The little purple flower is a charmer. Not a crocus?
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I agree, it is beautiful and sure looks like crocuses or even violets or orchids, but Seek App says it’s “fringed polygala.”
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New to me. I like it.
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Love the way the flowers are arrayed on the first plant. Its texture is also interesting.
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It’s likely that the lizards are mating in the photo, but there’s a chance the male isn’t getting genetic benefit. There are several polyploid parthenogenetic lineages in the racerunners. In some, mating stimulates the production of eggs but no fertilization occurs.
I generally attempt to feed some of the mosquitoes I’ve swatted to the venus flytraps when I’m around them, but the phone doesn’t handle loading photos.
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Interesting. So the girl lizards are first attracted to the “bad boys” but find a nice guy to settle down with.
Some waxcap mushrooms.
A bolete of some kind. Most likely it’s not the bicolor bolete but a red and yellow bolete. I forget the scientific name. It’s not boletus though.
Possibly a fisher crow
Eastern post lizard.
Six lines race runner
Just bog scenes
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Several kinds of animals with an extra set or more of chromosomes can produce fertile eggs without fertilization, just reproducing parthenogenetically. Although it’s tricky to verify, there are at least some that can reproduce parthenogenetically with just a normal set of chromosomes, if she’s stuck with no males around. Certain of the parthenogenetic lizards mate with a male of the ordinary non-parthenogenetic diploid form, but this serves only to stimulate the parthenogenetic female to produce the fertile eggs clonally. She’s not settling down with someone else.
Merlin is a useful app for bird sounds, but you do have to check that it’s actually hearing bird sounds, not overinterpreting random sounds, and it can have challenges with some species that have similar songs - it gives one ID, rather than “it’s one of these two”. We got 116 species for the the John Stott Memorial birding day, and Merlin was useful, but it reported some things that didn’t hold up with listening to the recording.
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I heard turkeys have been known to do this as well as sting rays and sharks.
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I did not know of the John Stott birding day. Neat creation care! Thanks.
Merlin picked up our neighbor’s rooster as “jungle fowl” yesterday. It’s still very helpful!
Turkeys and a few sting rays and sharks are among the few animals that have been raised in captivity through the entire lifespan to be able to confirm that the young were produced parthenogenetically in a normally sexually reproducing species. It’s hard to know what other animals might have similar ability, though there are no records for mammals. Completely parthenogenetic species are relatively obvious, as they lack males.
I haven’t had Merlin pick up on the occasional rooster in the background. Chickens seem to have some hybrid ancestry between red jungle fowl and gray jungle fowl; they are mini pheasants.
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We have been blessed with some spring rains lately, so thought I would share a few of the wildflowers that are currently blooming.
The last pic is a wind scorpion in our house. Beneficial, so let it live to hunt other creepy crawlers.
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No photos (the ones I got are gross), but I had my own encounter with Creation this last week: after decades of hiking, I finally got bitten by a tick. Now when I hike I see ferns and brushes and low tree branches that lean into the trail as sources of danger, not so friendly as they used to seem.
So now I’m waiting out the three weeks till I can be tested for diseases the little parasite might have bestowed on me.
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Nasty. Hope you avoid limes. (Sp?)
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Sure you are on it, but the less time attached, the less likely to get Lyme. If you see any weird rashes, would treat without testing.
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I grew the first one, Caesalpinia gillesii (sp?) for about a dozen years but eventually it proved once again that perennial doesn’t mean immortal. The fourth one I only had for a season, maybe a little more. Enjoyed them both. Did you plant both of them yourself or can such plants just show up where you are?
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These are all wild grown natives except for the first one which I planted (native bird of paradise)
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Others are wild morning glory, which is a pest, thistle, and fire wheel. And Mexican hat. Oh, and obviously sunflower.
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Statistically, getting Lyme disease in western Oregon is unlikely.
What’s really annoying is symptoms take two to three weeks to appear, so my imagination has lots of time to fear the worst. Or if I’m freaking out over it there’s a preventative med they can give me (I’m seeing my doc today anyway, so I’ll be asking).
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