria hydaspe, went well against the streaked background, which
Cruising through the botanical garden early yesterday morning, the very first thing I happened across was something that I’ve, honestly, never spotted in ‘the wild’ before. Which is pretty surprising to me, considering how often I specifically go out not just into prime habitats, but actually looking for snakes. You can put this down to rotten observation powers if you
While I’ve been keeping an eye on the progress of the red-shouldered hawk chicks, I’ve been having difficulty recording it due to a lack of free time concurrent with decent weather – we’ve had way too much rain for my liking. Yesterday I finally got it together, and the hawks were happy to oblige me.
The chicks are getting quite sizable now, able to move about with almost
It seemed like any other day where I’d been neglecting my photo sorting duties and thus facing the daunting task of going through hundreds of images, but as they say, things can seem perfectly normal (if slightly guilty) yet suddenly turn dark and ominous. And of course, since I’d been putting this off, how much time has passed that could have made a bigger difference? How much farther
The hatched Chinese mantises (Tenodera sinensis) that I posted about earlier – and near-perpetually on this blog, really – have spread out across the front yard to some fairly remote locations remote, at least, for something that measures 10mm in body length. Above, one stalks among the leaves of a creeping jenny plant, while at left
Because you know we’ll be back to the arthropods soon enough…
All of these, by the way, came from the NC Botanical Gardens, just not on the same day. There are reptiles and amphibians to be found elsewhere of course, but the conditions in the gardens are pretty welcoming to them, and they have enough human contact to be less shy than normal.
On a fence where they’re
While I have a ridiculous number of images to sort through, mostly due to the hawks (I fire off a lot of frames to try and capture specifics of behavior as well as ‘something cute’) and I am behind on posting several photos of interest, this one jumped ahead of the stack for no good reason. I know, if I had to do this I could have gone with something much more appealing, but
There are quite a few photos that I’m trying to get around to posting, some of which I might simply throw out here with little explanation – I know, shocking, right? Right now, however, I’m going to post a brief update on the red-shouldered family.
Previously I mentioned that I had never seen the hawks bringing in what was reputed to be their preferred food, which is/are frogs.
… or something like that. I’ve lost track anymore.
But this is from today, and it’s colorful, so it fits. And it probably goes without saying, but those flowers are pretty small, maybe a little over a centimeter wide, so the fly is eentsy. Not as eentsy as this, but still insignificant. Except to its mother, I’m sure.
