Memes
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Friday 5 | 11/19/2021
It’s been a bit since I’ve done one of these, so let’s dive into five things I’ve been loving lately! +Lesson 6. Be wary of paramilitaries – via Timothy Snyder’s newsletter – I’ve listened to Mr. Snyder on a few podcast episodes, mostly to talk about his book On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, which is on my ever growing stack of books to read, but I recently found out he has a newsletter so I subscribed. The first one to come through was this audio clip about paramilitaries and it is extremely prescient to today’s times. +City Cast Houston – This is a podcast and newsletter hosted…
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Mid-Summer Nature Tidbits | Neighborhood Nature
Summer is slipping away and I feel like I have had my head down and haven’t been enjoying nature the last couple of weeks. Everything is happening in a blur. But the monarchs are here again, not that they totally left this summer, but we’ve had more hanging around this last week than I’ve seen since spring. And they’ve been leaving evidence of their progeny all over the place. I get a kick out of watching them methodically chow down on a milkweed leaf! I have not been able to identify this caterpillar yet. I found it on the path leading to our office and moved it over to a…
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Front Porch Moths | 1
Finally we are entering into front porch moth season once again, that time of year when I leave the house in the morning there may be a couple of moths to be found resting on the side of the house. We’ve had a few friends visit over the last week and so I thought I would start a new series here on the blog, Front Porch Moths! Hübner’s Pero Moth, Pero ancetaria The first and more unique looking species is the Hubner’s Pero, which is relatively uncommon in this part of the US and is much more widespread in the mid-Atlantic region. Host plants include Alnus sp., Shepherdia canadensis, Prunus…
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Almost Wordless Wednesday | Coup Attempt
What a damn day. Upside: Hell yeah, Georgia! Photos from February 2008.
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Egg to Caterpillar, Giant Swallowtail (Papilio cresphontes) | Wildlife Wednesday
Over a month ago now, I noticed a giant swallowtail ovipositing on the rue. I had bought pots of rue a year or two ago just for this reason and to have another source of food for when they came through and found my citrus instead—it was a place to relocate them as necessary. But in this time I had yet to see any activity on the plant and thought that maybe nothing would come of it after all. But then as I took a break from pulling weeds, sweat rolling down my entire body, I saw an adult visiting and as soon as her abdomen curved I knew it…
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Variegated Fritillary (Euptoieta claudia) caterpillar | Wildlife Wednesday
A few weeks ago I was deep into one of the edible perimeter beds by the blackberries, weeding. I’ve let a small crop of native violets grow in there because they are edible and also pretty. I’ve been transplanting some of the ones that crop up in other parts of the garden to the flower garden but the deer come and browse on those which is another reason I keep the ones tucked inside the edible garden. I noticed a caterpillar. It resembled a gulf frittilary but those munch on passiflora vines. I took a few phone photos and then went to grab my dSLR and reverse macro lens and…
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Zebra Swallowtail Caterpillar (Eurytides marcellus) | Wildlife Wednesday
Our trip to east Texas last weekend had us visiting the Watson Rare Native Plant Preserve and two Big Thicket National Preserve units, the Turkey Creek Unit (and the Pitcher Plant Trail) and the Hickory Creek Savannah Unit (and the Sundew Trail). I can’t recall where we saw the first zebra swallowtail adult fly by but we did end up seeing several along the Sundew Trail. One of them was flying slow and low to the ground, which at first had us thinking it was searching for nectar plants. But it avoided several flowering plants and I finally decided it was looking for pawpaws to lay eggs! From then Chris…
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Neighborhood Nature | 3
Last weekend was the iNaturalist City Nature Challenge, though iNaturalist pushed it as less of a “challenge” and more of get out and enjoy nature safely and where you can locally. That didn’t put a damper in folks getting out to explore their greater local area, though, and I did my best to capture as much as I could on foot in the neighborhood. Some of these are from that weekend but many are just from daily sightings around the yard or just beyond! And of course this isn’t all of what I documented for the CNC, just a few highlights. Fall Webworm Moth, Hyphantria cunea I have no idea…
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Friday Five | Isolation Things
It’s been a bit since I’ve done a Friday Five, so here are five good things for your Friday! +The Wild Wander show on YouTube—primarily based in north Florida, the episodes are only a few minutes long, though this last one was about 15 minutes. All of them share some kind of interesting natural history feature about north Florida. It’s a show you could find on NatGeo or Animal Planet! +Easter: Easter weekend has zoomed on by but we had a great weekend at home for Easter. In fact, our first Easter at home! We’ve either gone to my parents or camping for Easter since Forest was born so this…
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Gulf Coast Penstemon, Penstemon tenuis | Wildflower Wednesday
A year or two ago I purchased this gulf coast penstemon from a nursery. Or maybe I started it from seed. I honestly can’t recall at this time. But I’ve been watching the basal rosettes of this particular plant and several others and biding my time for blooms. Every so often the deer come by and chomp the leaves and set the plants back and I figured I would never get to see the blooms. It really is trial and error here with the deer. You can’t take anything labeled “deer resistant” at face value. I have begun to notice which plant families are actually more deer resistant and have…