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.
Other creatures in our world
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:
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!
We found this critter keeping a watchful eye on the construction at Adams Fairacre Farms during our most recent grocery trip:
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:
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.
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:
A bit of wiggling & jiggling put the meal in the right place and the bird relaxed:
A postprandial flight around the pond apparently settled the fish:
It landed on a snag a few dozen feet from where it started, then proceeded to look regal:
Those things really do look like pterodactyls in flight!
I watched the Canada Goose family paddling around the pond:
A hiker on the trail around the pond brought them to DEFCON 4:
The little ones aren’t triphibans yet, but they know the drill:
Maybe he only does that when Mom’s not watching?
An iridescent ball appeared on the kitchen wall:
Despite the silvery shine under LED lighting, it was a Golden Tortoise Beetle:
The iridescence shows up better with a bit of underexposure:
Transparent armor: who’d’a thunk it?
Mary spotted one in the garden some years ago; I’ve never seen such a thing.
Rolling into Vassar Farms, we encountered a Canadian Canada Goose (*) family:
The gander pulled straight up and hissed as we rolled by at what we thought was a respectful distance:
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:
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!
Mary spotted this critter atop the roof and, much to my surprise, it waited courteously until I deployed the camera:
It looks, walks, and acts just like a pigeon:
… but we’ve never seen one with those feather patterns & colors. It’s not in any of our books, so it may be an escaped domestic pigeon.
Those feathers require plenty of body maintenance:
As nearly as we can tell, it’s wearing a green leg band with three digits that might be 904:
If this was your bird, it flew through Red Oaks Mill NY just after noon on 1 May 2017 …
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 