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cincinnatus_c
Currently at Toronto Pearson: 13. High today: 27. Cold front this afternoon has dropped the dewpoint from 21 to 4. Ottawa is still at 18.
Just about through Day 2 of four-day camera withdrawal. So far it has close to convinced me that I ought to get a better camera.
Here's last weekend's bugs:
Having watched There Will Be Blood at Film'n'Philosophy last Thursday (about which something, maybe, sometime? eh, probably not), this here large mosquito-like bug jabbing at that there daisy with its long proboscis--
--reminded me of the sign-language gesture for drilling oil ... or something.
Buttercup with small bee:
Blue butterfly:
L. tried to take a picture of one of these in Edmonton, and I tried to get one at the cottage last month, but they closed up their wings when they landed. This one kept its wings open for some reason.
Mating carrion beetles:
Many years ago, a dead sunfish appeared on shore--I have no idea how it got there--and after a day or two it was full of these carrion beetles. which my friend E. dubbed Doctor Bugs, since they were evidently there to fix the sunfish. (Here's some cool stuff about carrion beetles.)
The leather they're sitting on top of belongs to a raccoon that I first encountered floating in the boathouse last month. Before I would've had to deal with the corpse, it disappeared. I assumed turtles, but it has since reappeared well up on shore, mostly in one piece--actually, pretty much entirely in one piece, except for its skull--
--and jawbones:
I wouldn't have expected fireflies to look like this:
They look kinda like sunflower seeds with orange heads. That one there is probably the one L. got me to rescue from a spider web--this spider's web:
The gucky ball it's leaving behind, believe it or not, is a former damsel fly. Speaking of which: early Sunday morning, we went out canoeing--I've got dozens of early morning canoeing pictures from last weekend and last month that I want to throw up here sometime--and plucked two damsel flies out of the water. This one--
--had just dunked itself and so was vigorously flapping to dry itself off; this one--
--had been swimming a bit longer, but was still waving its legs.
Finally, here's a bald-faced hornet emerging from the nest it's built next to the front window of the cottage--
--right before I quickly backed away. (Audobon says of the bald-faced hornet: "Adults are extremely protective of the nest and will sting repeatedly if disturbed.") As L. says, you don't get a sense from my pictures of how damned big this thing is; it's built like a bumble bee. When I was a kid, I would've been terrified of it--it's interesting to me that I have no idea when I got over that, but I feel like it was not that long ago.
Oh, wait, PS: not exactly a bug, but close enough:
And something else not-quite-in-focus:
Just about through Day 2 of four-day camera withdrawal. So far it has close to convinced me that I ought to get a better camera.
Here's last weekend's bugs:
Having watched There Will Be Blood at Film'n'Philosophy last Thursday (about which something, maybe, sometime? eh, probably not), this here large mosquito-like bug jabbing at that there daisy with its long proboscis--
--reminded me of the sign-language gesture for drilling oil ... or something.
Buttercup with small bee:
Blue butterfly:
L. tried to take a picture of one of these in Edmonton, and I tried to get one at the cottage last month, but they closed up their wings when they landed. This one kept its wings open for some reason.
Mating carrion beetles:
Many years ago, a dead sunfish appeared on shore--I have no idea how it got there--and after a day or two it was full of these carrion beetles. which my friend E. dubbed Doctor Bugs, since they were evidently there to fix the sunfish. (Here's some cool stuff about carrion beetles.)
The leather they're sitting on top of belongs to a raccoon that I first encountered floating in the boathouse last month. Before I would've had to deal with the corpse, it disappeared. I assumed turtles, but it has since reappeared well up on shore, mostly in one piece--actually, pretty much entirely in one piece, except for its skull--
--and jawbones:
I wouldn't have expected fireflies to look like this:
They look kinda like sunflower seeds with orange heads. That one there is probably the one L. got me to rescue from a spider web--this spider's web:
The gucky ball it's leaving behind, believe it or not, is a former damsel fly. Speaking of which: early Sunday morning, we went out canoeing--I've got dozens of early morning canoeing pictures from last weekend and last month that I want to throw up here sometime--and plucked two damsel flies out of the water. This one--
--had just dunked itself and so was vigorously flapping to dry itself off; this one--
--had been swimming a bit longer, but was still waving its legs.
Finally, here's a bald-faced hornet emerging from the nest it's built next to the front window of the cottage--
--right before I quickly backed away. (Audobon says of the bald-faced hornet: "Adults are extremely protective of the nest and will sting repeatedly if disturbed.") As L. says, you don't get a sense from my pictures of how damned big this thing is; it's built like a bumble bee. When I was a kid, I would've been terrified of it--it's interesting to me that I have no idea when I got over that, but I feel like it was not that long ago.
Oh, wait, PS: not exactly a bug, but close enough:
And something else not-quite-in-focus:
