December 10, 2023

Martha O'Kennon It must be Winter! The pond has frozen and unfrozen a couple of times already, giving me the excuse to do a little scooping up of the leaves on top. The pretty green thing is the floating heater to keep the pond from ever being completely frozen over.



We've had a bit of a break in our monthly blog routine, due to my foot surgery and, following on its heels, a case of hallucinatory Covid. You don't want to try it! I seem to be on the mend. I also upped my camera to one with a working flash in order to try to get better pictures in our dark winter viewing spaces. Since I usually move remotely alphabetically in these early frames, let's see if the new camera has spotted any recognizable Ants. Why Yes! This fellow was ID'ed as a Furrowed Ant.



Remember that there is information in the name of the file for each image. You can see it by mousing over the image - look at the lower left of the screen. Or you can click on the image to get to the (usually) larger image. Then the info is displayed in the address line above. Sometimes the second click will actually display a different view of the original image.

These two are probably our usual Winter Ants. I took these two pictures early in the trial period for the camera. I have been finding that the change in weight of the camera (from the older camera) is meaning I have to practise my hand posture to learn when to press the Take-me button.



There were some recognizable Barklice, all of our old friend, Graphopsocus cruciatus. Still room for improvement!



No Beetles. But here is a Bug, namely our old friend Drymus unus. I don't think I've seen one in the dead of Winter before, but maybe it's trying to say, "Just wait, this isn't the dead of Winter yet!" Friends, that's it for Bugs. But the Wall had a few Crane Flies, like these two. Fourth is one more good-sized Fly. I had no idea what it was but the ID app in iNat says it's some kind of Blackfly. Well, it's not black, but it is a good-looking Fly.



There were Loopers (Geometrid Moth larvae) all over the place. Here are three of them.



You'll be sad to hear the flowering plant pictures are pretty scarce these days. But the Spiders are still out there, although I haven't gotten any Spider pictures since I switched cameras. AND it's almost time for the crocuses to start blooming. SOON.... Although the Frogs haven't been seen for a couple of months already, and the fishes gave up their meals when the pond got too cold to encourage them, still those Fishes haven't given up their swims. Here are a couple of pictures of their antics.



So we have had a few weeks with little or no blogs coming your way. But I hope this week will cheer you all up. And I hope to be able to practise on the outdoor photography when the outdoors are a little less rainy! Enjoy all your holidays. I hope to get back soon to when once more EVERY DAY will be a holiday! In the meantime, continue to do what you can to preserve our amazing world!



Love, Martha



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