This image comes from 2011, when I happened upon the egg sac/ootheca of a Chinese mantis (Tenodera sinensis) sporting the newly-hatched young in a local park. The darkness of their eyes, I was later to determine, showed that they’d hatched out within the past several hours, and their proximity to the egg sac indicated that it was probably within the past 3 or so.
Category: Nature
Living in the past III
Today we have an image posted in 2010, the first of the ‘Just Because’ images back when I suspected that it might become an ongoing thing (present count is 50 such posts.) However, it’s even older than that, coming from my saltwater aquarium in Florida back in 2004.
Living in the past II
Once again, our selection hails from 2009*, but this is likely the last from that year, since my posts were initially quite thin, and most of the images smaller. I happened upon this little scene entirely by paying attention to my hearing, catching the rustle near my feet
Nein, November
Hah, get it? Because ‘November’ actually means, ‘Ninth Month,’ since it used to be, until Julius Caesar introduced a new, slightly more accurate calendar and had to add two months to it so that Groundhogs Day would keep falling in February, and he liked the summer so he put the extra months in the middle and named them after himself and his Shetland pony Augustus.
Okay, that’s
Busy bee
The image above, naturally, needs no explanation, because you certainly should recognize it if you are a decent human being – you’re honoring the holiday just like the rest of us. But for all the insolent and sulky teens out there, this is residual pollen – specifically, the pollen of lemon trees – the stuff that remained behind on the paint brush after I
Profiles of Nature 54
Life isn’t fair, and it’s not even well-balanced. We can’t try to get philosophical and consider it a test – that’s just lame. We’re here with yet another Profile after we thought they were dead and gone, with no dramatic, heroic denouement to occur. Deal.
Today we meet Hrisovalantis (‘Hrisovalantisbusbyberkeleydomperignon’ to his
Not perfectly clear
Was on the way past and stopped at Jordan Lake yesterday at sunset, even though it looked as promising as always, which means, “Not at all.” True to form, the sun set without a cloud in the sky, leaving nothing to produce nor capture any colors, but as it dropped still lower, the bare hints of high-altitude humidity began to show through faint crepuscular rays. I won’t
Make-believe
It’s cold out there, so let’s pretend it’s nice and balmy, and to assist this I provide a summer shot, a big one.
This is from 2009, and is actually three images stitched together vertically. Curiously, it looks like I was using a faster shutter speed for the topmost image because the water isn’t blurred as much there, but this isn’t true – all
Those ugly signs
Nobody likes getting old, which means we deny the signs too often, trying to pretend it’s not happening to us, or not as fast as it is for others. But occasionally the evidence rears up and attempts to bite our noses off.
Back in August I was on an outing and spotted several snakes, considering myself pretty sharp-eyed for finding them, and featured the images herein. Yet just as I was going
Visibly different, part 46
Our opening image comes from 2004, in Florida, the territorial display of the brown anole (Anolis sagrei.) That big sail under its chin, called a dewlap, is only displayed when a male anole is marking its territory, typically when another is nearby, though I’m unsure if there can also be a sexual element to it. What I’m drawing attention to here, however, is