{"id":17181,"date":"2015-07-27T22:39:53","date_gmt":"2015-07-28T02:39:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/?p=17181"},"modified":"2015-07-27T22:39:53","modified_gmt":"2015-07-28T02:39:53","slug":"just-some-recent-ones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/2015\/07\/just-some-recent-ones\/","title":{"rendered":"Just some recent ones"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"close
While I have a handful of photos from the past week or so, there isn’t a whole lot to say about them, so I’m mostly just going to throw them up here without a lot of exposition. Right at the moment, I have not identified the dragonfly above, which was hanging around the front garden for a few days being cooperative and photogenic, but I do have to draw attention to the eyes, where there is a difference in density of the ommatidia between the portions that face up and the rest – my best guess is that the top ones (red & green) are only used for detecting threats, while the others (blue) are for homing in on prey and so must have more precision.<\/p>\n

\"CopesThe other night, a Copes grey treefrog (Hyla chrysoscelis<\/em>) was found clinging to the stem of a cherry tomato plant on the deck, producing a pose that seemed to be evocative of something<\/em>, but I haven’t pinned down what – perhaps I should hold a caption contest (you might as well send one in – with the dearth of comments you’re pretty much guaranteed to win something.)
<\/p>\n

\"CopesI am identifying this as a Copes grey treefrog, but visually, they are impossible to tell apart from a common grey treefrog;<\/strong> the reason I offer this identification with such supreme and unflagging confidence is that, from the calls that I hear during the rainy nights, this is the only species that seems to be in the area. Copes have a higher-pitched call<\/a>, possibly from sliding down slippery tomato stems. The underside shot, which I was obligated to obtain, doesn’t have half of the expressiveness of the one above, but shows off the clutching posture much better.
<\/p>\n

\"Sycamore
A few weeks back I found a couple of examples of a sycamore tussock moth caterpillar (Halysidota harrisii<\/em>) and did a short photo session, more from the standpoint of adding to the stock than for anything else, though I suspected it was one of the stinging variety of caterpillars and hoped to be able to photograph the venom spines. I was unsuccessful, perhaps because it is not actually a stinging variety. But while doing this, I did capture a fabulous pose, indicating that this might be a singing<\/em> variety instead.<\/p>\n

\"Sycamore
I needed those to lead in to the next, which is the fate of one of the caterpillars, though unlikely one of the ones I photographed.<\/p>\n

\"sycamore
The white Twinkies on its back are evidence of some member of the Ichneumonoidea<\/em> superfamily, basically braconid wasps, albeit very small ones. More details can be found here<\/a>, though almost certainly a different species. Long story short:<\/strong> with all of the chrysalises (or chrysalides, whatever plural you like) opened up, this specimen is effectively dead, emptied out from the inside.<\/p>\n

\"crabAnd finally, it’s not a complete week without spiders, so I offer a subtle crab spider hanging out on a pokeweed blossom. This one is considerably larger than last year’s<\/a>, though still barely noticeable – in fact, well-nigh invisible unless you’re specifically looking. The pokeweed has been just about the only thing blossoming in the yard that could attract the crab spiders, which is a shame because I happen to like them – I’m going to have to plant some prime flower species for them next year, generally white or yellow blossoms that they can camouflage themselves within. The pokeweed flowers are very short-lived, and what happens to the spiders after the flowers become berries, I have no idea. No, that’s not true, because I’ve seen them ballooning<\/a> across the yard to different hunting grounds, and even intersected one in mid-trip last week. The area plays home to crepe myrtle trees, which come into bloom at this time of year and sport white flowers (as well as purple,) so I imagine they have plenty of feeding opportunities once they alight on the right perch. Maybe I’ll have to go examine some of those flowers closely…
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While I have a handful of photos from the past week or so, there isn’t a whole lot to say about them, so I’m mostly just going to throw them up here without a lot of exposition. Right at the moment, I have not identified the dragonfly above, which was hanging around the front garden […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[2935,3036,2439,1370,2459,3037,194,3035],"class_list":["post-17181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nature","category-photo","tag-american-pokeweed","tag-caterpillar","tag-copes-grey-treefrog","tag-crab-spider","tag-dragonfly","tag-halysidota-harrisii","tag-hyla-chrysoscelis","tag-sycamore-tussock-moth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17181\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}