Visibly different, part 14


Our opening image comes from 2005, from within the Sonora Desert exhibit in the NC Zoological Park in Asheboro, thus it counts as ‘captive’ and/or ‘habituated’ even though, like many birds, it had the run of a large arboretum area – your call on how to classify it, if it’s important. read more

Profiles of Nature 41


Nothing stops the relentless march of the Profiles of Nature! Though you could try paying us off – we’re not gonna rule that out…

This week we have Carol, Harvey, Vicki, and Lyle, a quartet of acrobats that go under the name of ‘The Flying Antimacassars,’ though no one has had the nerve to ask them why, or cared. They were hounded and forced into performing by their read more

Here be dragons. Tiny ones. And bugs

Did another trip to the NC Botanical Gardens yesterday, to see what could be found, and the answer to that is anoles. Lots of anoles.


I have noticed that each year, the representative numbers of certain species seem to fluctuate, or at least according to what I have been able to find, anyway. While the botanical gardens have always been a good place to find Carolina anoles (Anolis read more

On this date 33

We’re cheating a little here, but I said to myself, Why upload images that are identical to ones already uploaded? Which I’ve said a few times in the past, digging through the blog media library, but in this case, I’m sending you to a page in the main site gallery, because this black racer was taken on this date in 2008.

We go a little fartsy for 2011, with a tiny jumping spider read more

Podcast: Equipment

I realize that this isn’t exactly timely when it comes to the holiday season, but I can’t imagine there are a lot of people who are turning to me for guidance in what to purchase for christmas, so I refuse to feel bad about it (See? You can justify anything.) Regardless, I present just a few thoughts about equipment and perspective.

Walkabout podcast – Equipment

This image was shot read more

Beans & burritos, part one

You may well ask, what, exactly, is that title supposed to mean? Well, it refers to the idea that I don’t really do artsy stuff, so this must be fartsy stuff instead. Basically, just throwing down a bunch of recent photos for the sake of it – not everything has to have exposition.

This little guy might be the same green anole (Anolis carolinensis) seen in read more

The days of yore, part two

Okay, so, I had this idea a couple of weeks ago, to feature an image from the summer solstice on the day of the winter solstice – kind of a callback to nicer weather, and a reflection of that little archive list on the sidebar, right? Yeah, so, first, I had to stick to digital images, since over a decade of slides in my stock are only dated by the month and year I got them developed, so no read more

Hummer cam!

Did I excite the wrong kind of people with that title? Ah, well, too bad. Courtesy yet again of Jerry Coyne at Why Evolution Is True comes this live hummingbird webcam, and she has zeh babbies right now! That makes a nice subject for me to kick off National Wildlife Week.

You can get more of the details at the host website right here, including read more

Digital has its uses


Yesterday was definitely not the day to really be tackling this, but I spent a little time down at the North Carolina Botanical Garden in Chapel Hill, and still managed to get a couple of useful images while there. The sun was hiding behind either heavy haze or clouds while the temperature hovered in the high nineties, and the sweat read more