This plant, Sweetfern Comptonia peregrina was a lifer for me on Governors Island on Friday 15th October:
On Oct 16th in my Manhattan neighborhood, this Powdery Mildew fungus on Catchweed Bedstraw (probably * Neoerysiphe galii*, appears to be a first record for the entire New World.
I would not have even seen this if I had not thought it might be a swollen stem caused by a plant pathogen and then taken a closer look.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/98530240
Not a wild plant, and being sold as a cut flower/decoration from a flower farm in New Jersey, but I think it is cool anyway, and very topical, the Ethiopian Eggplant:
This desert flower in the Broomrape family (which seems to only exist to confuse me) https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/99500392
This Utah beardtongue, which I was searching for high and low among the sandstone cliffs https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/99297812
For me it was this Eastern Comma I found trying to warm up in the sun around my garden!! I followed it around trying to get a picture of it until it finally landed on his wire a d stayed put.
Wow! That’s a new one for me. Does the color persist after death of the isopod?
Interesting question! This one I’m actually not 100% sure about. The color is structural, due to the arrangement of virus particles in a crystalline pattern, so I do believe it begins to change as the host decays. I’ve seen a few cases of dead isopods with iridovirus that show a mottling pattern, though I am unsure if this has something to do with infection severity or just the death of the host. This observation shows this well.
Sneaky plume moth is my 50th yard Lepidoptera https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/100025192
Only Saturday, but I can name it - Odiellus lendlii with 15 observations on iNat so far, species that in literature told to be found in more Southern regions, quite small, sitting on the bark.
Sunday November 7th 2021
Instead of watching the NYC Marathon live at the end of my block, I went to Governors Island along with David Ringer. I was able to show him some things that were lifers for him, and he was able to point out some to me that were lifers to me. Excellent day out, even though a bit chilly.
I found 2 undescribed species of gall insect! https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/100374910
I got an iNat first United states vertebrate this week , Egg-mimic Darter, a rare, drab fish of clean headwater creeks in a few drainages of the Duck River in Tennessee:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/100820752
Very nice! I need to go get cool fish with you sometime.
New week, new favorite! https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/102369473
I’ve been looking for this mushroom for quite a while now. Finally spotted some observations for it at a park not TOO far away, but got distracted by a side trip on my way there and then suddenly started feeling like I was coming down with the flu while I was out, and had to head back early. So I was feeling pretty crummy and disappointed as I drove home. Then I really needed to pee, so I found a random pullout on the roadside, ducked into the woods…and there it was!!
We are very lucky here in NE Ohio. There is a black-legged kittiwake visiting the Euclid lakeshore.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/102604511
These birds normally go out to the open ocean in the winter.
In the meantime, maybe we should start a new installment and close this one, so it doesn’t become a “Gerald”?
