flowers & bugs quickie

Am working. But here are some cuties fm. the garden. Enjoy!

Crab spider casting a shadow.

I can't get OVER the degree to which it matches the flower. ROCKS!

Kinda blurry, but cool little wolf-y spider?

Don't know WHAT this is, but shot it 'cause looked like a mosquito

(in person, now I see GIANT eyes) that was methodically stabbing

the tiny flower tubes for nectar (I presume).

Seen this moth on these flowers 2 separate days,

so clearly loves them. Notice TINY yellow on antennae tips,

nice work coordinating w/the flower.

I. love. bugs.

xoxobb

mystery moth PAIR =)

 

All of these are pretty big pics, so click & zoom can be enlightening...

Moth tummies as seen from my computer room.
These guys are only about 1 cm long, front to back.
Cute little pair!

Mysterious third moth reflection...

zooming...

From a different angle, it looked much lighter,
and here you can see the lovely way the back
of the wings forms an arch. heaven.

This was the most artistic of the shots, IMHO.

So, anyone know what species these are?
I think it's two females, is that right?
Do we know if female moths hanging out is common??

VERY much looking forward to your input.

=)

xoxo

bb

tap tap tap tap tap

(the sound of bb's toe tapping, waiting anxiously for your answers!!!)

bb's industry rewarded by nature, pays it forward 2 U!

  
These are some of the things I came upon during this morning's outdoor flurry of hosing the sidewalk (watching the lemon yellow pollen foam wash away--yikes!!!) and our screens and other things right near our windows which facilitate the placement of TINY pollen grains in my eyes, nose, throat, ears, skin, etc.

These shots are all big, today, so feel free to click on them and zoom in to get a better look.

The first is the moth, which has rich orange in its hindwings, but I didn't catch that via camera. I scared it up from the grass via hosing.

This looks like the one that skepticalmoth said was Noctua pronuba "an invasive species introduced to the east coast from Europe a few decades ago. Not a horrible invasive, they feed mostly on grasses and are common around houses/lawns."

Any expertise input re: id would be greatly appreciated.

Next, this beauty was posing nicely by the second faucet that I moved our super-short hose to in order to continue with the pollen spraying.

Isn't she pretty?!? And rather regal. Very poised.

Woah, I was GOING to call this Pseudacris regilla, feeling all smart 'cause I knew that what USED to be called Hyla regilla is now Pseudacris regilla.

Yeah, well, in reading Wikipedia and CaliforniaHerps.com, looks like what I have is a Sierra treefrog, Pseudacris sierra--check out the distribution map on CaliforniaHerps.com. Apparently MOST of what I'll encounter is now called Pseudacris sierra, including where I'll be doing field work NEXT WEEK, so good to know.

Love how this blog keeps me learning.

Isn't she gorgeous? I'm assume, based on sizable ROUND belly, this is a lady and she's gravid.

So, then, after hosing off the north side of the house, I return the hose to it's original site, and see this:

I took about 7 shots of this TINY spider (note it's dwarfed by water droplet) and only this LAST one was sharp and WOW, what a difference! Click and zoom in, this one is especially rewarding.

What a beauty! Anyone have a guess what it is? It looks like a crab spider, to me...

By the way, I was SO industrious (dumping out and WASHING and drying litter boxes, hosing down sidewalk, screens, pulling weeds out of sidewalk, spraying the cars) this morning, that Bear said, before taking off, "I don't know what's wrong with you, but I'm not going to do anything to fix it."

=)

bb can be phenomenally LAZY and blob-like, so this is a happy occasion.

Years ago, we were camping. FYI, I am not super skilled re: outdoors, but I pride myself on breaking camp like a bandit (FAST FAST FAST). Like get OUT of my way or you may end up rolled up and stuffed into a duffel bag, then the trunk (erf!).

Right after we got up, Bear wandered off to powder his nose. The moment he left I decided to see if I could break camp and get EVERYTHING back in the car before he returned. So I was speed packing, collapsing poles like my hair was on fire, cramming sleeping bags into stuff sacks, etc. but, alas, I was not QUITE done when Bear returned.

However, he did remark, smiling quietly while I madly flung pillows into the car: "You're cute when you're industrious." =) So, I felt like I'd won.


Anyhow, the animals pictured above are the lovelies who showed themselves to me during my cleaning mania, leaving me richly rewarded. Thus, I wanted to share the wealth with you.

I hope your weekend is going wonderfully.

xoxoxo

biobabbler

* I really DO need to figure out how to add a page to my blog to assemble all the species that have been identified... Any of y'all know how to do that in blogger? I can do SOME HTML but don't really feel like doing this whole thing from scratch, so if you know of a reasonably simple way to add a page, I'd GREATLY appreciate your tossing me a clue.

biobabbler birds barrio backyards... que bueno!

  
Who knew we'd see such great birds in urban backyards (granted only those facing a channelized creek)?

great egret, snowy egret, and biologist

We spooked the common mergansers (about 6) and mallards earlier.

This is one of the more picturesque sections. A less picturesque one had a scary dog who's head poked out of the backyard fence, then it's entire body, tho' it seemed to be chained up. At least for now...

