Wednesday, October 22, 2014

2014 Roundup of Pics from Mom's Yard (+Vid)


Anyone who knows me could probably also tell you that I'm a super nature geek. Mycology and Geology are strong contenders on my list of potential college majors. Sometimes, wherever I am, I like to go outside with just my camera and rummage around to see what I can't dig up to snap pictures of. In October, I took a lot of pictures in mom's yard this way, and I have no idea when each batch was dated. A lot are from the 22nd, thus the chosen backdate. Here are the noteworthy finds, nevertheless, in no particular order:


This was snapped on a tree at the corner of her house. Still unsure of what kind of tree this is, I took a snapshot of one of the leaves. It was dicot and the leaves seemed to be springing forth out of strange bulbs. I'm unfamiliar with this.







A beautiful specimen of a Lynx spider was found on the top of a tall dead weed. She was poised over an egg sack and had recently caught and eaten what looked like a dragonfly. Lower down the stalk of the weed was a caught moth. I believe she is a green lynx variety, despite her brown appearance, but could also be common lynx.

The picture at the beginning of this blog entry is a close up shot of this spider.





Goldenrod flowers were still going strong. There was an entire stand of them on one side of the house. This wasp (who I named Dave) was one of many buzzing bugs that were presumably feeding on the flowers.








I don't know of these are, in fact, daisies, but they look a lot like them. What throws me off is that they were growing down from the bush and tree at the corner like a draping vine. Do daisies do that?










These are the berries on the tree in mom's yard... which I thought was a cherry dogwood, but now that I'm googling/wikipedia-ing it, it seems I was wrong... I have no idea what this is.








These chains of berries, often confused with the Elderberry plant, are not to be eaten and prove fairly toxic. These are the berries of the full grown Pokeweed shrub. The only household use for a plant this old--that I know of--is that you can gather the berries and boil them into a pretty purple dye.








This is a Green Lynx Spider. Contrasting the one posted earlier, this one is bright grass green. She was found on the same side of the house as the goldenrod stands. Farther down the wall was another almost identical to her whose egg had already matured and hatched. Look for a video of her and her babies at the end of this post!





These may look like tomatoes or similar gourds, but these are not to be eaten. These are juvenile fruits on a Horsenettle plant, named due to the rashes Horses break out in when they give into these plants. These berries can cause great harm to humans.







This little guy is the common Buckeye Butterfly. Its wing was damaged, but it could still fly. I felt pretty blessed and lucky to have gotten to hold it long enough to take multiple pictures of it.









 This BEAUTIFUL pupa was on the side of the house with the green lynx spiders. I have no idea what it is despite trying to figure it out for hours. Any ideas are welcome.






This nasty, testicular looking thing is the egg sac of the common Garden Spider. Talk about ugly duckling syndrome.








Speaking of, this is a common Garden Spider. People love to take pictures of these, so you've probably seen them. If you get to close or blow on them, they'll rock their web back and forth in an intimidating fashion. I named this one Emelia.






There was a bed of wild strawberries under the giant pokeweed shrubs, but this one was alone in the front of the yard. Turns out, turtles love these.








Lastly, there was this (big) little guy. I'm not good with ants, but this guy was surprisingly well formed and pretty as well as somewhat large. How cool!










Needless to say, it was a bountiful year. This is only the tip of the ice berg, though. I'll be posting the hikes and trips soon, which will be full of more natural nuggets.  (I'm posting this at the end of the year and backdating it for archival purposes.) Here is that video I took of the Green Lynx Spider and her babies. Bear with it, it was super windy that day so it starts out unsteady.


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