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Tomentosa
Look at plants through various magnifications (10x in the above pic), and you start see a lot of hair. As it happens, this is the underside of a fresh Mockernut Hickory leaflet. These are particularly hairy; in fact, Carya tomentosa is named for its leaflet undersides being covered in dense short hairs (from the Latin…
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Big Bees, Little Flowers
The small, legume-family (Fabaceae) flowers of Eastern Redbud (Cercis canadensis) are nectar mines. Here’s a long-tongued Golden Northern Bumble (Bombus fervidus) going for the gusto. Here’s what I think is a Brown-belted (Bombus griseocollis), even though the “belt” isn’t very brown. And an Eastern Carpenter Bee/Xylocopa virginica.
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Anhinga anhinga
Bufo bufo, Buteo buteo, Vulpes vulpes, Gorilla gorilla, Rattus rattus, Bison bison… I do love a double-barreled binomial, also known as a tautonym. Anyway, snowbirds will know the Anhinga as a bird of Florida. They don’t generally get north of North Carolina. But with fascism on the loose in Florida, everybody’s leaving… here’s one in…
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Raptor Wednesday
A Red-tailed Hawk glides down down with its wings hunched up. I though it was a plastic bag in the air at first. Then it landed in this Eastern Cottonwood and voila, the local American Kestrel male let up a war-cry and came calling. The Red-tail soon departed, bearing a stick in talons for a…
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Seeing (Spring) Red
Female American Sweetgum flowers, smaller than a dime so far. These mature into green, golf ball sized fruit balls, eventually drying to dark brown. Ailanthus buds. Male Eastern Cottonwood flowers. Red is a popular color in spring time. The pigment anthocyanin protects tender plant parts: buds, new leaves, and young fruits from the the UV…
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Halteres
Revisiting this large crane fly. Rather prominently on the left side of the fly is a halter (also spelled haltere). The creature has two of them. This is a big fly, so they’re really quite prominent, but every fly has them (plural: halteres). They can be paddle-shaped, drumstick-shaped, even a bit bowling pin-shaped. Here they’re…
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Wild Yards
In one sense, this is a rather depressing book. Nancy Lawson is the author of two books on the wilds of the backyard. This doesn’t seem to have had much effect on her neighbors. She’s surrounded by killers. Her neighbors are constantly felling trees, mowing and whacking, leaf-blowing, and, periodically, madly stomping on 17-year cicadas.…
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Bird, Caterpillar
“Flycatcher” you say? A big fat caterpillar being battered to death. The bird actually dropped this juicy specimen and re-caught it in the air. Quite impressive, as I noticed this when reviewing my pictures. The bird’s upper bill is missing. *** Oof! I put the wrong link in yesterday for tomorrow’s Snail Safari. It’s updated…
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Backyard and Beyond 