Nature in your backyard: Photo extravaganza!

[Amazon Floozy Goddess]

Here's your assignment:

1) Find cool little bitties of nature around your place of dwelling

2) Take photos

3) Post photos!

Here's mine!

On Sunday, it was a rainy day. The nice, melancholy kind of rainy. I waited till it slowed to a light drizzle, then went outside. First thing I noticed was a cedar bush which had been populated by funnel web spiders. Most of them were squeezed tight in their little funnels, but this guy seemed to be enjoying the rain.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...nnelspider.jpg

Here's a shot of another part of his web. It was purty.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...Drizzleweb.jpg

I spotted a cool shelf fungus growing on a gnarled old tree. It was pretty big! This stack was a good 2 feet high, and the widest shelf was at least a foot.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...helffungus.jpg

Getting closer, I noticed a little maggot on one part. Do maggots eat fungi?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...ngusmaggot.jpg

I saw another maggot then, and another. The falling things and little pats coming from the branches weren't raindrops, as I'd thought, but maggots. They were leaping. Mainly at me. I didn't stick around to see where they were coming from.

But here's a shot of another fungus on the other side of the tree!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...elffungus2.jpg

[Giles]

From about 18 months ago in one back yard.

From about a year ago in my other back yard.

[Acid Lamp]

I have a whole album from our backyard garden.


index here.

There are many "wild" pics in there along with the garden's progress.

[Amazon Floozy Goddess]

Originally Posted by Giles

From about 18 months ago in one back yard.

From about a year ago in my other back yard.

Pretty! Someday I hope to get a digital SLR. I only have a little point-and-shoot Fuji with limited macro function. I do have an old Miranda SLR which has got to be pushing 40 years at this point. It has a crazy bellows extension for macro shots, which works pretty well, but it requires a lot of light. The camera is also way past overdue for a good internal cleaning - little bits of fuzzies can be seen through the viewfinder.

[TroubleAgain]

Limiting myself solely to things found in my back yard:

White Peacock butterfly

Lizard on a ledge

Grasshopper

Sphynx moth caterpillars, I believe

Dragonfly

Zebra Longwing butterfly

Black Swallowtail butterfly

Hundred baby spiders of unknown type

Gulf Fritillary caterpillar (I had a photo of a Gulf Fritillary butterfly, but can't find it right now.

My flower album is mostly stuff from my back yard, as well, but there are flowers there from Bok Tower Gardens, Englewood, North Carolina and many other places as well.

[Harmonious Discord]

Imagine a white marble rock. I'm pressure washing rock all day to remove brown flood gunk two quarts at a time.

White rock.

Can you picture it?

I started looking at the nice pictures here and had to stop.

[Mahna Mahna]

Thanks to the near-daily rainstorms we had for a good part of the summer, we ended up with itty bitty little mushrooms growing in our lawn.

And here's a shot of the spider (species unknown) that guards my tomato plants. It's hard to tell just how big he is in that photo, but trust me when I say he's pretty freakin' huge - his abdomen is around the size of a peanut. There are several other spiders of the same species lurking around in our garden, though thankfully most of them are much smaller.

[BaneSidhe]

All of these pictures are gorgeous! Here's my contributions:

Some type of weird bug [katydid?] on bannister:

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a2...l/100_1846.jpg

Young 4-point buck who is now HUGE [this pic was taken in July]:

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a2...r/100_1787.jpg

Mum Squirrel who loves our porch and that I throw out any uneaten seed/pellets from Sami's food dish:

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a2...8/100_1527.jpg

[KRC]

Sort of a pale photo, but here's a picture of our friend Mr. Cooper's Hawk doing his best to control the dove population.

http://picasaweb.google.com/maryshar...80376785798898

I also have a photo of a butterfly that I followed around the backyard for two hours with my camera.

http://picasaweb.google.com/maryshar...80377274578354

[TroubleAgain]

Sami leaves uneaten seeds? Sunshine would *never* do that.The squirrels share a feeder with the wild birds. (No squirrels in the picture, though--just the feeder.)

[Maastricht]

My ex is a photographer who works often in his vegetable garden. This picture he made with a macro lens of a spider who is sensing with his legs if he can climb over the camera. Or he is threatening the camera, hat is also possible, I'm no expert on spiders.
http://www.mijnalbum.nl/Album=FSK7FRPS


We need lynn42 in this thread. She makes pictures of the wildlife in her yard for a book on spiderphobia and how to overcome it.

[Cat Whisperer]

This lily was in my front yard this summer. Close enough?

I'll go out and see what my backyard has to offer these days.

[control-z]

I think this should work: http://flickr.com/photos/10073111@N04/tags/nature/

I'm out of free photos sets in Flickr, but I tagged all of them with "backyard nature"

Some highlights:

Crazy bird

Purple Iris detail

Blurry fox

Foggy evening (taken tonight)

[Harmonious Discord]

I was nice to see some garden stuff and yards that are in good shape.

I now have a pile of white rocks waiting to go over the ground liner next to the garage.

[3acresandatruck]

Ahh, grasshopper!
Slime mold
A grub?
Some sort of leafhopper?
A tick.
Aphid attack! with ant herders (the little white specks are the aphids)...I don't know what the fly's up to...
Spider.
Some iris.

[blondebear]

Too dark to take any pics now, is it okay to use an image I used in another thread?

Praying Mantis found in the parking lot

[fachverwirrt]

This is technically my mother's yard (and technically her front yard):

Black bear, kinda close.

[jsgoddess]

Some photos my husband has taken in our backyard:

A chipmunk in a weedy patch.

