Looks like you had a great day for it. Thirty years. I’ll bet that snuck up on you. A good relationship is such an important part of a happy life. I’m going to guess you were each the other’s first marriage. I only wish I’d had enough of a clue to make the match I have now the first time. I was so young and naive.
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Mine too. July thunderstorm lightning and lots of lightning bugs. They are both marvelous.
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I have reached a new milestone-5000 pictures with the new digital microscope. I have been using it for 410 days today, so that is an average of one picture every 2 hours. I take an average of about 6 pictures of a given shell to get different focal depths.
Here are the multiples of 500
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So it seems to be in the Oudemansiella genus and specifically is O. canarii . The genus seems under studied. Not very many good images online and the few ID articles I found are even a bit beyond my typically knowledge. Very specific jargon. I am not certain really. Only one other has IDed to species and the comment was like by a few and I don’t know any of those particular people. It’s supposed to be a very tasty and healthy mushroom. Some resources mentions it highly cultivated in Brazil and some mentioned they felt sick when they ate it but that it was probably because they did not peel away the slimy coating. The brownish coating over the white cap is very slimy and has to be wiped off dry. Smells and feels a bit like oyster mushrooms. None of my mushroom books mention it but there are three mentions of it on inaturalist within a few hours of me and so it’s in this tropical are I live. I guess I’ll remove the coating, cooking them, and try a bite and wait. If I feel ok I’ll eat a whole one Sunday afternoon. If I feel ok still on Monday I’ll finish them off. Assuming I like them.
The smaller really slimy brown looking one is a very young recently fruiting one.
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That second to the last one is the one to which I’d award the aesthetics blue ribbon.
And in the mushroom division that same category, the second photo of @SkovandOfMitaze’s would take the same prize with honorable mentions to #’s 4 and 6.
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The second one is my favorite also.
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These are great! You seem to be developing good photography skills! How big are these tiny shells? How will you use your photos?
Back in the film days, a friend of mine and his dad challenged themselves photographing ants. Really amazing photos.
If you don’t mind, would you tell some about your equipment set up and components? I have interest for a very different purpose. Thanks!
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Ok. It’s not natural. But I hoped you would enjoy this spider from Meijer Gardens, when we were there Wednesday.
About 2 m high.
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The ones that are really a problem for me are “I can’t find any illustrations of this that are new enough to be photographs”. Not that hand-drawings are inherently problematic (Tuomey & Holmes did an incredible job on them, for instance), but photographs are more definitive.
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Somewhat estimated from what I remember, they are ~7 mm (Ameritella), ~2.0 mm (Pyrgolampros), ~0.8 mm (juvenile Arene), ~3 mm (juvenile Plicatula), ~4 mm (Epitonium), ~1.2 mm (Pleuromalaxis), ~3 mm (Helisoma-this view is upside-down), ~5 mm (either Kurtzina, Kurtzia, or Kurtziella), ~8 mm (Pusula), and ~10 mm (Tellininae? sp.).
Documenting the fauna of this formation.
I’m not sure if the company is still making the exact model I currently have, but this is exactly what I have at present: Amazon.com : YINDIA 7" LCD Digital Microscope with 32GB SD Card, 1080FHD USB Coin Microscope 50x-1200x Magnification with Wired Remote,10 LED Lights, 12MP Camera Microscopes for Kids Adults : Electronics. It can go from a view of ~12 x 8 mm down to ~2.5 x 1.8 mm, so for things ~16 mm long I stitch them together from two sets of exposures.
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Triviids do tend to be popular with collectors.
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@Kendel , I learned something interesting about zebra mussels. Yesterday, my 11 year old son and 8 year old daughter and I joined my mom at the Grand River boardwalk in Grand Haven to fish (something I used to do 20-30 years ago). Instead of the usual sheepshead, catfish and bass I used to catch, we caught 16 invasive gobies and 1 smallmouth bass, a bit too small to keep!. We had fun anyway.
However, I looked up about gobies–I did not realize that one of their main dinners is zebra mussels! I wonder if they are tied in with the recurrence of alewife die off this year that has been in the news–a decrease in zebra mussels increases the plankton (the water does look murkier on the lake side than before).
The DNR page shows that they first came in the St Clair River about 1990, likely from ballast of oceangoing ships, like the mussels. However, their population has dropped a bit in the last 5 years. They are also prey for smallmouth bass and burbot, though they can edge out native species (as seems the case here). This page indicates they have both good and bad effects. Invasive Species: Round Goby (michigan.gov)
I’m interested in seeing what happens down the road. I do hope we get back to seeing more native fish, though. I’d be interested in if your side of the state sees the same changes.
Thanks.
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Thank you for the equipment info. Magnification tools off all kinds are an important aspect of life at my house.
What sort of metadata are you keeping with your photo files? Is your documentation intended solely for personal use, or do you have an eventual project and/or publication plan in mind?
Looking back over your photos #3, #5 and #8 take the cake on texture detail. Really beautifully done. An achievement on something so small!
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Thanks, Randy! It’s really easy for me to feel quite hopeless about the devistation and abuse of Great Lakes. Some days any scrap of good news is reviving.
Right now we live in the middle of the state, so no significant lakes. It’s been a couple of years since I was over at Huron, but would be happy to drive over to Oscoda just to check for you maybe next week. 
I am experiencing serious Lake Withdrawal Symptoms, also Waterfall Withdrawal Symptoms, but those require farther travel.
Thanks for the report. It’s helpful. I hope you had a fun time, too. Grand Haven is just lovely.
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Okay got to post something for the plant kingdom. Late this past winter we got a freeze which killed back this succulent, shrubby Oxalis teneriensis. As a result it has put out a lot of fresh growth that is looking especially good right now. Eventually it’ll have a lot of unremarkable yellow flowers too. But I think this uniform geometrically arranged foliage is the real show and I like the way the outer surface of its undulating form sculpts the space around it. This can get to 3’ by 3’ but is about 2’ tall currently.
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I keep most of it in other places–with them in documents, or with the specimens as labels, or in my head.
Hopefully, I can finish integrating the material I currently have, do further edits, and get something (field guide-type reference, rather than a monograph just yet) published by next summer.
Here’s what a similar one looks like when I’ve stitched together the different focal depths:
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I found this interesting, @LM77 , especially after your comment on how New Forest ponies help the environment. In the book, “Science Geek Sam,” he reportedly visits an area where wolves have been reintroduced. The rewilding in Europe is pretty interesting, as it is in the US. Thanks.
European bison arrive near Canterbury to manage woodland - BBC News
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Yep, there are lots of great rewilding projects going on in the UK. Ospreys, White-tailed Eagles, Beavers, Lynx, and, in Scotland, Wolves. To name a few.
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