4 August 2024
Latest outside points of interest embody flowers, bugs and the play of sunshine on water. Listed here are few issues seen final week … and even earlier.
Water beads made tiny magnifying lenses two weeks in the past. Since that morning the climate has been too scorching for condensation.
Pokeweed (Phytolacca americana) and teasel (Dipsacus fullonum) are in bloom.
Bugs are busy within the warmth. On 28 July sycamore tussock moths (Halysidota harrisii) dangled by silk threads as they lowered themselves from the sycamore bushes. The one solution to {photograph} one was to attend till he landed.
Zabulon skippers (Lon zabulon) have been straightforward to search out. A few of them look ragged.
We discovered a pair of greenhouse millipedes (Oxidus gracilis) who saved strolling as they mated. Two million legs in a single photograph?
And on 29 July I used to be stunned to see seven frequent mergansers (Mergus merganser) at Duck Hole. They made arrow shapes on the river’s reflection as they swam. (The seventh one is underwater.) All however one in every of them seemed feminine — in eclipse or molting.
