Mixed blessings

I had a post in draft form wherein I mentioned that I was keeping my eye on the egg case of the Chinese mantises (Tenodera aridifolia sinensis,) figuring it was due to erupt at any time. This morning, that post was ruined.

I was just about to head off to meet with a student when I took a last look at the egg case, and found it almost literally dripping with newborn mantids. I quickly got the camera read more

Too cool, part 22: Your Inner Fish on PBS

Damn, this is what comes from being out of the loop as much as I am. While I never hear about what every chuzzlewit celebrity is up to (which is a major plus,) I also don’t hear about promising new programs in time to give adequate notice. Case in point: Your Inner Fish, airing tonight on PBS.

That name should sound familiar, considering that I reviewed the read more

Small improvements

About a week ago, I noticed that another of The Girlfriend’s Younger Sprog’s flowers was of the type that opens each morning (when the conditions are right,) and started planning to try again to capture this. Naturally, the weather went to yuck for the next few days after that, but I watched read more

More true than true

I am contrite over not posting much (and the complaints are pouring in,) but between several projects, bad sinuses, and no motivation to write, those last two largely being related, I just haven’t been able to get anything out. I have a few things in draft form, just not too close at the moment.

Meanwhile, zefrank read more

Rediscovered


While skimming through images in my folders, I came across this pair taken back in 2012, and decided to feature them to appease all of the people who started coming here because of the bugs, who now have nothing to see during the cold months. You haven’t been forgotten.

On the spearmint flowers this butterfly, likely a pearl crescent (Phyciodes tharos,) was holding a little too still read more

Man against nature

There’s nothing particularly deep about this one (and I hear you wondering how that makes it different from my other posts, and I’m ignoring you,) but it’s just a perspective that, it seems, too many people fail to grasp.

There is a surprisingly common concept of “man against nature” that keeps popping up, not just from asinine reality shows, but routinely in outdoorsy read more

Spring and equinox and all that jazz

Shocked as I am to report it, the calendar event of the vernal equinox and the weather coincided quite well – the skies cleared and the temperature got into the twenties (or the seventies, if you prefer,) so I did indeed get out to chase a few spring subjects. It was exceedingly few – it’s still a little early for spring in North Carolina, and more so with the temperature fluctuations read more

A thousand words


I think this is the probably the best single image representation of this winter’s weather that I’m likely to achieve. I never spotted this winter aconite flower before the freezing rain came, but was lucky enough to see it afterward.

Not quite as much rain this time, so no issues, though I’m pretty sure I heard a nearby transformer blow last night. But we’re not read more

First mud

The other day, with the warm weather assuring us that it was here to stay (dishonestly, I must add,) I donned shorts for the first time to meet with a student and go out seeking the first real signs of spring to a nature photographer, which is generally wildlife in search of booty. While I had earlier been hearing the evidence of the critters pictured here, I had yet to go down to their typical read more

The fine line

Out in some states in the western US, places where sparse plants compete with rock and Star Trek villains for attention, there can be found a thin grey line between sedimentary layers. This line, an abrupt change in the composition of the sandwiching rock above and below, is a visible remnant of one of the most recent world-changing events, an actual border between geologic periods. It is, to be read more

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