I remember going through a nature preserve once where there were some of those; a few of us caught ants and tried to drop them in.
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I love looking at them when I see them. I used to put ants in ant lion holes, too–then rescue them 
I have to laugh at myself.
Scarlet Elf Cup fungus–it was somewhat elderly, but quite brightly beautiful on the as yet dun forest floor
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Today while looking at pitcher plants I was thinking about oak trees and their sections. Such as white oaks, red oaks, golden cup oaks and I forget the fourth atm. But suddenly it made my field botany morphology lens kick off. I was wondering since I see three types of pitcher plants in USA if there was sections of them. I presumed canebrake, pale, white top, yellow, green and so on pitcher plants were probably more closely related to each other than purple and rose pitcher plants and that those were probably more closely related to each other than to the others. I also wondered about the parrot pitcher plant since it’s unique and if it was a third clade, and even if so I bet that clade is more closely related to the purple and rose than the others.
I then wondered about how spread out they were. The tall pitcher plants are overwhelmingly found only in the southeast and south. They are not in the north. But the purple pitcher plant is found all the way up into at least New Jersey. So a far more widespread diversity while the rose which looks super similar is in the southeast and so is the parrot pitcher plant. So I presumed it had an older lineage and that the lower taller similar looking ones probably got diversed later on which is why they have a much smaller spread.
I ended up finding this entry. “ Phylogeny and Biogeography of the Carnivorous Plant Family Sarraceniaceae“ which confirmed it.
The taller pitcher plants of the southeast are newer and more closely related to one another.
The older lineage is the purple pitcher plant and that diverged unto the purple and rose pitcher plants and that the parrot pitcher plant is super closely related to them as well. Far more so than to the taller pitcher plants.
Three species and a hybrid.
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Does anyone use the Merlin app? It’s really neat to listen right now–there are a lot of migrating birds. I picked up 26 to 29 birds at once, when I put the phone out for a half hour or so on my back porch!
I’ve also enjoyed some of Gutsick Gibbon’s “Ape-ril” series of mini videos.
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I’ve used it a bit, seems to work pretty well.
this little guy was on my back porch. Eastern screech owl, with an unlucky sparrow at its feet.
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Beautiful swamp. I just heard of a pretty bad forest fire and drought in southern Georgia/northern Florida–are you getting enough rain? Thanks.
We are in a drought technically. Normally in March and April we have around 5-6 inches of rain but we have had about 3-3.5. But we are also over top of lots of aquifers and at the very bottom of America bordering the gulf sod Mexico and so a lot of river water still comes through here. So most of the plant life is still doing good but it’s still drought. I live on a creek and at the beginning of a watershed. The trees through my window are still doing great.
We’re supposed to get rain Saturday night through Sunday morning
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A black racer.
Also some colorful food again. Red beets, sweet potatoes, red sweet onions, jalapeños, sweet corn, broccoli and added arugula. Seasoned with hot sauce, nutritional yeast and vegan buffalo
Sauce plus some southwestern chipotle seasoning and dipped blue corn chips in it.
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It’s pretty neat, how plant life makes it through drought. Thank you!
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Yeah I’m lucky where I am. It helps that Baldwin county is one of the wettest countries for rainfall in America. Way more rainfall than Portland or Seattle. But those places also have high water levels from ice melting into streams .
Where I live additionally though even when the rest of my county and town is drier, I have good water. Because I have a creek and I’m at the watershed beginning with numerous nearby natural springs that bubble up fresh water my yard stays fairly hydrated.
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I’ve been wanting to take one of these for some time but conditions have never permitted. But last week I was on a mission trip to Utah (at a mission that part of the Episcopal Church in Navajoland) and weather, moon, and location all worked out.
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Stuck with viewing this on my phone for now but look forward to a larger screening soon. Looks amazing in miniature.
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And because this is a Christian community, I wanted to get one that was better linked to the community. So for this one, I had to scramble partway up a bluff at 4:45 AM with my tripod in order to capture the top of the church. (Sign of the times: I edited out 13 separate visible satellite tracks from this one.)
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So many satellites these days… it really changes astrophotography.
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XKCD is relevant as always.
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Chipotle makes everything delicious.
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Just wow!
THanks for these.
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So says my eldest son.