Vulpes ✨🦊✨

Two page spread of realistic watercolor paintings of a diversity of moths plus handwritten inked information including the common name, wingspan, and larval foods. The moths have shadows beneath them which makes it look like they're on a white sheet ready to take off. The moth survey is from August 18, 2021 at the Schulenberg Prairie at the Morton Arboretum in Lisle, IL.

Finally finished the right page on my August 2021 moth survey from my IL Prairie Nature Journal. Just love the diversity of all these moths from the Midwest!
#SciArt #moths #naturejournal #prairie

Painting of a red morph screech owl peering out of a tree cavity. The tree cavity is framed by swirling stylized bark, with a sphinx moth in the left foreground and a spider and beetle hidden in the upper right. The owl itself has orange-brown feathers with a white face and chest, and bright green eyes.

I hear it's #InternationalOwlAwarenessDay (that's a hashtag and a half...) so please be aware of this owl

Watercolor, gouache and pencil on hotpress paper about 11x16"

A yellow amanita on the forest floor.

My child standing atop a mossy rock, wearing a white tee and pink shorts, holding her walking stick.

A tiny brown toad held in the small white hands of my spawn.

Four mile hike up and down hilly, rocky terrain. Lots of fun mushrooms and beautiful shady, mossy places.

🎨🍄 Today I found out about Mary Elizabeth Bunting (1822-1903), who painted 175 watercolor illustrations w info about various fungi, including 23 species that were previously unknown! She collected them all in an unpublished manuscript- WHY THE HELL HASN'T THIS BEEN PUBLISHED ANYWHERE?

Some of them:

Roundneck Sexton Beetle with mite hitchhikers, probably Poecilochirus sp. The beetle is large and black with four orange spots on its elytra. The mites are each smaller than the beetle's eye, and are a warm brown with a lighter crescent at the back of their abdomens. There are ten of them on the beetle's thorax and abdomen. The beetle is on a wooden deck.

Beetle with mite friends! The mites aren't feeding on the beetlw, they're just going to the same place (a corpse). In fact, they likely benefit the beetle: when they arrive at some carrion, both feed and lay eggs. The mites also eat fly larvae, which would compete with the beetle's larvae! 🌿

Keep the two distinct in your head.

CEO pay is up 1,085% since 1978, while typical worker pay is up just 24%. 

Why do we always hear "we can't afford to pay our workers more" but never "we can't afford to pay our CEO more"?

Brown/orange dragonfly on a wooden dowel.

Orange dragonfly on a wooden dowel behind a cactus.

Brown/orange dragonfly on a wooden dowel.

Orange dragonfly on a wooden dowel in front of white flowers.

I saw a post that said you can attract dragonflies if you provide a roosting spot for them… so I bought a bunch of wooden dowels and put them around the yard and… it worked!! I’m so excited! Looking forward watching them hunt! 🥹🤩

Morning fun. The fountain in the pool we've set up to entertain the local wildlife died. Replaced it yesterday and it's attracting more attention than the old one. This is a Cooper's Hawk.

My doctor recommended I drink electrolytes every other day to help
manage my migraines, and it’s worked wonders! If it helps, it helps.

A photo of a spotted towhee (Pipilo maculatus), a large sparrow with a black head, black and white spotted back, long black tail, rust-colored sides, white belly, and bright red irises. It is perched on a tree branch with green leaves surrounding it in the foreground and background, facing to the left of frame. Its beak is slightly open, mid-call.

A photo of a spotted towhee (Pipilo maculatus), a large sparrow with a black head, black and white spotted back, long black tail, rust-colored sides, white belly, and bright red irises. It is perched on a moss-covered tree stump and has the remains of a yellowjacket or similar black and yellow striped insect in its beak, facing to the left of frame. Out of focus green leaves fill up the background.

A spotted towhee with a yellowjacket? in its beak, and a dusting of cottonwood, from this morning's walk.

