Category: fauna

Acer saccharinum

robin on her nest during a thunderstorm
We had a severe thunderstorm in Charlottesville last Thursday. It snapped power poles, uprooted trees.
The robin made this nest in a 120 year old silver maple. The dread silver maple.
Outlawed by municipalities around the country. Experts say it is a weak wooded, weedy, infrastructure trashing tree.
Sure enough, this tree lost limbs, is that weak wooded or smart?
Instead of hanging onto all its limbs and blowing over in one beautiful piece,
it dropped a few limbs and lived.
Sister robin protecting those youngsters. Mommas all right.

lightning bugs

fireflies in a tree at night.
10 seconds, Lampyridae display. They are hanging out in a quercus palustris.
They don't hang out in the tulip tree to the right.
This chemically-produced light from the lower abdomen may be yellow, green, or pale red — wavelengths from 510 to 670 nanometers. Most fireflies are quite distasteful and sometimes poisonous to vertebrate predators.--Wikipedia

Wikipedia

robin egg blue

a robin's egg and some old govt correspondence
Michael Carrithers commented that b&w photos of rust are not entirely informative. I am taking his words as an invitation.
Despite my monochromatic preference (“friends don’t let friends shoot colour”), I am falling off the wagon for a few days, into the chaos and mess, 390 to 750 nanometers.
Blue egg of Robin largely meaningless in b&w would be.

Equus ferus caballus, awake


Horses’ anatomy enables them to make use of speed to escape predators and they have a well-developed sense of balance and a strong fight-or-flight instinct. Related to this need to flee from predators in the wild is an unusual trait: horses are able to sleep both standing up and lying down.–Wikipedia

hematophagy

Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Arthropoda Subphylum: Chelicerata Class: Arachnida Subclass: Acarina Superorder: Parasitiformes Order: Ixodida Superfamily: Ixodoidea
spent a hundred dollars yesterday on pharma products to lessen Sophia's appeal to parasites. Can humans use Frontline? An off-label use?

A tick will attach itself to its host by inserting its chelicerae (cutting mandibles) and hypostome (feeding tube) into the skin. The hypostome is covered with recurved teeth and serves as a hammer.Wikipedia on ticks…

questions

moth lampshade
How thick is the oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico?
In the Obama White House, are moths able to follow his O’ness back inside after he has a smoke?
Does the Oval Office have French doors.
Does the Secret Service eliminate insects?