4 August 2024

Recent outdoor attractions include flowers, insects and the play of light on water. Here are few things seen last week … and even earlier.

Water beads made tiny magnifying lenses two weeks ago. Since that morning the weather has been too hot for condensation.

Pokeweed (Phytolacca americana) and teasel (Dipsacus fullonum) are in bloom.

Insects are busy in the heat. On 28 July sycamore tussock moths (Halysidota harrisii) dangled by silk threads as they lowered themselves from the sycamore trees. The only way to photograph one was to wait until he landed.

Zabulon skippers (Lon zabulon) have been easy to find. Some of them look ragged.

We found a pair of greenhouse millipedes (Oxidus gracilis) who kept walking as they mated. Two million legs in one photo?

And on 29 July I was surprised to see seven common mergansers (Mergus merganser) at Duck Hollow. They made arrow shapes on the river’s reflection as they swam. (The seventh one is underwater.) All but one of them looked female — in eclipse or molting.