Day 223: Keep Calm and Look Like Dung

 Backyard Nature, Insects, Piney Woods Church Road 365 Project, Sense of Place  No Responses »
Aug 112014
 

Keep calm and look like dung.  That appears to be the strategy of the Viceroy Caterpillar (Limenitis archippus), here photographed on a pin cherry leaf along Piney Woods Church Road.  When alarmed by the presence of my camera lens, he (or she) even contorted his/her body in a fascinating bit of caterpillar yoga, presumably so to look even more like bird droppings.  Considering that I found four caterpillars thriving on four different leaves of the same sapling, it appears that the strategy may be paying off.

 

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Dogday Cicada

 Backyard Nature, Insects  4 Responses »
Aug 102014
 

Earlier this afternoon, I spotted a large Dogday Cicada (Tibicen canicularis) resting placidly on the railing of my front porch.  I had never had the opportunity to get so close to a live cicada before.  This one did not flinch when I drew my camera up close to its face.  The little reddish dots on its forehead (there are three) are oscelli, primitive “eyes” that detect light.

 

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Day 221: Sweetgum Jewel

 Backyard Nature, Geometry and Nature, Native Plants, Piney Woods Church Road 365 Project, Sense of Place  2 Responses »
Aug 092014
 

I set out on a humid morning, after the fog had lifted and shortly before the heat descended.  After so many dry afternoons I was drawn ineluctably to drops of water, minute suspended temporary worlds.  My favorite photograph is of this single water droplet, hanging from the tip of a sweetgum leaf.

 

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Day 220: The Green Cone-headed Planthopper

 Backyard Nature, Insects, Piney Woods Church Road 365 Project, Sense of Place  No Responses »
Aug 082014
 

This small green insect (perhaps a quarter-inch long) with furtive eyes and a body like a leaf is one of my new-found favorites along Piney Woods Church Road.  It is a Cone-headed Planthopper (Acanalonia conica).  A strict vegetarian, it feeds on a wide variety of plants by piercing them and sucking their juices.  This one was not very masterful at evading my camera, though it did try to get away a few times by shifting to the other side of the stem, out of sight and reach.

 

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Day 219: Virgins and Barbed Wire

 Backyard Nature, Piney Woods Church Road 365 Project, Sense of Place  No Responses »
Aug 072014
 

In my wandering down Piney Woods Church Road this morning, I inevitably returned to the Sweet Autumn Virginsbower (Clematis terniflora) blooming along a cattle pasture fence.  I suspect I will take quite a few photographs of the flower in different light over the days to come.  For today, my image juxtaposes the delicate, four-petaled white flower with a barb in the fence, a gray blur in the background.

 

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Roadside Melodrama

 Backyard Nature, Natural History, Sense of Place  No Responses »
Aug 062014
 

Another plant came into flower along Piney Woods Church Road, which is a fairly uncommon event at the height of midsummer.  The blooming vine is covered with a profusion of white blossoms with four petals and yellow stigmas (the uppermost portion of the pistil).  It has a delicate beauty though no noticeable fragrance.  I was disappointed to find that it is an invasive species from China or Japan with quite a melodramatic name :  Sweet Autumn Virginsbower (Clematis terniflora).  Originally introduced as an ornamental plant, it is now found throughout the Southeast along forest edges and rights-of-way.  Ah, well.  If I am to be a photographer of dirt road landscapes, I will become familiar indeed with many invasive species on my journeys.

 

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