Old Man of the Woods Mushroom. Edible Bolete. Found often around pines and oaks mixed forests. More pines down south though.
Some really cute recently hatched baby alligators. So tiny.
Dodder.
Some bird called a purple something.
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Purple Gallinule is the bird.
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Wow! Do their parents (or is there only a mother?) leave them to fetch for themselves? Or are the parents hunting for food?
I don’t know if the mother hunts for them or not. But she stays with them for many years. I’ve seen them 2-3x this size hunting little frogs and stuff though.
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These are from a hike yesterday. Just some smaller wildflowers. Today has been a long day. Woke up at 130am. Went to the gym. Got to work at 330am. Worked until 330pm. Came home and started working on my roof pulling out rows of older 1 1/2 inch screws and replacing them with 3 inch newer roofing screws. Just came inside finally. Debating on if I want to do my planks. Even though it’s on on four sides, 2 sets each of 2 minutes. So it does not take long. Just also starving and definitely not doing it after eating. Did not eat breakfast. Ate a soup and some grapes for lunch at 1130am. I actually bought a little thing of watermelon and an apple on my way home from work at 330 and ate it driving home. But still just starving now. Craving coffee too for some reason thought I hardly drink it and only in the morning. Or maybe I’m craving chocolate milk lol. Or both XD.
The hike was relaxing though. It’s definitely a stress reliever for me to hike for at least an hour a day. Though entire time working on my roof I’ve been listening to a horror book that’s sort of a natural ecology / cosmic terror called “The Swarm”.
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I think it is an lesser stag beetle (Dorcus parallelipipedus).
In Dutch we call it “klein vliegend hert”, small/little flying deer. “Small” to make clear that it is different from “vliegend hert”, the flying deer (Lucanus cervus).
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Collected about 4lbs worth of mushrooms in a 2 hour hike. Seen about 3x as many but stopped at that point
. It’s mostly chanterelles, but also some old man of the woods and lilac boletes.
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Found some nice Amanita yesterday showing to cook for breakfast. It’s most likely the Amanita jacksonii but it’s definitely in the Amanita section caesareae.
Another one. Most likely in the yellow patch group.
These are Amanita canescens.
Not sure of this one. Someone with Alabama’s Mushroom Society is going to collect some of these today and do a genome sequencing on them for their degree. But it seems to be some sort of carrot footed Amanita. It’s one that they’ve not sequenced out here yet.
This genus is a really cool one and so diverse. So many different colors and flavors. Have some that can be used for drugs or therapy. Have some that even if you boiled it for a day if you ate a few bites you’ll die without a organ transplant and some that have to be cooked properly to be eaten and a few that are some of the very few consumed raw in the world. All in the same genus. All growing in the same area.
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So I have an air vent that’s not connected to any lines. Near my front door I found a southern house spider and her egg sac. I removed them to the vent several weeks ago. Looks like they finally hatched and are now big enough to explore on their own and make webs. I wonder what really tiny pests they find? What may be a nightmare to others is beautiful to me. The vent is above my bed. You can see the bedposts in the pic. I refer to the system of spiderlings and the web as my living dreamcatcher. Also my cat looking at me looking at them so I took a pic of him.
Now that they are moving around I can finally clean the old web. Plus this is a great way to get someone to leave or not try to stay. I just start pointing out the spiders in my house lol.
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A few pictures from the trip earlier this week to near Morehead City, NC:
Ruddy Turnstone and mostly-winter-plumage Sanderling
Pomerine Jaeger resting on the beach at Ft. Macon (probably the best views I’ll ever get of one). Jaegers are small skuas–aggressive pelagic relatives of gulls and alcids that can go without food long enough to do straight-shot migratory flights north-south across North America.
A duskywing skipper (not sure which species yet–there are a couple cryptic possibilities.
Great-crested Flycatcher
Red Knot
Marsh Rabbit
Second summer (two years old-about halfway to adult) Great Black-backed Gull (the largest species of gull globally–they’re a bit smaller than Bald Eagles)
Common Loon
Black-crowned Night-Heron
Cape Lookout Lighthouse (extreme south tip of the Outer Banks)
Royal Tern
Me releasing a newly-tagged Atlantic Sharpnose Shark
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I am reminded that back in junior high and high school I could do a perfect loon call (as well as a frog). Then my voice shifted and I can only manage crow and cat. 
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Pitch-wise, you can also manage vultures, Yellow-billed Cuckoo, Pileated Woodpecker, American Bittern, and some more exotic species like Capuchinbird, assuming that your voice is semi- typical for men.
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Not particularly exotic and perhaps about as appealing as a picture of a slug to most gardeners, but this deer greeted me my first morning in Bethesda.
Meanwhile back home I’ve only had this lovely plant about half a year. Now in its first season of bloom for me. I first read that Tremandra stelligera was an upright shrubby plant but now I find that this is the selection called Karri Violet which is a perennial ground cover below forests in Western Australia.
The blooms aren’t large but they are plentiful and very saturated in color. Hanging down where I have it you can see up into the flower. That is a penny for comparison.
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This reminds me of CS Lewis and George Macdonald’s “Shadowlands,” with the images seeming pretty sharp, and the real things below them as well
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Nice post. 
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Nice bridge with the Humor thread themes!
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