Looking a little the worse for the wear, but still a beautiful butterfly.
Tiny little guys (~3 cm). Female (left) & male (right). They were definitely going about together. The female was slowly fanning her wings when I took this, while the male was just sitting there.
For Pearl vs Northern Crescent, I think these would be considered Pearl. The orange area in the hindwing here has some black lines, rather than being more open like a typical Northern. The only Northern records in NJ are in the NW highlands (this is SW lowlands). And Pearl usually have black antennal clubs (unlike the female here), but not always.
However, the plot thickens: turns out "Pearl Crescent" may actually be 2 species. Apparently some of the "Pearl Crescents" with orange club tips may actually be a separate species, called variously the Pearl Crescent Intermediate Form or the Summer Crescent. So the female here might be an example of one of these.
See excellent detailed discussion here from outdoors2magic.
But the male has black club tips, & thus looks like a bona fide Pearl. So if these individuals are different species, shouldn't somebody tell them that? (Granted, I didn't actually see them mating, just keeping company.) And if they have separate flight times, why am I seeing them together?
Comments/corrections welcome!
This nest was built in the rafters of 1 of the bird observation blinds at Great Swamp. I was expecting to observe birds from the blind, not in the blind! But I saw some droppings on the floor, looked up, & saw these. I'm pretty sure they are Eastern Phoebes, since those love nesting in human structures, & there was an adult hanging around right outside the blind. The adult didn't seem agitated -- I thought it was just going about its business catching flies, until I discovered the nest. And the nestlings were quiet as a mouse while we were there. However, as I lifted the camera towards the nest to take the picture, they started to gape for me! Apparently it's a pretty general reflex towards anything approaching.
Thanks to Ophis for the ID!
Growing in a park lawn. Thank you to DSutherland & capreolus for the ID!
~10 cm tall. And no, before anyone gets confused, it didn't win a prize somewhere; that's simply the title that came to mind.
One of a kind. That's a large piece of bark on the swamp floor there, but I couldn't tell if that's what it was growing from.
Thank you to David Work for the following ID. View his spectacular mycophotos here: fiddlehead.smugmug.com/
"The fungus in your photo looks to be a very young genus Ganoderma, either
species tsugae which grows on hemlock or lucidum which grows on hardwoods.
Ganoderma lucidum is very well known as a medicinal fungus known to the
Japanese as Reishi and to the Chinese as ling chih. Ganoderma tsugae is
gaining attention for medicinal qualities as well. Whatever their purported
properties, they sure are pretty to look at. Here is a photo of a juvenile
Ganoderma tsugae fiddlehead.smugmug.com/gallery/8209/8/2296426 from
above and another photo from the side showing the manner of growth on the
tree. They also grow up from the ground from the roots of the tree."
I think it was all hardwoods in there (altho I'm not positive), so I've called it lucidum.
Tree of Life: tolweb.org/Polyporoid_clade/20558
For Urtica's Purple Loosestrife pollinator study. It's not gonna win any prizes, but at least the species of pollinator is clearly identifiable.
Nobody seems to bother with these common roadside species, but I think they're lovely. Anyway, somebody's got to submit them to the Field Guide group!
The bright green leaves in the background are ferns, but the dark green feathery one at the top right is the yarrow.
Common Mullein. Will probably be better when it really gets started, but I couldn't resist this shot now.
Tiger lilies are an escaped ornamental. But these are not normal ones, which have 6 petal-like parts, but rather mutant ones (probably a known cultivar; I've seen similar ones elsewhere) in which the petals are tripled, so they have 18. Doubling/tripling/etc of petals is a common phenomenon -- sometimes seen in wild-type flowers, but very common in ornamental cultivars. Roses were all bred from wild roses that have 5 petals. There's a lot known now about the genes that govern flower pattern formation. What we have here is what's called a homeotic mutation -- a transformation of one part into another. In this case it's a transformation of stamens (and probably 1 other whorl) into petals. What's really cool is that it's an incomplete transformation, so you can often still see the filament of the stamen embedded in the petal, and a fully-functional pollen-bearing anther growing at its tip. Here's a closeup.
There are numerous genes that are known to be involved in pattern formation in flowers. Many of them are transcription factors -- "master control genes" that bind to DNA and turn on or off other genes.
This is called Spotted Knapweed, but I think that's an awfully ugly name for such a beautiful flower. Unfortunately, it is considered an invasive weed.
