Visibly different, part 31


I have to confess that I started writing this a few weeks back, and then sat on it to hit the 20th anniversary (more or less) of this image, since it was taken sometime in August, 2002. I’d only been living in Florida for a few weeks then, and on wandering along the ocean in Indialantic, I found a starfish washed up on the sand, missing two arms. It was the first I’d read more

Profiles of Nature 49

By now, you’ve determined that there is no way to sneak a peek around the corner of a blog to see if a post really is here without it noticing you in return, so you might as well stop embarrassing both of us with even trying. It’s Thursday, we don’t miss deadlines, and we certainly aren’t inclined to have any mercy and give you a break. Just the thought of it makes us want read more

Some quick closeups

Last night I did another check at the nearby pond, not just seeing how active the treefrogs were, but also looking for other, aquatic subjects. They weren’t hard to find, but my first surprised me a little.


This is a juvenile painted turtle (Chrysemys picta,) and unless I miss my guess, it’s this year’s brood, judging from the lack of ridges on the scutes read more

About time to get out of the water

In late June, I spoke about some tadpoles occupying the backyard pond, which I’m reasonably certain were green frogs (Lithobates clamitans,) as well as catching a pair of Copes grey treefrogs (Hyla chrysoscelis) in “the act,” more or less. In the intervening time, both the adult and read more

Giant iridescent mosquitoes!

That… is a phrase that should become a new curse. Let’s start the ball rolling.

While I was working on the car yesterday, The Girlfriend’s Younger Sprog drew my attention to a giant mosquito that was sitting on the windshield, wondering if it was a crane fly. A close examination of the surprisingly cooperative insect lent weight to it being an actual mosquito, albeit a very large read more

A few more

These are just a few more images that I obtained in the past week, that I didn’t try to jam into the previous post. Instead, I’m jamming them in here!

I have photographed these peculiar blossom pods umpteen times in this state, and never figured out what they were. Finally, for this post, I started searching (try to imagine what kind of terms you put into a search engine for their appearance,) read more