From this:
To this:
We’re making progress. All the plants are being chosen by Tammy to attract butterflies, bees and similar pollinators. The lower garden (a shade garden) is designed to be a refuge for birds with fresh water and open dirt for bathing. Tammy I’m sure will create a more in depth entry on our progress and hopefully at the end we can do a real nice before and after comparison.
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I’m currently out on the NOAA Ship Nancy Foster, working for NURC but thought I would throw out a quick hello and a picture for everyone…
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Cetecea
Sub Order: Mysticeti
Family: Balaenopteridae
Genus: Megaptera
Species: Megaptera novaeangliae
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Rest — Notice the swallow behind and to the left of the boys.
Originally uploaded by eclectic echoes.
Last weekend we went to the Mystic Seaport’s 29th Annual Sea Music Festival, (more on the music later) we all had a blast at the festival and Johann had a grand time. One of the things he always wants to do when we go to the Seaport is run in the large grassy village commons area. He runs and runs, Tammy and I take turns chasing him or playing tag, but he also just flat out runs with whoever is willing to run, even if it’s only himself. This time he had quite a few running mates—a three year old boy and about two dozen barn swallows.
The barn swallows (Hirundo rustica) were feeding on the small gnats and other insects that were flying around the field. When Johan started running in the field there were about a half dozen swallows at a time in the field. As he started running around the field he joined up with a ~3 year old boy who was enjoying the field as well. Together they must have kicked up a lot of insects because the number of swallows dramatically increased.
The swallows criscrossed the field behind the boys and even chased “after them” to get all the good insects. The boys did not fail to notice and began chasing some of the swallows as well! It quickly became a game with both sides chasing round and round. Eventually the boys plopped down and just watched the swallows crossing back and forth in front and behind them. Often flying within arms reach!
By the time we left to go to the concerts there were at least two dozen swallows crisscrossing the field doing acrobatics to avoid the people walking by. More than once a swallow flew directly at me veering off only at the last minute. They did loops and immelman turns seemingly effortlessly.
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Passeriformes
Family: Hirundinidae
Genus: Hirundo
Species: Hirundo rustica
???
Originally uploaded by eclectic echoes.
Tammy and I figured out a potentially cheap way to make our own little plankton tow which we could use to make monthly or biweekly plankton community surveys. Real plankton tow nets run $150+ for a small one (I’m hoping we can “buy” one off a pair of retiring professors). We converted a small meshed carbon filter bag for an aquarium to use a hanger section to hold it open. Makes a 3″ diameter, 12″ long net. We tested it briefly this afternoon. The results? Well for $5 it worked decently. We got a few critters, including one copepod, three gastropod veliger larvae, three naupliar crustacean larvae and this mystery creature.
Unfortunately the photos of the other creatures did not turn out very well.
Juvenile (not larval) brittle star of some sort? Although it looks like it, brittle stars have 5 arms…this has 7 maybe 8.
A small or juvenile pycnogonid (sea spider)? Algae? Pollen? ????
This critter has a diameter of under 0.5mm (it’s diameter is less than that of a 0.5mm mechanical pencil lead — very precise yes?) and this shot was 45x through the home microscope, using extension tubes to jerry rig a system to mount the camera to the lens. I’ll have to see about borrowing one of the eyepieces from the school scopes and see if I can get a slightly better result using their probably better optics.
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Monarch Caterpillar
Originally uploaded by eclectic echoes.
This was from a few years ago, but it relates to today as well. It is a late instar monarch caterpillar (Danaus plexippus) about 10 of which Johann raised as a summer project. The hardest part was finding their food. The caterpillars eat milkweeds, which, being weeds, most people get rid of. We found it only in two locations in all of the general Mystic area – a cemetery and behind one of the old factories.
Ever hear of a book called Miss Rumphius
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Lepidoptera
Suborder: Macrolepidoptera
Family: Danaidae
Genus: Danaus
Species: Danaus plexippus
Green ?
Originally uploaded by eclectic echoes.
It’s been awhile since I did much photography. A bit here and there but not enough, and I haven’t posted much either. Family, work and school keep me too busy. (Mostly school and work) but I am resolved to make sure to enjoy life more than these last two semesters have allowed me to. So I am going to start dyeing (Shibori and indigo) again and more getting out there for photography and posting at flickr again, even if “out there” is only in the backyard. But then that is where I found my image for the Life Photo Meme…on more than one level. (Thanks Dorid!)
This little critter, is unknown to me. Looks almost like it would be a juvenile stage of a grasshopper, but somehow I don’t think so. Pretty bad for someone who helps run a blog about invertebrates, yes? But then I am mostly into marine invertebrates. Anyways…
He was found in the hydrangea bush in our new garden… one that I hope to spend more time enjoying this year… especially the basil and macro photography opportunities.
If anyone can ID this critter, please feel free to leave a coment.
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