Been a while since we had arthropods

I think it has, anyway – I’m not going back to check, and this is what I have to feature regardless. Could have posted this Saturday night, if it hadn’t been for an extended phone call.

Atop a potted hydrangea bush on the back deck I spotted this little guy:


Nothing remarkable, not very big (about 5-7mm body length,) doing nothing in particular. I can only tell you read more

Brief public appearance

I ventured out today, partially to get some exercise, partially to see what there might be to photograph, but mostly to see if I could find any mantis egg cases. I was completely foiled in that primary goal, not spotting even one, but I snagged a handful of photos, including some most unexpected, so not a total loss. But yes, the quest for egg cases goes on…

For now, we have what can be found read more

Profiles of Nature 31


You tell us, which is most horrid: The dread of the impending Profiles post, or the content that exceeds your worst imagination?

Doesn’t matter, really – we only ask to try and sound like we care. Today we meet the lovely and talented Zlatina: singer, dancer, actress, writer, and budding politician, along with her husband Wyeduck, who’s had a small part in two bombed read more

Triumphant return

… or something.

I’m back from my escape room adventures, which have been greatly exaggerated, but that’s what you’d expect from someone who blew the post title twice (should have been Profiles of Nature, and we’re only up to 28.) Good thing I haven’t paid him…

Anyway, it was another trip, and I’ll provide a photo to let you guess where this read more

Profiles of Nature 15


This week we shout out, “Hi!” from a safe distance to Gwendolyn – not because of any fear on her part or ours, but because she has wicked hay fever and this is as close as she’s coming to the outside air during this time of year you’d be the same way if a single pollen grain was damn near the size of your nostril. Gwendolyn is a bikini read more

Do svidaniya, August!

Really, the month’s pickings for abstract images is slim, even for my liberal and imprecise definition of the word (‘abstract,’ not ‘month,’) so we have this little number. But I may get some shooting done today, so perhaps I’ll have an addendum post show up later on, because this is embarrassing.


I’m identifying this as a smooth sumac tree read more

Always with the drama


As the Chinese mantises have been molting into final instar, which means reproducing adult phase, they have abandoned the plants with smaller leaves and hiding spots, relinquishing them to the smaller, later developing Carolina mantises (Stagmomantis carolina.) And of course, among the prime choices for these are the butterfly bushes (Buddleia davidii,) which produce read more

On this date 20


We’re back in 2004, in Florida, with the borrowed digital camera. I was maintaining a small saltwater aquarium in the simplest way possible, which was to get fresh water for it twice a week and run an aerator within, and that was about it. The residents cycled through, being returned to the Indian River Lagoon and being replaced by whatever I happened to find, with a few hardy read more

Just because, part 29


Not enough time to research this bush to find out what it is – it appears to be a variety of holly to me, but that’s all I’m permitted to tell you. This didn’t fit in with the other images I have stacked up awaiting a more detailed treatment, so it appears here without further exposition. But aren’t those berries cool looking?

Per the ancient lore, part 32


This week, we’re doing Birds, and have what is probably the most birds that I have captured in any single photo. Granted, it’s not a murmuration of starlings, which can number several thousand in a huge cloudlike flock, but it’s still an appreciable number, you have to admit. This is in Merritt read more

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