mthew
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Mushroom Monday
My boot, at bottom of image, is almost exactly one foot long. An enormous example of Berkeley’s Polypore (Bondarzewia berkeleyi). Another large polypore, Black-staining (Meripilus sumstinei). Details of the Black-staining.
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Whistlepigs
dewy grass wet-bellied woodchuck good morning I come across woodchuck/groundhog holes in Green-Wood with some frequency. (Good to keep at least one eye on the ground there, lest you miss a grass-clutching moth or a one-way trip into the underworld…) But I hadn’t seen an actual Marmota monax for some time until last weekend. A…
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Spotted Leaves
Speckled Tar Spot on maple. Oak LeafBlister on red oak. Pear Rust on Callery pear, top and underside of leaf. (All IDs tentative.)
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Dining
We get a lot of vegetarians on this blog. But that’s not the whole story, of course. Mantid devouring a skipper. Wings discarded. Ants scavenging a… meadow cricket? Egret tossing down a small fry. Young Northern Mockingbird dispatching a dog day cicada.
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Some New (To Me) Species
Someone has been chewing on this elm sapling… Elm Leaf Beetle (Xanthogaleruca luteola). White-crossed Seed Bug (Neacoryphus bicrucis). Oecanthus genus common tree cricket; species can only be told apart by examining their antennae bases. Trepobates subnitidus water striders Clustered Midrib Gall Wasp (Andricus dimorphus) on white oak. Black-bordered Lemon Moth (Marimatha nigrofimbria). Had seen before,…
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Raptor Wednesday
Spotted belly and thick black band on the outer edge of the tail. Blue wings, strong black band again. Male American Kestrels. Streaky belly, only a thin black band on the edge of the tail: female American Kestrels. The topside of her wings are also reddish, but we can’t see this from below.
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Even More Galls!
Andricus incertus on swamp white oak (Q. bicolor) acorn. (All the below are on various swamp white oaks as well.) A cluster of Oak Rough Bulletgall Wasp galls (Disholcaspis quercusmamma). Note the ants and bee. Bald-faced Hornet and Asian Lady Beetle, too. In fact, I found several with lady beetles on them. Are the galls…
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Mammal Monday
Dirty squirrel digging up an old nutty something or other. And CRONCHING it!
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On Politics
I’m fascinated by the Republican-fascist rhetoric that attempts to paint Joe Biden, a loyal representative of corporate America over decades of service in the Senate, as a “Marxist” puppet and tool of “dark forces” like George Soros, a favored target of anti-Semitic conspiracy-thinking. (If “thinking” isn’t too strong a word.) As a person of the…
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More Galls
This is Andricus capillatus, a Cynipidae gall wasp like all these specimens today, on a white oak. Round Bullet Gall (Disholcaspis quercusglobulus), on the same white oak. This magnificent specimen of a tree is on a slope, with one branch sweeping down below eye-level, which is essential when searching for these things. Here’s another Round…
Backyard and Beyond 