Creatures

Hen

As mentioned in yesterday’s post, Cathy’s niece Maggie is in town. We don’t see her nearly enough so we wanted to spend as much time with her as possible. She helped her grandma fold bulletins at church in the morning and then we left early and spent the afternoon with her. It was a wonderful, spring day with a beautiful, clear, blue sky, cool but not cold. We drove out to our friends’ farm and visited with our friends and some of their animals.

We spent the most time with the chickens (of which there are something on the order of 1,000). I sat for a while in the midst of them and got a few nice pictures, including this one from ground level. A little later Cathy and I helped Anna collect eggs from the laying boxes in the chicken-coop-bus. So, in this case, the chickens came before the eggs.

I made chicken panang curry for dinner. No relation to this chicken, as far as I know.

Probably a Wolf Spider (Family Lycosidae)

It was a beautiful day today. It’s fairly warm and the snow is melting. I had a meeting across campus early this afternoon and on the way back I walked around my building and took a few pictures. The melting snow was raising the level of the pond next to my building and I walked down to it, over a thin layer of very soft, wet snow. This little spider was there, as well. I believe it is some sort of wolf spider (family Lycosidae) and will update the post if I figure out (or more likely am told) which one. I know spiders are not favorite subjects of many (or should I say either) of my followers. They come right ahead of deer ticks, I’d say. But they’re neat little things and I love to watch them. This is a small spider, not much more than one centimeter long including its legs.

UPDATE: Identified as being in the genus Pardosa, the thinlegged wolf spiders.

Pieris rapae (Cabbage White)

It was as pretty a spring day as you could hope for today, warm but not hot, mostly clear with a little breeze. Cathy and I went for a walk and I took my camera along. We walked to a pong that has a beaver lodge but didn’t see any activity. There was a pair of geese nearby and I got some pictures of them. Then as we left the area and headed back up towards the road I managed to get a few pictures of this cabbage butterfly that was flitting around looking for early flowers.

Toxonotus cornutus (a Fungus Weevil, Family Anthribidae)

Our dear friend Susan gave me a present this morning. It was beautifully presented in a hot pink gift bag. What was it? It was this insect which she wondered if I could identify. At a glance I said it was a beetle of some sort but beyond that I needed to look at it under some magnification. It’s between 5 and 6 millimeters long, so on the small side and my first thought was some sort of carpet beetle. Then I saw from the side that it had something of a snout. That led to the fungus weevils of family Anthribidae and I tracked it down to Toxonotus cornutus. Not particularly rare but so small that you are likely to miss it much of the time. Not a big pest, either, and happily nothing like a bed bug or other really nasty creature. Thanks, Susan. Now I really know you care.

P.S. The shiny metal thing under it is a pin on which the little creature is skewered.

Robins and Sparrows

February is generally the deepest part of the winter around here but it’s been relatively mild so far this year. We’ve still got enough time for cold weather to come but today was really spring like. There were birds all over our back yard, including robins, starlings, sparrows, blue jays, and juncos. I waited at the kitchen door and took some pictures of the birds on the bird bath on the back patio. We keep it free from ice all winter and the birds really like that, although this year there has not been more than a week together when free water was frozen. Still, they were on the bath in fairly high numbers all morning.

Feather

It was cool and cloudy today but not so cold that we wouldn’t go out (actually, I didn’t even need a jacket). We drove to Meadowside Nature Center and walked on the trails around it, going south west to the edge of the lake and then north to where there are some log cabins. This photo of a feather was taken on a fallen log. I’m not sure what sort of bird the feather came from but I assume it was taken up onto the log to be eaten, either by another bird or by a mammal of some sort.

Woodpecker Feather?

I’m no sort of expert on these things so I really don’t know what sort of bird has feathers that look like this. I know there are woodpeckers with dark feathers with white spots running up both sides. There are also owls with this sort of pattern. The feathers were not terribly long, so my guess was one of the small local woodpeckers, such as the downy (Picoides pubescens) or hairy woodpecker (Picoides villosus). I’d be happy to have someone who is more knowledgeable set me straight. This was in the woods behind my building.

Hairy Woodpecker (Picoides villosus)

I’ve said before that my goal is to take at least one photo every day and post it here. I’d be overjoyed if they were all fabulous but the reality is that some of them are quite lame. I’ve had some pretty bad pictures in the last six years, although I think a few of them have been quite nice. Today’s is a poorly executed photograph, although the subject is interesting enough. I was out in the back yard with my camera and I could here a woodpecker tap, tap, tapping on the tree. After I while I found him and was able to take a few pictures but none of them are really any good. I was shooting through intervening branches and at a bit more distance than my 100mm lens was really suitable for. But it’s a picture.

