Virginia
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Caterpillars
In case I spoiled your breakfast with the carnivorous devouring of an adult Monarch’s brain, here’s the famous caterpillar stage of Danaus plexippus. Spotted in Virginia recently.Although the Yellow Bear caterpillar is named Spilosoma virginica, this one was spotted in Westerchester Co., NY. It’s a Tribble! And it looks like it might have some mites…
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Chesapecten
These are fossilized shells of extinct scallops found on the Piankatank River in Virginia. They’re in the genus Chesapecten, all of whose members no longer live upon this earth. Such mineralized remains are dated from the early Miocene period to the early Pleistocene. Here’s more detail about the rich fossil world of the Chesapeake. *…
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Raptor Wednesday
A pair of Bald Eagles immediately after mating.We heard them before we saw them.Haliaeetus leucocephalus make some very un-eagle-like sounds. (That’s because they are usually dubbed over with the calls of Red-tailed Hawks in the professional bullshit business of entertainment.) The sound that alerted us to their presence is described on the Cornell sound page…
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Turning Tern
Do you have as much difficulty with terns as I do?This is a Forster’s (Sterna forsteri) in (mostly) non-breeding plumage. A good field mark is that dark mask and pale nape. Also most helpful: not moving for a good long view. * The Anatomy of Liberal Melancholy is food for thought, as is this appreciation…
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Cough!
A pellet of pieces of shell and pebbles. Found on a pier on the Piankatank, along with some other samples that had been smushed and otherwise disassembled. Diameter of a quarter and quite round. Who do you suppose chucked it up? Grebes, Kingfishers, Loons, Osprey out there: but they’re all fish-eaters.
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Roof Bird
Pavo cristatus, the Indian Pea Fowl. Big bird, helluva big voice. The only places I’ve run into these beasts (you should see their spur claws!) in NYC is in Prospect Park, where several boom from the zoo, and occasionally get loose, and on an old estate on Staten Island, near Princes Bay, where you can hear…
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Atalantycha bilineata
Two-lined Leather-wing, also known as Two-lined Cantharid. One of the soldier beetles. This is one of the earliest Cantharids to emerge in the spring, evidently. Found from Nova Scotia on down. This one spotted in Virginia three weeks ago, where/when not too much else was flying. According to Wikipedia, soldier beetles (Cantharidae) were called such…
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New Point Comfort
What’s all this, then? At the limits of my telephoto. An observation platform at the tip of Mathews County, poking into the Chesapeake. And out there, a dead cetacean of some kind being recycled.Bald Eagles were nearby. Posted one is older, but not quite in full adult plumage.There was another juvenile on a nearby island.But it…
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Pollarding
In Ye Olde Colonial Williamsburg, we found some curious trees.These are pollarded Sycamores. They’ve been pruned back in the canopy to promote denser branching and foliage, and to control height and reach (good for urban areas). The practice is at least two millennia old. The English brought it with them to the Virginia colony.Rather Entish…
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Muckle Turkle
The Eastern Mud Turtle (Kinosternon subrubrum). This species is endangered here in New York State, where they are only found on the non-NYC parts of Long Island. (Habitat destruction, car wheels, the usual work of H. allegedly sapiens.) A fair number were in the Pitch and Tar Swamp at Jamestown Island, Virginia, where I took…
Backyard and Beyond 