Just once, part 45

I decided to do this one, since it was just a couple days past a year ago that I snagged this shot.


Okay, yes, I’ve featured Carolina anoles (Anolis carolinensis) here a billion times, and there will be more before the end of the week even. But I’ve only featured, and seen, one with a forked tail just once in my life, so this counts. And believe me, read more

Intermission, unnumbered

Way too many numbered posts in here…

Anyway, a couple of recent pics to break things up slightly, with little exposition.


I was out exploring around the edges of the pond out back several days ago and found this guy, who was nice enough not to move while I held the camera down to its level and shot blind. This is a pickerel frog (Lithobates palustris,) that I would read more

Don’t miss this

The idiocy of Daylight Saving Time is upon us again, or at least it was early this morning, and while smutphones and computers are generally on top of things now, you are likely aware of how many little clocks around the house are not: the alarm clock, the stove and microwave, the grandfather clock… and of course your camera. Sure, maybe this matters little, but if you’re read more

They know

We had one batch of trick-or-treaters tonight, the first Halloween in the new house – we’d been alerted that the neighborhood never saw too many, and we decided to forego the All Hallows Read thing this year because we didn’t feel like packing away the collected books. But once we read more

Scaring October off

I’m later than normal, but it’s still the end of the month, so we can still have the end-of-month abstract. And I even have a couple of specific attempts, all from yesterday when I had a few minutes. Let’s see here, we have:


I believe I mentioned, but Walkabout Estates Plus has a bunch of bald cypress (Taxodium distichum) trees, right in the back forty, read more

Just once, part 44


This one’s kind of curious, not because of its appearance, since it only looks like this because it’s newly fledged, just out of the nest. No, it’s because I can’t imagine why the species has only been seen here once. This is a white-breasted nuthatch (Sitta carolinensis,) and as such, is common everywhere I’ve lived, and usually not too hard read more

Another milestone in photography

Or to be more specific, another milestone to photographers, because it doesn’t really impact photography in any significant way. But today is the birthday of Patois Ferndiddler. known far and wide (for a given definition of those, anyway,) as the inventor of the neck strap.

Ferndiddler’s innovation came along in that crucial time period between photographers no longer being able to afford read more

What’s the right thing?

So it was a bit of an amphibious day yesterday, meaning that’s what I was finding around Walkabout Estates Plus. We’ll start with the greenhouse:


While, as I said before, the property is absolutely overrun with anoles, they tend to be dry and not leave any evidence of their passing, so while I have found nothing conclusive within these strange, faintly muddy markings read more

Just once, part 43

I find it a little amusing right now that, during the house closing thing when I knew we’d be busy, I set up several posts ahead of time to prevent any noticeable lapses in my posting “schedule,” but for the past month or so have had almost nothing to continue filling in, naively (or is that naïvely?) thinking that I’d be able to fill in here and there. It is to laugh. Seriously, read more

Just once, part 42

It’s been a while since we’ve had a mammal, hasn’t it? That’s because I have very few candidate mammals in the Just Once list, and too few mammals overall, really. But since the posts have been lean, we’ll have a video for this one.

Those are Asian small-clawed otters (Aonyx cinereus,) and were found at the NC Aquarium at Fort Fisher, a new brood that had hatched read more

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