My favorite house had 3 potted chili plants on OUR side of the fence (to soak up that southern exposure sun--smart!), and on their side a HUGE shrub COVERED in TINY red chilies. Looked like the whole thing was decorated in miniature chili lights.

And the best part: large cookie sheets balances precariously atop the high fence, filled with drying chilies, and hanging from the lattice canopy that shaded their backyard? Many strings of the MOST beautiful, brilliant red and orange chilies you've ever seen.

SO charming. I told my co-workers I thought they were the coolest people on the block. But, no pics. 

My grandmother taught me better.  It'd be impolite.

black-crowned night heron perched on a wire, hoping we'll leave soon

black-crowned night heron had enough of us...

belted kingfisher (far away)

I also have a pretty impressively bad photo of a butterfly or moth (really erratic, hyper flier like moth, but not unlike fritillaries, tho' I didn't see that kind of pattern--mostly just CRAZY bright). Flitted like mad, then was gone. Arf.

Any one wanna take a WILD, wild guess? Anything to help me find pictures of something it MIGHT be, would be great. STUNNING, crazy bright color. I'd guess 2.5 inches across (like the pretty big fritillaries).

What I DID see pretty well was:

A cabbage white butterfly.

K. OOF, the late night and early a.m. are catching up to me. Better sign off to shop for tomorrow's breakfast and lunch before I pass out (during World Series). And, of course, gotta do SOME yoga before bed. =)

Today, and every day.

Then, tomorrow? More field work. SWEET!

xobiobabbler

new mystery moth! This one is TINY and brightly colored...

  
Upon my return from a weekend in the bay area, I: 1st) check on the chickens, bringing them some aging broccoli, 2) water the garden, 3) while watering a tomato plant see something orange and SMALL and blurry fuzzing around the basil.

Believe it or not, this teensy thing, probably around a centimeter across (roughly) actually landed, eventually, in a place where I could take a photo.

So, hoping someone knowledgeable about such things might care to hazard a guess and share it with us? Did NOT get the head, but pretty good view of the wings and much of one of the antennae.

So, we know it's small, colorful, beautiful, has a long, thin antenna (hmm, that's not a SUPER tiny butterfly, is it?), and really really loves basil blossoms. =) And is out and about this time of year (as in tonight).

Oh, and the bottom fringe of scales is a tan color, but it's reflecting in a fancy, shimmery way here so harder to discern the color than in other frames.


I swear I've never seen this before. Too cool!


biobabbler

P.S. A few shots from San Francisco's Ferry Building Farmer's Market tomorrow, if I can get my my watermark web site to work (say that 5 times fast). TOTAL color pig-out.

known visitor and unknown visitors...

First, the unknown...

So, looked through bugguide.net, got to Noctuinae (cutworm or dart moth), and feeling like it's along the lines of Lacinipolia, but I am NOT an entomologist. Pretty much going by the pictures (SO scientific, I know). The head seems less fuzzy than most I've seen among the types that look close, but I don't know if that's terribly significant.

Oh, but I can tell you as a gardener here, there's LOTS of cutworms around! (grr....)

Anyhow, these are my guesses re: this handsome creature.

Next up, the known. 3 or so days ago I found scat in the driveway that I checked out and concluded was fox (we have gray fox).

This is what biologists do. =) Squat on the ground and poke apart poop with random rocks or twigs. Charming, I'm sure.

Haven't seen or heard evidence of fox in the area for many months, so as a biologist and chicken-keeper, this is an interesting development.

Well, that guess was VERY much audibly confirmed last night about 10 minutes after lights out. That classic fox "bark" that's more like a scream/cry. I got out of bed and listened verrry quietly by the open window upstairs, scanned around the two coops for any sign of movement, and mentally reviewed how well I did or did not lock up the hens last night....

Happily, all 4 hens are here and accounted for in the morning, but I did NOT do a good job putting them up (not all security measures were in place), so it's time to crank up the security!

We lost our first chicken to a fox, and I have NO desire for a repeat. Foxes can EASILY climb up the 6-8 food wood posts lining my garden and do the same to get out. InSANEly nimble creatures.

Consider us warned and wary. But of course, ever-curious, too. =)

biobabbler

Divide and conquer... and encounter Lepidopterans!

Spent almost 4 hours yesterday working on coop divider technology. That'd involve sawing, thinking, sketching, sawing, gluing and hammering.

This relates to the biobabbler blog 'cause a) it's chicken-related, but mostly because b) once I get my chickens into the same coop, I can reclaim the chicken run and return it to a GARDEN. And that I am SO going to blog about.

So, the above is the divider for the largest part of the coop interior. Thrilling, I know. =)

As it happens, of course, I encountered nature. And thus have ANOTHER MYSTERY MOTH! =)

Resting between the two plywood boards I'd placed against our house was this creature.

Whom I then discovered was d.e.d. (that's "dead" to normal people).

Here's a shot of his/her underside (toes up):

And one last shot of our dear departed moth friend.

That's where I lay him out to rest (to eventually be discovered by Moby Chick, nabbed, and run off with to munch in peace). So now the moth is part of a large, happy white chicken, and got to take a fabulous dust bath yesterday, to the sound of a crosscut saw zipping through particle board.

So, moth-people, any guesses?

Thanks in advance!

biobabbler