Cotinis

Compare the freshwater-loving Redhead in the adjacent post. Their breast feathers wet quite thoroughly.
bsky.app/profile/coti...

The water forms a clean sheet quite separate from their feathers. I'm guessing their plumage is extremely well-oiled and therefore hydrophobic. I know all waterfowl have this to some extent, but this seems remarkable. I've never seen this phenomenon in freshwater ducks.

White-winged Scoter - Melanitta deglandi (first year male, adult male)
Location: Wrightsville Beach, NC (USA)
Going through my photos of these birds, I was amazed to see how their plumage repelled water so strongly. Here the birds were powering along against some wind and chop.

Redhead - Aythya americana (male)
Location: Durham NC (USA)
A few more images of these uncommon visitors to a suburban lake during a spell of cold weather. I just love their elegant pattern.

Redhead - Aythya americana
Location: Durham NC (USA)
Cold weather brought in a small flock of Redhead to this suburban lake. They dabbled and dove for aquatic plants, but they also caught fish, a big surprise. An astute friend noted the cold weather likely made the fish easy prey.

Sea birds on a cold winter day, 26 January 2026.
Johnnie Mercer Pier, Wrightsville Beach, NC (USA)
Common Loon
White-winged Scoter (first year male?), trying to eat a sand dollar.
White-winged Scoter (male)

Red-shouldered Hawk - Buteo lineatus
Location: Durham NC USA
Making its usual rounds, searching for Rough Earth Snakes in my yard. This seems to be one of a resident pair that is used to being photographed. This one let me get to within 20 feet (7 meters) or so.

Black-and-white Warbler and West Indian (Florida) Manatees on a recent trip to Crystal River and Homosassa areas of Florida.

Happy #Arachtober 12th!
Green Lynx Spider - Peucetia viridans (female)
Green Swamp Preserve, Brunswick County, North Carolina (USA)
Perched on Yellow Pitcher Plant, Sarracenia flava.

Happy #Arachtober 10th! Here are white and yellow versions of Misumenoides formosipes.
Location: Green Swamp Preserve, Brunswick County, North Carolina (USA)
This is a wonderful preserve of @nature.org.

Happy #Arachtober the 8th! Something different for today, a public domain image from McCook's American spiders and their spinning work (1889). Original at:
www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/42190084
The illustrator is Elizabeth Fearne Bonsall (1861 - 1956).
I cleaned up the image in GIMP.

Alcohol pretty much overshadows all other preventable causes of cancer except tobacco. Environmental pollution, yes, of great concern. Alcohol is literally, "hold my beer". The carcinogenic risk of alcohol consumption is not hypothetical--it's been proven over and over for the past eighty years.

Exclusive: RFK Jr. and the White House buried a major study on alcohol and cancer. Here’s what it shows. Kennedy wants to “Make America Healthy Again” — but doesn’t want you to see a report that could do just that.

Finally, the US public health establishment has been making progress on definitive research and publicization of this huge health risk, and... it's gone.
www.vox.com/health/46008...

Giant Otter - Pteronura brasiliensis (26 October 2024, Encontro das Águas State Park, Brazil)
This one was spotted bathing and splashing across the river channel, swam over to investigate us, then caught an eel and consumed it noisily.

Happy Fly Day Friday, plus bonus critters. All from Gorges State Park in North Carolina.
Southern Gray-cheeked Salamander - Plethodon metcalfi
Shiny-sided Bladetail - Machimus sadyates
Caterpillar (Noctuoidea) found on Mountain Laurel (Kalmia latifolia)
Compost Fly - Ptecticus trivittatus

kennedy is going to kill a lot of people

BARDA and mRNA Vaccines Announcement YouTube video by U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Worst decision ever. The mRNA vaccine platform in general produced vaccines that are safer and easier to develop--perfect for emergency use in the case of an emerging disease.
youtu.be/FMLhcACHF_g?...

Insects from an event at Chapel Hill Public Library (North Carolina) on 26 July 2025: #nationalmothweek.
Luna Moth - Actias luna (from other side of the sheet!)
Treehopper - Glossonotus acuminatus
Bold-feathered Grass Moth - Herpetogramma pertextalis
Beautiful Mantidfly - Leptomantispa pulchella

Happy World Snake Day! (26 July 2025)
Snakes I have photographed over the years...
Red-tailed Boa - Boa constrictor constrictor; Emas NP, BR
Black-Tailed Rattlesnake - Crotalus molossus; Cave Creek Canyon, AZ USA
Tiger Rattlesnake - Crotalus tigris; Santa Rita Mountains, AZ USA
#worldsnakeday

Jagged Ambush Bug - Phymata species (nymph, 4-5 mm)
13 July 2025, Durham NC (USA)
A couple of these were found on fleabane (Erigeron species). They were brought in on their flowers for some studio shots. Such little tanks!

All shorebirds are the best shorebird, but somehow my fave is the Marbled Godwit. I guess I just love that silly upturned beak.

That is a nice one--never seen it. My current motto is "I try to enjoy each taxon equally". I can afford to do that, though, being an amateur.

Certainly seems plausible. Perhaps some epidemiologist out there is studying cancer incidence in post-Covid patients.

Proportion and number of cancer cases and deaths attributable to potentially modifiable risk factors in the United States, 2019 In 2018, the authors reported estimates of the number and proportion of cancers attributable to potentially modifiable risk factors in 2014 in the United States. These data are useful for advocating ....

For easily modified exposures in typical Western populations, alcohol is about #3. #1 (by far) is tobacco smoking, #2 is obesity. Good news is that half or more of all cancers are due to risk factors that can be modified.
acsjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Measles cases surge to record high since disease was declared eliminated in the US | CNN There have been more measles cases in the US this year than any other since the disease was declared eliminated a quarter-century ago.

This didn't have to happen. 🧪
www.cnn.com/2025/07/05/h...

Effect of increased alcohol consumption during COVID‐19 pandemic on alcohol‐associated liver disease: A modeling study Background and Aims Alcohol consumption increased during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 in the United States. We projected the effect of increased alcohol consumption on alcohol-associated liver dise.....

And, not to beat a dead horse, but the link between heavy alcohol consumption and health effects, including cancer, cannot be emphasized enough. Paper linked below discusses liver disease, including liver cancer:
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...

Trends in Alcohol Use After the COVID-19 Pandemic: A National Cross-Sectional Study | Annals of Internal Medicine

Original paper referred to in the article above:
www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/...

Pandemic-era increase in alcohol use persists LOS ANGELES — Alcohol use increased during the COVID-19 pandemic and remained elevated even after the pandemic ended, according to a large nationally representative Keck Medicine of USC study publishe...

Follow-up documenting the post-pandemic surge in binge-drinking, which has persisted:
news.keckmedicine.org/pandemic-era...

Increasing rates of early-onset Luminal A breast cancers correlate with binge drinking patterns - PubMed These trends support the hypothesis that one reason for the increase in early-onset breast cancer is from increased alcohol intake including binge drinking.

For some cancers, it is possible this is due to the post-pandemic and ongoing increase in binge drinking among younger people. Alcohol is little-appreciated as a potent carcinogen. Here's one example of research on this:
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39425225/

‘Texas is ready’: Abbott responds to Trump’s FEMA exit strategy A major change in federal disaster response could soon reshape how states prepare for and recover from natural disasters.

Oh, "right after this time we need help". Just like the power failures a few years ago, and how many hurricanes. And Texas might just secede if federal overreach does not stop--right after you help us with our latest disaster.
www.click2houston.com/news/local/2...