Black Knapweed: black involucre below the flower head; usually no spreading rays
Spotted Knapweed (above): short spreading rays, divided leaves
Brown Knapweed: brown involucre below the flowerhead; long, showy spreading rays
ID, flower & bug? Abundant, sandy soil around seashore marsh. Flower is ~2 cm across. Wish I'd gotten a shot without the "bonus" bug -- didn't even see it as I was taking the pictures.
Alright, what on earth is going on here? Why is there a "drop shadow"?
This is a perfectly ordinary handheld daytime shot against a perfectly ordinary daytime sky with a perfectly ordinary inboard flash. (Truth to tell, I was trying to shoot in silhouette, & was thwarted when the stupid flash decided to fire.) See EXIF data for details (click on More Properties). No fog or mist. Any ideas?
See also discussion thread here in Technique group: www.flickr.com/groups/topic/59187
Here is someone else's example from the ID Please pool: www.flickr.com/photos/kpocheffy/26029388/ . And the discussion thread there: www.flickr.com/groups/topic/57094/
Large, showy purple spikes -- an escaped ornamental. I was slightly bummed because I thought I missed getting a shot of this this spring, but discovered one stashed away.
Wouldn't hurt to have someone check my ID on this. Looks exactly right, except that leaves on mine are frankly heart-shaped. Is that within normal limits? I can upload a growth habit shot if anyone wants.
For Urtica's Purple Loosestrife pollinator study. It's not gonna win any prizes, but at least the species of pollinator is clearly identifiable.
These also come in yellow. Didn't realize why it was called Moth Mullein until I saw this view -- the interior really looks like a moth. I wonder if it is pollinated by one?
Tiny (only 1 cm across) but intense!
Aptly named! An older book also lists it as Black-winged Damselfly, but I like Ebony Jewelwing much better.
BugGuide info
Here's the female : it doesn't have the iridescence, but it has its own beauty -- dark brown wings just translucent enough to give a moire pattern, and white spots at the tips of them.
I was trying to get a shot of this little one on a pondside shrub leaf, but conditions weren't ideal; the light was relatively low & there were unpredictable gusts of wind. I reached out slowly with my left hand to try to steady the branch, but she lifted off -- and landed right on my shutter finger!
I transferred the camera to my left hand and worked the shutter button with my left thumb. The problem was that the camera's wrist strap was still around my right wrist, & with it attached like that I couldn't get the camera far enough away from the subject. It's is a little Olympus prosumer; pretty good, but the closest it will focus is 20cm. And getting it to autofocus on the subject is often extremely frustrating. (It has a manual focus, but it's a kludgy menu-driven interface that is next to useless.) I just could not seem to get it to focus on the finger & damselfly, whether because it was too close or because the autofocus was just being more obstreperous than usual (which is pretty bloody obstreperous) I don't know.
So I decided I needed to extricate my right hand from the wrist strap. Moving very slowly, I opened the loop up as wide as possible & passed it over the hand, up & over the finger with damselfly. Amazingly, she didn't budge! After that it was a lot easier, but the camera still didn't want to autofocus on this subject.
I was very lucky to finally get this shot -- I took a couple of dozen, & this one, with this incredibly cute pose ("cute" is not a word I normally associate with insects, but there you have it) is the only one that came out.
I'm pretty sure this is an immature (newly minted) female Sedge Sprite, the sprites being our smallest damselflies.
(Note for other Olympus users: I'm not talking about the big neck strap that came with the camera. I decided it was just too much strap for the camera, so I put the little wrist strap from my old Nikon film point & shoot on it instead.)
I think this is probably a mature female Eastern Forktail.
The left eye is blurred because she's moving it -- they swivel very fast.
A lot of Blue Dashers around. This guy was in the shadows looking out towards a sunlit area, leading to this gorgeous opalescence in the eyes.
Here's his girlfriend: www.flickr.com/photos/anitagould/23520972/ .
I rescued this dragonfly from a spiderweb. (I'm sure neither dragonfly nor spider were happy with the state of affairs, being as the dragonfly was probably 2X as large as the biggest spiders & just as carnivorous.) She rewarded me by perching on my hand.
Actually, she first landed on the dead reeds around the high-tide mark in this salt marsh, & I picked up her perch for this shot. She then flew down to my hand. She seemed weak, & her wings were still fouled by the spiderweb so she couldn't fly well. But she did seem to be successfully clearing her wings -- there's less spiderweb left in this shot than in the earlier one.
