Monday, May 28, 2007

I have a new passion and Geoff got his first book review

I went to East Fork Lake today, to do some birding.
I didn't even go near the lake. It was full of yahoos on jet skies.
Yes, I saw some field sparrows, blah blah blah. But what really captured me and got me excited was all the butterflies, moths and dragonflies.
So after all I saw, I decided to start listing the butterflies and so on that I see. There's a website for that, like eBird, right?
Some of the names I know, and others I don't. I have been searching the Web for ID's, but I never would have had the time to post tonight if I had continued. A butterfly/moth/dragonfly field guide is in my immediate future. I will welcome any identifications here. It's like being a beginning birder. I would also love if anyone has a good site that's easy to use.


Let's start with a dead spider, shall we?

Dead fisher
I think this is the same type of spider I saw at RAPTOR the other day, a fisher. But this one was dead, so I was only a little creeped out.
Yellow collared scape moth
Now, look at how cool this is!
(Yellow collared scape moth)
THAT'S a pretty bug. I love the feathery antennae.
big black striped wings and brown green body
Big dragonflies with bold black stripes and brown/green bodies.

IMG_3594
Plathemis lydia
yellow black on lily pad
And a black and green one on a lily pad.
Brown and fuzzy
Fuzzy, brown.
Orange mold
Eewww...orange leaf mold?
Pale green and yellow
A very pretty yellow/green little guy with eye spots on the wings and green eyes!
Poor ragged thing
Poor ragged thing.
Pretty bug on daisy
A cute bug on a daisy.
red weed and wee grasshopper
This red weed was attractive, and I didn't notice the little green baby grasshopper (?) until I was reviewing the photo.
white grass seeds
White grass seends.
Ribbit
"Ribbbbb-itt."

Orange brown
Orange and brown wings, white belly and black eyes.
Eastern pond hawk
I know this one!
Eastern pond hawk...I approved when I found out the name. A 'raptor'-like dragonfly.
Eastern comma
Eastern comma...or is it a question mark? How do you tell?
Fuzzy red
Fuzzy red balls.
Cute overload
Cute overload.
More cute overload
More cuteness. I mean, my goodness.
This is the family I photographed last week.
De plane
"De PLANE!"
***
And now, here's Geoff's first review of his book, from Publisher's Weekly:

C.C. Pyle's Amazing Foot Race: The True Story of the 1928 Coast-to-Coast Run Across America
Geoff Williams Rodale, $25.95 (336p) ISBN 978-1-59486-319-6

Pyle, a sports agent and promoter, came up with the idea of a footrace (mockingly known as “the Bunion Derby”) from Los Angeles to New York that promised $48,500 in cash, including $25,000 to the first-place winner. For a $125 entry fee, male participants got the chance for a nice payday while subjecting themselves to harsh weather, primitive housing and Pyle's ego and shady business practices. They also had to run 3,500 miles over 84 days (the equivalent of 40 miles a day) long before comfortable running shoes and sophisticated sports nutrition. Williams, a contributor to Entrepreneur magazine, has evocatively recreated a long-forgotten sports event, mixing colorful anecdotes from the race with vivid portraits of the runners. There's Brother John, a bearded zealot who raced in a sackcloth, and 20-year-old Andy Payne, a part-Cherokee Oklahoman who competed to pay off his family's farm and to win the attention of the girl he loved. What could have been one long injury report or a sappy piece of nostalgic nuttiness is a breezy, entertaining read that properly balances the runners' integrity with the comedy of errors that was Pyle's grand experiment and his life. Photos. (July)

7 comments:

Unknown said...

Congrats on the positive review for Geoff. That's fantastic! Hurrah!

I put a comment on your Flickr page re the green critter on the red weed flowers -- it's a katydid. Very cute critters. Even as they are eating through all the rose leaves on my bush, I think they are adorable. Sigh.

Sounds like a buggy day -- cool!

Mary said...

Great photos, Susan. I especially like the cute overload. I like the butterflies and dragonflies, too, but lately the dragonflies won't sit still. I would also like to know how to identify them - I found a website but I need to sift through several hundred photos to find the right one.

Congrats to Geoff!

Kathi said...

Susan:

First of all, HOW cute are those baby Wood Ducks? The best!

Your "poor ragged thing" butterfly is a Red Admiral. The host plant for the caterpillar is a nettle, but I can't remember what species.

Question Marks and Commas are both anglewings; the Comma is more common, the Question Mark is larger. Both have light and dark morphs; yours appears to be the darker form. About the only way I know to tell them apart is by the silvery mark on the underside of the hindwing. The Comma's host plants are nettles and hops; the host plant for the Question Mark is the elm tree. (All anglewing info comes from my little Golden Guide to butterflies and moths; I don't have a better reference to recommend.)

~Kathi, still blog-less :(

John B. said...

You can tell the difference between the punctuation marks on the butterflies' underwings. A Comma has a comma and a Question mark has a question mark. (Really.)

I find the Kaufman's Butterflies of North America useful. It just has butteflies, though. No moths or other insects, though I think he has another book on insects in the same series.

nina at Nature Remains. said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
nina at Nature Remains. said...

Hi, Susan,
Your dragonfly is the same as mine--and it only took me 2 hours to find out what it was! I can empathize with needing better info on these!
Keep your eyes open for that spider!

NatureWoman said...

Wow, nice review for Geoff's book - he must be *really* excited!! Yay!

I *love* all that you saw yesterday! My problem is I have passion for everything outdoors - well, maybe not all inssects, but there was a cool one on my house when I went out this morning and I soooo wanted to photograph it but I would have been late for work.