White-tailed Deer Buck (Odocoileus virginianus)

Cathy and I went for a nice walk this afternoon. It’s been a very rainy couple of days and we took advantage of a short non-raining period to walk. It started up again just as we got home, but we didn’t get too wet. Our shoes were quite muddy and we met a very friendly dog, so our trousers had to go into the wash but it was nice to be out. We saw this buck, along with about a half dozen more shortly after we turned onto Sunfish trail. A minute or two later we came across the group of almost a dozen does. It was getting dark and there was no way this one was going to let me get any closer, but I’m reasonably happy with this photo.

Crossocheilus oblongus (Siamese Algae Eater)

I took some more photos of my fish this evening and this is, I think, the best of them. This is a brilliant rasbora, (Rasbora einthovenii) and they are a good fish to have in a community aquarium. These are about three inches long and quite lively, especially at feeding time. Getting a good picture is made more difficult by their almost constant movement from one end of the tank to the other. I got this one while he (or she, I really don’t know) was making his u-turn at this end of the tank, above the brick that is the only decoration. I really need to get a bit more stuff in there for them to swim around.

Update: I initially labeled this picture as a brilliant rasbora but looking at it again, that’s wrong. There are rasboras in the tank but they are smaller and have red at the base of their tail fins. This is a Siamese algae eater, Crossocheilus oblongus. Sorry for the confusion.

Green Tiger Barb (Puntius tetrazona)

For quite a few weeks I’ve been meaning to go to the fish store and get a few more fish for my smaller aquarium. The 30 gallon tank has a fairly large angel fish (Pterophyllum scalare) and a kuhli loach (Pangio kuhlii) who spends much of the time hiding under a rock. I bought some Chinese algae eaters (Gyrinocheilos aymonieri) and a bunch of these green tiger barbs (Puntius tetrazona). I really like their color and it’s nice to have the tank with more than just a couple fish in it.

American Goldfinch (Spinus tristis)

I love days when I get sunrise pictures. Sunset pictures are nice but I can’t rely on their being a good sunset. Once I have pictures of the sunrise, though, I don’t have to worry about getting a picture later in the day. If there turns out to be no sunset, they I’ve missed the daylight. But if there’s no sunrise to photograph, I still have the whole day ahead of me.

So, after getting a nice sunrise pictures this morning, I was happy to take some pictures of birds in the back yard. This is an American goldfinch (Spinus tristis) on black-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia hirta) along the edge of the back patio. Goldfinches lose their bright yellow color in the winter, but they’re still pretty little birds. I really enjoyed watching them sit on the thin stems.

Geese on Lake Frank

We had a quiet day after the busy day yesterday. Busy is good but it’s especially good when followed by not-busy. Cathy and I have Stephen and Maya’s dog, Dargo, and we took him for a longish walk today (about 3 miles). We walked along the near side of Lake Frank and I took a few pictures. I got two of a kingfisher, although I couldn’t get anywhere near close enough to make that picture worth sharing. I was able to get closer to these geese, although still only close enough for a group shot. Any closer and they would have moved away.

White-tailed Deer (Odocoileus virginianus)

I fixed some coffee and was making breakfast when Cathy came down and saw this white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) in our back yard. It appears to be a young one, not fully grown but I don’t really know enough about deer to say for sure. It was just lying there and would look at me, then turn to the side. I went outside and took a few more pictures before it got up and trotted to the back corner of the yard, where it stayed for a while. When I checked back 20 minutes later it was gone.

Raccoon Footprints

It’s gotten cold suddenly and today was quite cold. I went out for a little while to take pictures and by the time I came back in, my right hand was quite numb from the cold (I can put my left hand into my pocket but I hold the camera with my right hand). I took pictures of a sycamore leaf in the woods and then walked down to the pond next to my building. It’s only just gotten cold so there was still open water but there was ice along the edge. In what had recently been mud by the stream were raccoon footprints.

Spanish Mackerel (Scomberomorus maculatus)

In yesterday’s post I mentioned that I was in an international market. In general, while I get many of my staples in Safeway or Giant, I much prefer the international markets for meats, produce, and seafood. There is a small Brazilian market where I go for chouriço and morcilla as well as some cheeses. There are a bunch of Asian markets where the produce is generally fresher and always more varied than the big chains. That’s where the bok choy picture from yesterday was taken. Today’s picture is of something from the same store but taken this evening as I fixed myself dinner of Spanish mackerel (Scomberomorus maculatus), lightly breaded and cooked in butter. Really good.

Carolina Wren (Thryothorus ludovicianus)

I happened to have a chat with a coworker today about taking pictures of birds and other small, skittish creatures. I have a 70-300mm zoom with image stabilization that should be quite good for that but it has one annoying limitation and a quite serious flaw. The annoying limitation is its lack of close focusing. Even at 300mm, to get a full frame image of a bird, you have to get fairly close. Having to add an extension tube to focus that close is an issue. The serious flaw is that the way Canon designed this lens, the internal connector that controls the aperture becomes damaged or disconnected and on occasion the lens fails to operate properly and no picture is taken. Because of that, I cannot recommend this lens. What I’d really like is Canon’s 400mm f/5.6 (well, I’d like the f/2.8 but who are we kidding?).

