mthew
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Winter Walk
A return to Squam Swamp.While silvery gray predominates this time of year, there are other colors of note: A scrim of ice over autumn’s leftovers. Blue-green stained wood, caused by a fungus. Moss gone wild.
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Sidewalk victims
It’s Mulchfest weekend, but someone in the ‘hood thinks like I do. Ὦ ξεῖν’, ἀγγέλλειν Λακεδαιμονίοις ὅτι τῇδε κείμεθα, τοῖς κείνων ῥήμασι πειθόμενοι.
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In Greek mythology, Charon the Ferryman carried you over the river of forgetfulness to the underworld. He was supposed to be paid for his troubles. So when I heard that my father, who passed away on Wednesday, “left on the noon boat” I was struck by the metaphoric connotations. His body was being carried on…
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Fleur de sel
I run my finger along an exterior surface of the M/V Eagle (a.k.a. the “slow boat”) that crosses Nantucket Sound and pick up this residue.It’s sodium chloride and other minerals, or sea salt, dried out from the constant spray that lands on the boat as she makes her six daily crossings this time of year.…
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Glazed oysters
Water spilling off a tree stump had coated and frozen around these mushrooms, giving them a glaze. I believe they may be Oyster Mushrooms (Pleurotus ostreatus), or another Pleurotus species. The gills make a pleasing pattern:
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Bleech!
The American Cockroach (Periplaneta americana), a.k.a. American Waterbug, and, incorrectly, as the Palmetto bug. The “American” is also a misnomer; they originated in Africa and been here since the 17th century. They are FREAKIN’ HUGE. (Sorry, my entomological sympathies are strained by the Blattodea.) 4cm or 1.5″ long. Distinguished from the smaller house invader commonly…
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Preen on
Mallards (Anas platyrhynchos) preening. Feather maintenance is of course vitally important to birds. One of the things they have to worry about is feather lice, which, without regular bathing and preening, could become a problem. Interestingly, feather lice species have evolved over time to associate only with “their” species of birds. There is an analogy…
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Cycles
If you’ve been following this blog a while, you’ve seen this before. Not this photo, not this example, but similar. For nature follows cycles, and so too does this blog. Pieces of the past summer’s Bald-faced hornet (Dolichovespula maculata) nests, now abandoned by the generation of 2012, get blown out of trees this time of…
Backyard and Beyond 