@leafxlitter.bsky.social
conservation biology and ecology student aspiring naturalist artist
very small slugs and their beautiful/freaky trail art (first photo is in the morning fog, captured quickly on my way out for work; closeups are from the evening when i was trying to confirm that it had in fact been slugs—but actually you can see six or so in the original photo if you zoom wayyyy in)
09.04.2025 05:21 — 👍 2 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
Lacustrine ooids and coated grains (mainly ostracods) from the Eocene Green River Formation, UT (USA). #ThinSectionThursday
20.03.2025 12:57 — 👍 24 🔁 4 💬 0 📌 0
A candy-striped leafhopper boasting bright colors of yellow, red, and blue rests on a green leaf against a black background.
Eye candy!
Candy-striped leafhoppers (Graphocephala coccinea) are among my favorite common backyard bugs.
Pretty lil Texas brown tarantula<3
10.04.2025 02:00 — 👍 5 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
A flat, colorful print that reads "Avert Catastrophe! Home is where your cat should be"
Avert Catastrophe jumbo postcard prints are back in stock!
28.03.2025 22:47 — 👍 680 🔁 211 💬 2 📌 2
Small birds on the neck of a giraffe. These birds are yellow billed oxpeckers, and they consume blood. Savanna mammals tolerate oxpeckers because the birds pick off engorged tick parasite, filled with blood. But the birds want the blood, not the ticks. If they can’t get blood-swollen ticks, they also look for wounds that have closed over, and peck them open til blood flows so they can feed that way. Like vampires.
Yellow-billed oxpeckers doing important work on a large mammal. Their food is blood. They love eating engorged ticks, but will also reopen wounds to make blood flow.
Really, they’re vampires and this is a horror movie.
#birds #wildlife #nature #photography #nikon #tanzania #vampires #horror
An American Woodcock - a mostly tan/buff colored bird with a potato-like body, very long slender beak, and large eyes - posing among the leaf litter and green ivy on the ground in Bryant Park. The bird is mostly facing the camera, head turned ever so slightly to the left.
An American Woodcock walking among the leaf litter and green ivy on the ground in Bryant Park. The skyline is reflected in their left eye.
It’s Timberdoodle time 💛🪶🥔
American Woodcock in Bryant Park, NYC, March 2025
Belted kingfisher study
25.03.2025 20:04 — 👍 4 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
Seascape with small pebbles in the foreground. Bigger boulders in the middle distance lead to a layer of sea before the cliffs rise on the right hand side.
#BlueSkyArtShow #TheJourney
Trying out some recommended hashtags this Saturday morning. It seems some are time dependent?
Not sure that my aging brain can fathom all of this but I’ll give it a go! Hope I am doing ok so far?
A large hermit crab with reddish legs and inside of a snail shell rests on the sea floor. Several pieces of algae are attached to its shell.
Our #MarineMonday Observation of the Day is this Dardanus arrosor hermit crab, seen off of New Zealand by shaun-lee!
More details at: www.inaturalist.org/observations...
Read about iNat's top hermit crab identifier here: www.inaturalist.org/blog/85156-i...
A photo of a hand holding a block print. The print depicts a spotted snaked curled up on leaves in black ink on white paper.
#printpromptmonday - “Foliage”
A Pygmy rattlesnake nestled in a bed of leaves. Made this one for the Reptile Rally last year at Bear Creek Nature Center.
white troutlily admiring her beauty for the first time
24.03.2025 19:30 — 👍 5 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
European wolves are reclaiming their old hunting grounds!
"After previously being targeted in a negative light, pushed to the brink of extinction due to hunting practices, wolves are up 58% as of 2022 in Europe."
Gray Wolf Numbers Are On The Rise In Europe www.thetravel.com/gray-wolf-nu...
Angled photo of a colorful gilded linocut print to show detail, print features a flying squirrel on a mossy surface, mushrooms and forest.
#printpromptmonday #foliage
Something old while I work on lots of new things this week.
Can’t wait for it to be summer and 100 degrees and I can spend all day outside eating watermelon and exploring and getting covered in watermelon juice and then getting covered in dirt bc I’m sticky from the watermelon
20.03.2025 13:18 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Hypotrachyna osseoalba showing its reaction to UV.
