Punk inspiration
July 31, 2020 - By tradition, the Ramones, the Damned, and the Saints generally get credit for recording the first punk rock records—and...
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The real thing... this time
July 30, 2020 - Yesterday's discovery was an exceedingly artful mimic of a hornet; today's find is the genuine item... and the long anti...
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Artful deceiver
July 29, 2020 - Years ago, the sight of a yellow jacket would have sent me running in near-terror in the opposite direction. Why is a lo...
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Show starter and stopper
July 28, 2020 - For reasons that may just turn out to be unfathomable, our Rose of Sharon shrubs are always late in blooming, typically...
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Hummingbird moths at last
July 27, 2020 - Earlier today I discovered that my persistent headache and almost frozen neck appeared to be the result of—what else?—Ly...
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What matters
July 26, 2020 - To honor the late hero John Lewis, who passed away last week, and the Black Lives Matter movement, I went to a local ral...
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Clerical botany
July 25, 2020 - By your leave, i am so far behind at this point that I toyed with just posting two weeks of images, day by day, to catch...
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Stag party
July 24, 2020 - My favorite strategy for posting images is to go with the first sighting, but this shot of a stag beetle, a commoner amo...
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Pretty pest
July 23, 2020 - I spend a lot of time and quite joyful energy in July looking for hummingbird moths, those remarkable lepidopteran mimic...
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Halloween in July
July 22, 2020 - The continuing intense heat and humidity, to say nothing of the persistent deer flies, have made walking something less...
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NEOWISE, at last
July 21, 2020 - As I noted earlier, my attempts to photograph Comet NEOWISE didn't go well at all, and I really had no adequate explanat...
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Bad sign
July 20, 2020 - With the first real heat of the summer firmly in place, I'm sticking closer to home... and the air-conditioning... so mo...
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Delighted, Bettylen
July 19, 2020 - The hot weather is settling in for the duration, and it'll be a lake day later. For now, however, I'm enjoying the rapid...
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Red, black, and purple
July 18, 2020 - I was hoping that our star party in the evening with all of our kids would yield—finally—a great comet picture, but no s...
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Lyin' eyes
July 17, 2020 - As far as I'm concerned, no summer is complete without an appearance by the master deceiver known as the Eyed Click Beet...
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Not so terrible
July 16, 2020 - When a Yellow Jacket shows up on the Oak-leaf Hydrangea blossoms, the typical response among the pollinators, be they be...
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NEOWISE, post-dusk
July 15, 2020 - Comet NEOWISE, named after the space telescope that first discovered it on March 27th of this year, has been making quit...
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Hydrangea highway robbery
July 14, 2020 - Among the most anticipated arrivals in the summer fly department would be these bumblebee mimics belonging to the dipter...
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Fumitory, finally
July 13, 2020 - When I got a note from my TriTown Forest Preserve friends about trying to locate a mystery fern that might, according to...
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The right pickerel stuff
July 12, 2020 - I was dropping my granddaughter off at my daughter's in the afternoon, and while I was there, I figured I'd spend some t...
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Pretty harbinger
July 11, 2020 - It's getting genuinely warm and humid... closing in on oppressive, really, especially with the rapidly developing drough...
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Heaven scent
July 10, 2020 - When Rhododendron viscosum, a.k.a. the Swamp Azalea, is in bloom, I normally have to journey to a nearby wetland to view...
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Hopeful sign
July 09, 2020 - With the emergence of the deer flies and other sanguivorous members of the dipteran family Tabanidae, I'm increasingly l...
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Ringer
July 08, 2020 - Given that I'm under rather strict orders from my cardiac team to avoid splitting wood by hand—a passion and a disciplin...
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Master and mimic
July 07, 2020 - The hope that I'd run into the first of the Monarch caterpillars lured me out of COVID-19 isolation to sample the pleasu...
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Inside silver
July 06, 2020 - One of my favorite butterflies is the Silver-spotted Skipper, a lepidopteran that has the distinction of being, accordin...
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Rhodie trip
July 05, 2020 - By tradition, the wild rhododendrons should be just about at peak, and that, by a corollary tradition, should prompt a r...
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Natural fireworks
July 04, 2020 - This just might be the strangest Fourth of July of my entire life. For starters, it just didn't feel like a holiday, wha...
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A touch of garden gold
July 03, 2020 - This is another instance of what I'd call the Dorothy Syndrome, as in, from the Wizard of Oz, "there's no place like hom...
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Unexpected return
July 02, 2020 - When the owner of a nearby field decided that it was looking too unkempt and needed to be mowed regularly, I knew that s...
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Continuating the generations
July 01, 2020 - I grew up in the Rhode Island suburbs, and one of the joys of my dad's life was his flower garden. (For who knows what r...
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