My wife has developed a methodology for catching bats that find their way into the house. It’s sound and efficient, though not as elegant as this guy’s approach. Despite their name in so many languages (letuchaya mysh, fledermaus, etc.), bats are not rodents. In fact, order Chiroptera appears to be more closely related to primates than to mice. By process of elimination, I believe that the recently released critter below is a little brown bat, Myotis lucifugus. I also believe (though I can’t find the reference) that bats are the only known reservoir of rabies in the Laurentians.
August 30, 2008
Bats!
June 7, 2008
yellow-crowned night-heron
Last weekend we saw this handsome night-heron while kayaking. Not a bird I often see, as I don’t get out birding much. A friend of mine in University Park reported two in her suburban yard the same weekend — so now it is officially a trend.
Last post I pointed out that tagging was going to be most useful for helping novices with identification. The message for today is that it might not be worth logging every individual observation, but if someone notices an unusual trend maybe THAT should be flagged, and we can use blog sentiment analysis to detect it and let scientists know.
June 4, 2008
Mystery grub
I’m reasonably sure this is some kind of beetle larvae, and might even venture to say it is in the family Lycidae. But the only evidence I have of that is this ultracool set of larval images from Russia. 
I wish Ztema had specimen data, such as LatLongs, habitat, etc. And it would be helpful if he or she allowed others to add tags. I’m becoming convinced that sifting through tagged images is going to be the most effective way for novices to identify organisms like this. I want to get a gallery of images that match my terms (e.g. white, grub, brown, soft, plump) and keep refreshing until something similar pops up.
June 3, 2008
Straggler cicada
This fellow (lady, probably) was sitting, lonely, on my driveway the other day. Looks very much like the Magicicada species that came out in 2004 (Brood X). My guess is that this one missed the cue and didn’t emerge with the rest. “Where’d everybody go?”
Alternatively, this could be a member of Brood XIV, as we are one of those “less well-established areas”, as shown on the map at the Periodical Cicadas page maintained by my friends John Cooley and Dave Marshall. I’ll see if they have a comment.
May 29, 2008
The famous peppered moths
Last weekend I completed my second annual Memorial Day survey of moths the Rocky Gap State Park. I got better pictures this year, and these are posted up on Flickr where they await identification.
One of the first surprises is that it turns out I misidentified something from last year’s survey. In this year’s survey, Willapalens identified the photo on the left below as Biston betularia. I recognized the dark wavy line on the wing as something I’d seen before. On the right is the exceedingly worn individual from last year. We agree they are the same species — the peppered moth that is a famous example of natural selection in action.
In 1849, a coal-black mutant was found near Manchester, England. Within a century, this black form had increased to 90% of the population in this region.
The moth flies at night and rests by day on tree trunks. In areas far from industrial activity, the trunks of trees are encrusted with lichens. The light form is practically invisible against this background.
In areas where air pollution is severe, the combination of toxic gases and soot has killed the lichens and blackened the trunks. Against such a background, the light form stands out sharply.
The moth is preyed upon by birds that pluck it from its resting place by day. In polluted woods, the dark form has a much better chance of surviving undetected. When the English geneticist H. B. D. Kettlewell released moths of both types in the woods, he observed that birds did, indeed, eat a much higher fraction of the light moths he released than of the dark.
Since pollution abatement programs were put in place after World War II, the light form has been making a comeback in the Liverpool and Manchester areas.
April 27, 2008
Blooms to the left of me, blooms to the right of me
As of Friday morning — rhododendrons, azaleas, violets. Things are blooming so fast I don’t even have time to look up the Latin names. So interesting that the rhododendron bloom is pink before it opens up to be white and yelow. What’s the adaptationist story there? Unfortunately, our rhodos have all fallen to some sort of fungus. These are a wan attempt to regrow but half the bush is already brown and withered.
And (boo hiss) the garlic mustard is attempting to take over. Time to break out the salad recipes.
April 24, 2008
Missing the bleeding hearts, and the death of Antoinette
Our bleeding hearts began blooming recently. I noticed them on Tuesday, but my husband reports that he saw a neighbor’s in bloom on Saturday.
In sad news, I must report that Antoinette the Ant Lion is definitely no longer among the living. Upon the recommendation of Akito Kawahara, I went to separate the two lions. Apparently they don’t actually specialize in ants, but will attempt to kill anything that falls into their pit. There were two nice pits in the bowl, but I guess that both were made by our as yet unnamed acquisition from Texas. Antoinette was motionless when I dug her out of the sand, but that’s not unusual. However, she is still motionless atop the sand in the new jar two days later. So, we cannot say exactly when she expired, or why. She will be missed.
April 18, 2008
Quickies
How do people find the time to write voluminous blog posts? It is all I can do to jot down sketchy notes.
1) The bunnies in our parsley planter have disappeared, we presume they hopped away and were not just eaten by the crows (one of which was lurking yesterday while mama rabbit visited and a suspected daddy rabbit was trying to entice her away to start the next clutch — or whatever those furry things create when they reproduce (says the ornithologist))
2) Today the following started blooming near our house: a big cherry, the grape hyacinths, and the crabapple in the circle.
April 6, 2008
Blooms in DC
As usual, blooms elsewhere are way ahead of our yard, which appears to be shady and have poor soil.
The pears along I-95 have been blooming for at least two weeks.
Forsythia in our area has been blooming for at least a week, probably more.
Tulips were in full bloom outside the Department of Justice in DC when I took this photo March 27th.
And our daffodils just started to bloom yesterday.
March 12, 2008
Catching up to spring
Things are going to get awfully busy now. Some signs of spring in the last few weeks:
A Canada goose, sitting snugly on her eggs in the Greenbelt Metro Station parking lot (area 4c), as early as 4 March.
Blooming crocuses, just in the same spot where I saw them last year.
Spring peepers at the vernal pond. Unfortunately, I just checked for the first time on 10 March and though they were silent at 6:15pm, they started chorusing around 6:30pm.
Photos and video to be posted when I find the darn cable for my little camera.