A super closeup of lamb's ear.

A super closeup of a tomato leaf.

My favorite flower, shasta daisies.

A hummingbird that wouldn't stay still.

A beautiful bug of some sort.

And a different kind of pest that really wanted to see the camera.

[Girl Hermit]

Originally Posted by Mahna Mahna

And here's a shot of the spider (species unknown) that guards my tomato plants. It's hard to tell just how big he is in that photo, but trust me when I say he's pretty freakin' huge - his abdomen is around the size of a peanut. There are several other spiders of the same species lurking around in our garden, though thankfully most of them are much smaller.

If you ever find out what kind of spider that is I'd love to know. I have one exactly like that guarding my patio door and it occasionally likes to hang, face level, in the dark from the top of the door. It started out in the spring as a normal sized spider and then it just got huge! It's both disgusting and fascinating at the same time.

[blondebear]

Looks like some kind of orb weaver.

My boss was relating a horror story about a huge Black Widow today. I said that there was a well-known, natural predator...a skunk.

She doesn't like skunks either.

[Diz]

Here's a shot of a woodpecker I somehow managed to get. Taken out the window of my computer room, from a distance of about 50 feet.

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1390/...47cad757_o.jpg

[GusNSpot]

Pick the pictures you want to see. A little bit of everything...

[Hokkaido Brit]

Lovely photos all! I enjoyed looking at every one of them.

Here are some amazing caterpillars of a fruit-piercing moth that appeared on my akebi (chocolate vine) this summer. They were as thick and as long as my forefinger and had glittery blue and yellow spots on them.

[Mahna Mahna]

Originally Posted by Hokkaido Brit

Here are some amazing caterpillars of a fruit-piercing moth that appeared on my akebi (chocolate vine) this summer. They were as thick and as long as my forefinger and had glittery blue and yellow spots on them.

Wow! Those caterpillars are downright psychadelic!

[Hokkaido Brit]

Originally Posted by Mahna Mahna

Wow! Those caterpillars are downright psychadelic!

When I saw ONE on my creeper, I was fascinated by it and took loads of pictures. Then I saw another one.... and another and another and then I began to feel really creeped out by them. They were ALL OVER the bush, munching away, and the ground all around was littered with tic-tac sized caterpillar poos. Shudder.

I did a bit of reasearch and found that the moths are regarded as a serious pest because they pierce fruit with their proboscis and suck out the juice. This leaves a hole in the fruit which then rots. As we live in a fruit producing neighbourhood, I am afraid that they got sprayed. I felt mean but there were so many they were stripping my vine naked, too.

[Cheez_Whia]

We saw this: http://i174.photobucket.com/albums/w...000_0002-1.jpg before we found this: http://i174.photobucket.com/albums/w...000_0006-1.jpg

We have toads, too, but no pictures of them.

[Mahna Mahna]

Girl Hermit, after doing a little research, it looks like my guard spider is most likely your basic mundane Barn Spider. I guess I have my very own Charlotte.

The only weird thing is that Wiki indicates that barn spiders take down their webs during the day (along with most other orb spiders), but ours seems to be hanging out on its web pretty much 24/7.

[Emily Litella]

Originally Posted by Cheez_Whia

We saw this: http://i174.photobucket.com/albums/w...000_0002-1.jpg before we found this: http://i174.photobucket.com/albums/w...000_0006-1.jpg

We have toads, too, but no pictures of them.

[Indy]
Why did it have to be snakes?
[/Indy]

Here's a Periwinkle aka Myrtle.

Here's some Azeleas

Here's some Irises

She's not in the backyard but in your face.

[Amazon Floozy Goddess]

Originally Posted by TroubleAgain

Lizard on a ledge

That's a female Brown Anole! I had pet anoles of a variety of species for a few years. They're energetic, inquisitive little things. Female browns are distinguished by the white dorsal stripe, and lack of or very small dewlap.

[TroubleAgain]

Originally Posted by Amazon Floozy Goddess

That's a female Brown Anole! I had pet anoles of a variety of species for a few years. They're energetic, inquisitive little things. Female browns are distinguished by the white dorsal stripe, and lack of or very small dewlap.

Cool! I've tons of those around my house.

[Earl Snake-Hips Tucker]

Two sets of photos

One was a critter that made its home on my front porch a couple of years ago. The other is a near-complete reptilian skeleton that I discovered.

[Girl Hermit]

Originally Posted by Mahna Mahna

Girl Hermit, after doing a little research, it looks like my guard spider is most likely your basic mundane Barn Spider. I guess I have my very own Charlotte.

The only weird thing is that Wiki indicates that barn spiders take down their webs during the day (along with most other orb spiders), but ours seems to be hanging out on its web pretty much 24/7.

Thanks Mahna Mahna. Someone upthread mentioned an orb weaver too and I googled a bit and found this: this photo of an orb weaver that looks close too.

[blondebear]

Originally Posted by Amazon Floozy Goddess

That's a female Brown Anole! I had pet anoles of a variety of species for a few years. They're energetic, inquisitive little things. Female browns are distinguished by the white dorsal stripe, and lack of or very small dewlap.

We gave our dad some anoles as a birthday present...to put in his greenhouse for bug control. It was always fun trying to find them.

At the San Diego Zoo, anoles are used as Hornbill food. If you have a keen eye, you can see a few escapees scampering around in the foliage outside the cages.

[NinjaChick]

Can I cheat a little bit to brag about where I live? It's only kind of cheating, because the trail to get there literally starts in the parking lot, and after a couple miles you get quite a lot of nature, and that's pretty neat.