Monday in Nature Weekly Photo August 25, 2014

<p><strong>Sandplain Gerardia (Agalinis Acuta) - endangered plant:</strong><br /> I am happy for the opportunity to document this rare, federally protected, wildflower. I visited the location twice but there were no blooms and, finally, the buds were open on my 3rd visit on Friday. And I was glad to see quite a number of bees busy at work. The flower is small - about 9mm x 12mm - less than 1/2" on either dimension.</p>

<p>If you want to know more about this flower, Google, or follow this <a href="http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/esa_works/profile_pages/SandplainGerardia.html">link</a>.</p><div></div>

<p>With a little bit of rain in the last week or so there are lots more mushrooms in our local park.</p><div></div>

<p>Early morning dew on a "fox tail" (how they call them there)....appx 20 miles outside of Fairbanks, AK.</p><div></div>

<p>Really great shots this week! One of the things I love about my new neighborhood is all the trees. There are three big trees right outside the front door, and often I'm inside working on my computer and I can hear the birds darting among them. Yesterday, I could hear a Kookaburra outside, but just as I'd changed the lens on my camera and got outside it flew off 'laughing'. Darn they're quick! Later that day, after another failed attempt to catch another bird, I tried one more time. This time, the bird, the Spangled Drongo seemed happy to pose. It seems somewhat ironic to me that while the Kookaburra's always darted away laughing (at me) this drongo sat in the tree. Here's the irony - drongo is Australian slang for 'idiot' or someone who has done something rather silly. Here's what wikipedia has to say "The spangled drongo is the only <a title="Drongo" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drongo">drongo</a> to be found in Australia. "Drongo" is Australian slang for "idiot", possibly referring to the bird's uninhibited and sometimes comical behaviour as it swoops and perches in search of insects, small birds and occasionally, small skinks." Ah, who cares, I got the shot!</p><div></div>

<p>Bob, John got it, <em>Laetiporous sulphureus. </em><em><br /></em>You may see another member of the genus with a creamy white bottom, <em>L. cincinnatus</em>.<br>

Jonathan, welcome back. <br>

Douglas, that must have been great. <br>

Charles Sumner, I really like that one.</p>

<p>John Farrar, well, I don't know about expert status. That's very generous of you. You'd probably be quite amused at how often I tug at my braids wondering what some fungus is. </p>

<p>Periscope Up!</p>

<div></div>

<p>Thank you Laura, glad you like it. I don't know the bugs that build these nests. Every few years the population peaks and our trees are full of them. I fear this small tree will not survive.<br>

Edit: Great job, everyone.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>how often I tug at my braids wondering what some fungus is.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I know a guy that scratches at a toe nail...<br>

Sorry... :)<br>

Here's a guy that lives 10' away from here.</p><div></div>

<p>Grasshopper with thrift-store micro Nikkor 105/2.8 on NEX-6.</p><div></div>

<p>Avocets in flight</p><div></div>

Weeks of extremely hot dry conditions have turned Camsusa Creek which runs in a torrent along the

mountain below my place much of the year, into nothing but a spindly trickle connecting a few pools which

have lasted only by being totally hidden from sunlight be dense overhanging vegetation. There is absolutely

no vantage point from which you can see there is water fifteen feet below the tree in this photograph. The

evidence there is water remaining in a pool down there is purely circumstantial: that birds, like this Cedar

Waxing, emerge from below, absolutely as soaked as a sponge. They are managing to take relief from the

heat, the dust, and the bugs by taking a full-immersion bath, then rising to this tree to fluff, preen, and dry

themselves in the mid-day sun.

 

Ten meters behind the vantage point I took this photo from, the earth is scorched bone dry, the grasses so

dry that despite three days of light rain last week, the fire risk is still rated extreme. And yet to get to my

camera-vantage-point I scraped my way through thick, lush, blackberry brambles.....and paid the price to get

this photograph....four blackberry thorn slashes across my right wrist in the gap between my jacket sleeve

and gloves.....each 3 cm long, spaced 2 cm apart, and which bled profusely down my arm (and which, along

with bee stings, wasp stings, and spider bites, taught me long ago to always carry a small spray bottle of

ispopropyl alcohol in my photography cargo-pants pocket).

 

Micro-climates ? You betcha. It's why rhubarb will grow in one corner of your garden in the city and not in the

other corner 20 meters away. Differing levels of sun and water. Life on this earth survives because of one

simple word. Diversity. Without that, there is nothing.

 

Good topic<div></div>

to Michael Chuang, I've been debating having a smaller rig i can have along with me specifically as a landscape

camera rather than carrying two full dslrs but uncertain as to quality. Your grasshopper is telling me maybe I

should be carrying two NEX6's, one with a long lens for birds, one with wide for landscapes, instead of carrying

a heavy 7D at all. WOW ! Great image.

 

(while I'm back on, there are two typos in my post I can't go back and edit..."be" shud read "by", and the bird

beastie is obviously a WaxWing, with a "W" in there).

 

And I repeat.....good topic, Laura.