It’s been 3 weeks since my last post here, so here’s my favorite 3 lifers of the past 3 weeks (I think they are separate species at least, and species I have not seen before, but lichen id is still a bit of a mystery to me). They were all on trees within 10 miles or so of my apartment - but just like on my Europe vacation 99% of yellow lichen I saw turned out to be Xanthoria parietina, here in central Ohio 99% of yellow lichen are Candelaria concolor. So it just takes finding and examining 100 of them for a chance to see one of the less usual ones (And yes, I do like yellow lichens.)
On Wednesday, I decided to go out to a small park that sits right next to a train track. It’s an interesting place and barely has any observations on iNaturalist. So I took it upon myself to document what I find there. Day 1 was exciting, with a few notable lifers.
Firstly, there was this Pixie Cup Lichen species growing on a fallen post. I’ve never seen anything like it and is a first for the local area. At a certain angle, it looks like an organic city!
Next, there was what I call, a “Black Spaghetti Plant”. It has a very interesting appearance with black spaghetti-like structures shooting off in different directions. The plant also had a fuzzy stalk, which reminds me of a sumac, which it grew beside. An ID would be great!
Could be a frost-blackened Eriophyes rhoinus infection, perhaps. I’m not an expert on these things, but here’s my observation of what I think might be the summertime appearance.
I like this one because it shows the hidden life around us: it is out in the open on the sidewalk, but so small that people can easily walk right over it without ever seeing it – in this zoomed in picture, you can see the individual pieces of gravel that make up the concrete. That might explain why the entire genus is a Greenville first (if I have the genus right). Genus Xanthocarpia from Uptown District, Greenville, NC
Yeah, lichen are absolutely mind blowing to me right now - this entire hidden world I had no idea exists. I spent an hour today just examining a large rock at the side of the parking lot - it was covered in 100ds of lichen (including some Xanthocarpia according to the CV). I always thought bare rock is an area devoid of life but it’s covered in it…
Sadly found it dead in the backyard (had to blow a few ants off it…), but otherwise may never have seen one:
Petalura ingentissima, apparently overall the largest dragonfly species on the planet! It just gave me a sense of awe holding it and seeing such intricate beauty at that scale. Amazing (it’s also endangered, which makes me extra sad that it was dead).
That’s so cool! I once found a dragonfly that had unfortunately passed away in our driveway last summer, but I didn’t take a photo of it because I didn’t want to look like a weirdo taking pictures of dead insects.
Today I saw a lifer which could easily be the favourite of the year: Something crash-landed behind some bushes and I heard screaming - a sparrowhawk with prey!
Cool! Do you know what species this is? Here we have similar jelly fungi named Tremella mesenterica, but I’m not sure whether the ones on this picture are the same species or something else that looks similar to them.
On 27th of January I arrived back in NYC from a week in Southwest Texas. So many things were new to me that I found over 150 lifers! I will need to stop and try to decide which one was my favorite! it would need to be one where I managed to get a good photo too.
Maybe this pretty chrysomelid beetle, Lema pubipes, which was sitting on a ground cherry plant, Physalis cinerascens var. spathulifolia and which turned out to be a new addition to the iNat database, and a new species photo for BugGuide too.
I have been jealous of the people in this thread, because it is winter here and I’m not going anywhere fun, so it’s just the same old species over and over again here. I can’t get too excited about Eastern Hemlock and Eastern White Pine, I’m afraid.
But! Yesterday was relatively nice, so I went for a short walk in a nearby protected area. Surprisingly, I came up with what is likely to be a lifer, once confirmed - Amphibolips tinctoriae.
My other observations of bobcats were from security cameras. I’ve rarely seen them on hikes, but had no camera. This is the first time I’ve got pictures in real time! it stayed there for over 30 minutes!!!
(And yes, I do like yellow lichens.)
Xanthomendoza hasseana (?)
Xanthomendoza weberi (?)
Xanthomendoza fallax (?)
it stayed there for over 30 minutes!!!