Purple

Summer, it seems, has arrived with a vengence. After being chilly and damp for most of the spring it has become hot (highs in the mid-90s) and humid all of a sudden. To counter all that heat, I opted to pull up a couple of picures in shades of cooling purple.



Clematis crispa -- Blue Jasmine Leather-flower. (May 20th)



Scutellaria integrifolia -- Hyssop Skullcap. (June 3rd)

Aggravation Incarnate

Allow me to introduce to you, just in case you've never had the pleasure, a biting fly of the genus Chrysops. Commonly known as a deer fly, I prefer to think of it as aggravation incarnate. Yes, it's true, there are a very few animals I just plain don't like (but to be honest, I can appreciate them in context) and this one is tops on that list.

It's not so much that they bite -- they do, and quite viciously -- it's that they torture you first by flying about your head and face, crashing into your ears, flying up your nose, even going behind your glasses. ARGH...makes my blood pressure go up just thinking about it.



But they are sort of pretty when you take the time to look at them...

...just before you squish them!


************
Addendum: The kind and knowledgeable folks over at BugGuide.net have informed me that the top photo is of a female Chrysops vittatus. Now I can curse them properly and with respect :)

Shades of White

Many of the plants in bloom right now have white flowers. Due to time constraints, I limited myself to five species. (We don't have high speed access here in the swamp. I must depend on my dail-up connection, which on a good day provides me with the blazing speed of 24.0 Kbps.)



Sweetbay (Magnolia virginiana) -- aptly named, it has a pleasing fragrance.



Persimmon (Diospyrus virginiana) -- produces a sweet and nutritious fruit in the fall. Better be sure it's ripe before you taste it, though. If it is the slightest bit "green" it has a dreadful desiccative effect on the inside of your mouth.



Elderberry (Sambucus canadensis) -- If you look closely, you can see two spiders lying in wait for a hapless insect to pass by. These flowers are not exactly fragrant by human standards, but myriad little insects find them quite attractive. (On closer inspection, I believe the "spider" in the lower right may actually be a harvestman [Opiliones], commonly called a daddy-longlegs.)

Some people make wine from the berries produced by this shrub -- I've never tasted any, but I'm willing to give it a try.




Climbing hydrangea (Decumaria barbara) -- a common flowering vine here.



Common yarrow (Achillea millefolium) -- an herb that grows along roadsides and field edges.

It's Monday! Get out there and enjoy it.

Tell Tale Signs

If you were wandering along the trail or exploring your backyard and you ran across one or two of the items pictured below, would you know what they were?



Would you immediately suspect they were the frass of this creature?


Luna Moth Caterpillar

Who knew poop could be so pretty?

Phantom

Phantom craneflies (Bittacomorpha clavipes) are aptly named creatures. With their cryptic coloration, they sometimes seem to disappear as they drift along on the breeze in the sun-dappled lowlands.

Wonder

It's not often that one gets to touch a living thing that is over a thousand years old. A thousand years of life - almost incomprehensible. If this tree could share its history with us, what would it say?




This bald cypress (Taxodium distichum) stands deep in the swamp. It is very much alive and still producing cones. I often wonder how many of the cypress nearby are the offspring of this particular tree. Wonder if any of them will reach such a venerable age...

Four or five others of these massive virgin cypress still dot the swamp -- they were already too large to be cut by the time the first Europeans arrived. Several of them show signs of past lightning strikes and most have extensive hollows, but they continue to live and reproduce.

There was one other, but it was lost in 2003 when Hurricane Isabel blew through -- wonder how many hurricanes it had weathered in its long life?

Feed Me!

Swollen Bladderwort, Utricularia inflata - a floating, carnivorous plant common in the swamps and ponds of my area.
This plant "eats" tiny arthropods that swim too close to the bladders on the submerged leaves.

A tiny surprise in a hole in the base of a bald cypress, about two and a half feet above the waterline -- a nest full of baby Prothonotary Warblers. If we hadn't seen the adult bird, we would have paddled right by them.

Life Among the Lilypads

Lilypad damselfly, Ischnura kellicotti. An immature female resting on, you guessed it, a lilypad!

Nearby, a male of the same species resting on yet another lilypad.



The leaves of the spatterdock lily make wonderful resting and hunting places for a variety of insects, frogs, arthropods and even some birds. The flowers of the spatterdock are bright yellow and make a nice contrast with the dark waters of the pond.

This raccoon was watching us from a tree along the trail beside our house.

Streamside Dragon

For your entomological enjoyment, I offer two views of a large and lovely dragonfly we found today. We were unfamiliar with this particular species and were delighted to add it to our odonate list.


Cordulegaster obliqua, Arrowhead Spiketail -- this one was quite fresh and hadn't completely dried after emerging from its nymphal skin. It was about 3 inches long.

Here's a close-up view of its head and thorax.

Cute and Harmless

I know some of you have aversions to snakes, but this one is cute and it couldn't bite me even if it wanted to because its mouth is too small. (Take a deep breath Keith! Just think of it as exposure therapy.)


Carphophis amoenus amoenus -- a long name for a tiny little Worm Snake...

...with quite a pretty belly.



These snakes are very small. Adults range in size from 7.5 to 12.5 inches (191 to 318 mm). Earthworms make up most of their diet.

Atlantic Coast Slimy Salamander

Leopard's Bane

Jack-in-the-pulpit

Post Successful...

...the two most beautiful words in Bloggerdom!

Oh yes, oh yes! As mysteriously as it stopped working, Hello has started working again. It is just down right silly how happy this makes me. Pardon me while I do the dance of joy!

I have absolutely no idea why Hello went AWOL, or why it came back...I'm just happy it did. But enough talk -- on to the pictures.

Indian cucumber root, Medeola virginiana

I believe this fungus is one of the tree-ears, but I haven't tried to key it out yet. The top surface feels velvety and the underside is smooth.

Absolutely no idea what these will turn out to be, but they were so positively pink I had to show them to you. Perhaps one of the puff-ball fungi? I will go back and check on them tomorrow to see how they have matured.

Thanks for stopping by! Hope everyone has a wonderful and safe Memorial Day weekend.

OK, Maybe That Wasn't the Last Thing

Thanks to help from two very special guys (you know who you are!) I may be able to keep on with this blogging business, just with a bit less frequency. My nearly once a day, multiple pictures in a post, blogging habit may be replaced by twice a week, only one picture in a post habit. I have a dial-up connection so things tend to go a bit slowly.

Please check back toward the end of next week and I'll try to have something up for you.

One Last Thing

Just so you don't think I'm a wimpy ole quitter...

I bit the bullet and joined the Google Groups thing because I really would like to resolve this picture posting issue. What did I learn? Number one, I am far from alone in this problem -- it is mildly rampant! And number two, there appears to be no resolution for it. People have tried a tremendous range of remedies, but to no avail. Plus there were MANY letters referring to the lack of response to requests for help.

C'est la vie!

Bye.

Still Not Right!

So, I am giving Photobucket a try. Thus far its performance has been less than stellar...maybe I'm just not holding my mouth right or something...

Things are a trifle hectic here in the swamp at the moment and I just don't know if I have the time or patience to deal with software that won't work. Perhaps when things calm down, and I have enough time to deal with troubleshooting, I will get back to posting regularly, but for now I think I am hanging up my blogging hat.

You all take care of yourselves -- even though you are invisible "e-people," I have come to consider you friends (don't we live in very strange times?).