Anyway, I happened to go out a little later and was able to get this Carolina wren (Thryothorus ludovicianus) in the bushes with my lowly 100mm f/2.8 macro. Not bad.

Paper Wasp Nest

It was another beautiful, fall day today and Cathy and I took a walk in the neighborhood. I took some pictures of trees with flaming red and orange leaves but I’ve decided to post this picture of a pretty good sized paper wasp nest instead. Trees with brightly colored leaves are pretty much everywhere now (although many have lost all their leaves) but wasp nests are not so common. This one is about 20 feet up in a tree a few blocks from our house. You might be glad to know that most paper wasps die during the winter. Obviously not all. Most notably the new queens survive the winter by nesting in protected places.

Danaus plexippus (Monarch)

I didn’t expect to see any more monarch butterflies this late in the year but this afternoon there was on on the buddleia in the back yard. I got a few good pictures of him (you can see the scent-scale patches on his hindwings, identifying this as a male). I also took a few pictures of one buddleia flower panicle with four huge carpenter bees all clustered together, getting the last of this years harvest before the cold days to come. We’ve had one pretty good frost and a few light frosts this year but are supposed to have a warm spell by the end of the week.

Pselliopus barberi

I had a meeting in a different building this afternoon and decided to take my camera with me. After the meeting, I walked back ‘the long way’ which is actually a straighter line than the normal route but it goes through the woods and crosses a creek without a bridge, so it takes a bit longer. It takes longer still if you are on the lookout for things to photograph and stop whenever you find something. First I got some shots of bright crimson barberry leaves and fruit (Berberis species). Then I took some pictures of the deep green leaves and bright red fruit on an Amur honeysuckle (Lonicera maackii). Both were reasonable pictures but not exactly exciting.

Pselliopus barberi

Then, in the woods, I caught a glimpse of something small and orange flying past. It landed on a weed and I got down low and found this little, bright orange assassin bug, Pselliopus barberi crawling up the stem. The first pictures were not very good because of the low light. I popped up the flash and was able to get a few pictures that made identification easy. This is a little fellow, only a little over a centimeter in length. In the last shot I got, it took off just as I pressed the shutter. I thought I missed it entirely, but I captured it flying out of the frame (and out of my life). I went back and forth over which of these photos to post—the one that shows it well or the one with the action—and finally decided to post them both.

Polistes dominula (European Paper Wasp)

Cathy and I went for a short walk early this afternoon, going around the upper half of the large block where our two office buildings stand. We met between the buildings, near a drainage pond and while I waited a few minutes for her to get there, I happened to see a small group of European paper wasps (Polistes dominula) working on a nest in a small tree. It was at a very good height to get a picture. So, naturally, I took a few. The European paper wasp was first seen in North American near Boston in 1978 but it is now present pretty much throughout the United States and Canada. It is often mistaken for a yellow jacket but is the only species of Vespidae that has mostly orange antennae, which makes it easy to identify (if you are willing to get close enough).

Junonia coenia (Common Buckeye)

I spent a good while out back trying to get some butterfly pictures this afternoon. This buckeye was the largest of those out on the verbena bonariensis but I also got some pictures of a few others, including cabbage whites (Pieris rapae), a Clouded Sulphur (Colias philodice, and what I’m pretty sure was a little checkered-skipper (Genus Pyrgus). I also got a few pictures of a tiny metallic green bee (genus Agapostemon) but that was a tough little critter to catch.

Update: The skipper has been identified as a Common Checkered Skipper (Pyrgus communis).

Paper Wasp

I know a lot of my followers are not crazy about all my creepy crawly pictures but I’m pretty happy with this one. This is the full frame, not cropped, meaning I was able to get pretty close to this paper wasp (Polistes sp.) as it crawled around on some goldenrod growing in our back garden. Generally I wouldn’t want goldenrod but most things have finished blooming at this point and a touch of yellow is nice, even if it’s from a weed. There are still a few roses on the bush by our front door and the verbena bonariensis and buddleia still have some blooms, but the black-eyed Susans are all done, and that leaves the back yard with a lot less color. There were a half dozen wasps of at least two different species of Polistes on this goldenrod plant and I was able to get in close with my macro and flash.

Eastern Chipmunk (Tamias striatus)

Today was one of those ‘didn’t find a lot to photograph’ days. I went out back and took some pictures of seeds on the Iris domestica (blackberry lily) and even got some more with our friend the spotted cucumber beetle. Then I went around front and tried to get good pictures of a large spider in the middle of an impressive web near our driveway. The spider wasn’t cooperating, though. She sat in the middle of the web, which was nice, but pulled her legs in so she appeared to be a slightly hairy blob. Not very interesting. Then out of the corner of my eye I saw this little fellow. He darted in and out of the ground cover by the driveway and I caught him on one of those excursions. I don’t really know but I assume this is an eastern chipmunk (Tamias striatus).