The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning

Ed Nisley's Blog: Shop notes, electronics, firmware, machinery, 3D printing, laser cuttery, and curiosities. Contents: 100% human thinking, 0% AI slop.

Tag: Wildlife

Other creatures in our world

Monarch Butterfly Egg
We watched a female Monarch Butterfly lay eggs on the stand of milkweed behind the house. She also found a lone plant in the vegetable garden that’s now standing in a vase on the kitchen table where we can keep an eye on the proceedings.

So far, so good:

Monarch Butterfly Egg on Milkweed Leaf – 2017-07-29

I never knew Monarch eggs were so elaborate!

Captured with the VGA-resolution USB camera atop the zoom microscope, with VLC applying automagic gamma and level adjustment.

Focus-stacking the three best images helps the ribs toward the leaf, but not by much:

Monarch Egg – focus stacked

After picking out the images, all of which bear VLC’s auto-generated names like vlcsnap-2017-07-29-09h26m25s720.png, stack them thusly:
```
align_image_stack -C -a milkweed *png
enfuse -o Monarch.jpg milkweed000*
```
Tinkering with the options might improve things, but … maybe next time.
2017-08-05
New Frogs!

Either Mama Frog picked a bad location or these little critters fell over the edge, as I found a handful in the big stainless steel bowl Mary uses for spot-watering some of her plantings:

Small frogs in bowl

The bowl curves inward over their heads and their feet didn’t seem sticky enough to get them up and out, so I dumped the lot of them into the flower bed. May they live long & prosper!

2017-07-22
Monthly Image: Mystery Lizard

We found this critter keeping a watchful eye on the construction at Adams Fairacre Farms during our most recent grocery trip:

Mystery frilled lizard – detail

I think it’s an undocumented alien that entered the US stowed away in a tropical plant, because it was affixed to the array of ceramic pots outside their (open) greenhouse windows:

Mystery frilled lizard

To the best of my admittedly limited herpetological knowledge, none of our native lizards / geckos / whatever have such a distinctive dorsal frill / fin / ridge. I have no idea how to look the critter up, though.

We left it to seek its own destiny. Unless it’s a mated female (hard to tell with lizards), it’ll have a lonely life.

Perhaps it practices rishratha, which is entirely possible.

2017-07-15
Monthly Image: Great Blue Heron

This Great Blue Heron caught a bright orange goldfish in the Vassar Farm Pond just before I rode past, spotted the scene, and fumbled my camera out of the underseat bag.

The heron hurked the fish down, with the abrupt right-angle bend in its neck marking the fish’s current location:

Great Blue Heron – swallowing

A bit of wiggling & jiggling put the meal in the right place and the bird relaxed:

Great Blue Heron – ruminating

A postprandial flight around the pond apparently settled the fish:

Great Blue Heron – takeoff

It landed on a snag a few dozen feet from where it started, then proceeded to look regal:

Great Blue Heron – idling

Those things really do look like pterodactyls in flight!

2017-06-15
Goslings at Vassar Farm Pond

I watched the Canada Goose family paddling around the pond:

Goslings at Vassar Farm Pond – 2017-06-04 – family

A hiker on the trail around the pond brought them to DEFCON 4:

Goslings at Vassar Farm Pond – 2017-06-04 – alert

The little ones aren’t triphibans yet, but they know the drill:

Goslings at Vassar Farm Pond – 2017-06-04 – wing exercise

Maybe he only does that when Mom’s not watching?

2017-06-11
Golden Tortoise Beetle

An iridescent ball appeared on the kitchen wall:

Golden Tortoise Beetle – left top – light

Despite the silvery shine under LED lighting, it was a Golden Tortoise Beetle:

Golden Tortoise Beetle – right top

The iridescence shows up better with a bit of underexposure:

Golden Tortoise Beetle – left top – dark

Transparent armor: who’d’a thunk it?

Golden Tortoise Beetle – left front

Mary spotted one in the garden some years ago; I’ve never seen such a thing.

2017-06-04
Beware the Hissing Goose!

Rolling into Vassar Farms, we encountered a ~~Canadian~~ Canada Goose (*) family:

Geese at Vassar Farm Pond 2017-05-21

The gander pulled straight up and hissed as we rolled by at what we thought was a respectful distance:

Geese at Vassar Farm Pond 2017-05-21 – detail

Their little fuzzballs retreated in good order under the fence toward the pond; they don’t need much survival training.

Word has it a goose family (perhaps this one) built their nest near a path around the ponds and defend their turf with sufficient resolve to deter even singletrack bikers.

I occasionally see snakes along the way, but none that hiss:

Black Snake on Rail Trail – 2017-04-28

We approach rail-trail curves with a bit more caution than some folks; I’m at about the spot where that rider began losing control and didn’t quite wipe us out.

Update: They’re “Canada Geese“, with (AFAICT) a legal distinction between Canadian tourists and resident Yanks during the hunting season. Thanks to David for the reminder!

2017-05-27