Craven County, North Carolina
March/12/2025
“Listening”
24”x18”, oil on cradled wood panel, 2024 (sold). Now on view at @roqlarue.bsky.social
A small light brown cup fungus among leaf litter.
A light brown cup fungus is attached to a decomposing alder catkin. They are laying on a decomposing leaf.
Our #FungusFriday Observation of the Day is this Ciboria amentacea fungus, seen in Finland by j_ae!
This species grows on the catkins of alder and willow plants, as you can see in photo 2.
More details at: www.inaturalist.org/observations...
The Wildlife Crossings Pilot Program promised $350 million for animal passages—a bipartisan effort in a polarized country. But today its grants are "on hold," jeopardizing species & driver safety. For @vox.com, I covered the uncertain fate of a key program. #roadecology
www.vox.com/down-to-eart...
A vintage photo from the National Archives shows smog hanging over the New York skyline
A vintage photo from the National Archives shows damaged oil drums piled high at an Exxon refinery.
A vintage photo from the National Archives shows cars driving down a road as smoke spews from factories in the distance and air pollution hangs over everything.
A vintage photo from the National Archives shows smog in Los Angeles taken from a high vantage point.
Just thinking about what the US looked like before the EPA existed
13.03.2025 14:47 — 👍 20137 🔁 7148 💬 685 📌 537
Image is of a meandering river. Half way along is a beaver dam. The waters before the dam are discoloured with soils sediment. After the dam the waters are clear.
A beaver dam in British Columbia shows its ability to hold back sediment pollution during heavy rainfall, sediment damages freshwater habitat.
Two pairs of beavers are making a new wild home in Studland #UK & their unrestricted www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
#nature #climatecrisis
Opening Friday, March 14, 6-9pm! I will have 3 paintings as part of the re-opening of Roq la Rue Gallery at their new location, 117 W Denny Way, Suite 217, Seattle. Here’s a detail of one of my paintings, “Listening.”
11.03.2025 20:17 — 👍 5 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 0
A female killer whale spyhops next to the towering dorsal fin of an adult male. It’s gray and overcast and in the distance the outline of a heavily forested island covers the horizon.
It was a cold, wet afternoon but it’s easy to forget about both of those things in the moment when you’re watching wild killer whales. T019 spyhops beside her son, T019B in Boundary Pass yesterday.
10.03.2025 22:50 — 👍 26 🔁 1 💬 2 📌 0
a Polyphemus moth and Tenpetal Anemone <3 spring is heeerreee
11.03.2025 00:34 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
A drawing of a bald eagle with flaming eyes ripping apart a nazi flag.
🦅
19.02.2025 01:34 — 👍 740 🔁 103 💬 11 📌 2
fairy fingees (aka golden spindles)
06.03.2025 21:16 — 👍 73 🔁 3 💬 3 📌 0
making more
07.03.2025 04:11 — 👍 3 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
A bright yellow dorid nudibranch with four black rings around tubercles on each side. The black rings have white edges.
In New Caledonia, johan98800 saw this Ocellate Phyllidia nudibranch (Phyllidia ocellata, Phyllidie ocellée in French) and it's our Observation of the Day!
More details at: www.inaturalist.org/observations...
A flat illustration of owls perched on a branch at night against a dark blue sky. The owls decrease in size as they get close stacked in front, while also growing bright orange. The effect resembles a flame. The owls, back to front (large to small) are Great Gray, Great Horned, Long-eared, Screech, and Saw-whet.
Flat illustration of an American Dipper framed in a circle. The dipper engages in its signature dip below the water in 7 steps, with stylized silhouettes beginning from a rock, diving below the water, and surfacing on top of the same rock.
Brand new risograph prints courtesy of @juleshroom.bsky.social!! 🦉🐦
07.03.2025 21:11 — 👍 91 🔁 16 💬 2 📌 0
eastern tiger salamander in my eastern tiger salamander dress **my hands are wet**
06.03.2025 00:32 — 👍 2 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