📷🌿🪶

Skyline cleanse.. his name is Emmanuel Savary…🔥🔥🔥

Halictus rubicundus: the orange-legged furrow bee. So tiny I can’t believe I got a shot this clear; that’s a stalk of thyme about the size of my pinky finger.

Isodontia mexicana, the Mexican grass-carrying wasp - looking sharp against some white hydrangeas with pink trim.

Syritta pipiens, sometimes called the thick-legged hoverfly - but not while she’s in earshot. Just kidding, I don’t think she has ears.

We’ve got ourselves a badass here: Myathropa florea, sometimes referred to as the Batman hoverfly. She’d take a moment to explain, but there’s no time. Gotham needs her.

and for the self-promo tax: fun with a cheap macro lens

Illustration of a millefleurs-style tapestry of two barn owls circling a curled up rabbit. The animals are surrounded by various other plants and animals that juxtapose symbols of life and death, making it unclear if the rabbit lives or dies.

death closing in

[ #art ]

A circular embroidery in a wooden hoop of the White Horse using various stitches including hundreds of French knots for the main grass, long and short for the folds of the hill below the horse, and turkey tail for a field and scattered trees.

Apparently it’s World Embroidery Day so maybe you’ll enjoy this aerial landscape I made of my beloved childhood haunt - the White Horse of Uffington. An @nationaltrust.org.uk site from the later Bronze Age or Early Iron Age. Find out more here www.oxfordarchaeology.com/uffington-wh...

The Penguin Classics copy of Jane Eyre, written by Charlotte Bronte, with a sketch of a fair-skinned woman with a plain hairdo.

I didn’t read Jane Eyre until I was in my thirties, but oh boy had I wished I read it sooner. What a story! Beautiful words & dynamic, interesting protagonist.

An illustration of three ladies wearing pearls in their hair. It’s the cover of the illustrated book of Robert Graves’ Greek Myths.

I did not need daytime television with this book. The drama is incredible & the art fantastic. One of my favorites as a Greek myth kid.

I realize MZB is a problematic person but that doesn’t affect my relationship with the book at the time I read it. Her despicable character was revealed later.

The cover of Marion Zimmerman Bradley’s The Mists of Avalon. A woman on horseback carries a sword, a swan gliding beside them.

It took me six months to finish reading The Mists of Avalon because I would get so incensed I’d throw it across the room & let it sit there for a week or 2 before commencing.

Me too! One like, one book I love.

Wonderful!!

Another beautiful Silvery Checkerspot butterfly for #SaturdayOrange. She was enjoying the water on the Garden Phlox. 🧡🩷

#Photography99 📷🌱 #Butterflies 🦋

A beautiful Southern Dogface butterfly on a light lemon Zinnia. ‘Dogface’ name comes from the pattern on the topside of its forewings. 💛🩷

#Photography99 📷🌱 #Butterflies 🦋

Scientists Just Found a Coral Species They Thought Had Gone Extinct, Marking the First Record of It in 24 Years After the 1982-1983 El Niño warming event, the coral endemic to the Galápagos Islands experienced sharp population declines and was rarely observed during surveys

Scientists Just Found a Coral Species They Thought Had Gone Extinct, Marking the First Record of It in 24 Years

SAME. Give me quaint Cabot Cove and kooky characters with original formula over and over and over.

🕵️‍♀️🕵️‍♀️🕵️‍♀️🕵️‍♀️🕵️‍♀️🕵️‍♀️🕵️‍♀️🕵️‍♀️🕵️‍♀️🕵️‍♀️🕵️‍♀️!!!

Just a gentle morning wake up.

This child’s idea of a massage involves playground pranks. I’m not falling for it.

Eager-eyed child: “Mommy, want me to give you a really nice massage?”

Me: “why are you holding a snap bracelet?”

Fiiiine, apparently half my readers enjoy an info dump, so here we go!

Grasslands Sequester Carbon Too or “Why trees are not the be-all and end-all.”

Ahem. *takes a sip of water*