OniOniOniArt

I've been a little uneven since losing my sweet boy. He was always there for me,  and I hope I did all I could for him.  This manifests in the ability to be at times excited about some things that are happening in my life, but other times, especially when all is quiet, I cannot help but remember Maceo. It becomes inertia and a lack of energy. Needless to say I've fallen off the wagon completing the year-long art project I challenged myself to. I will pick it back up, at the very least to finish the Creative Sprint portion, in due time.  The photo above is from the Orlando Wetlands in Christmas, Florida, where I spent a few hours of my Saturday. It was a very good day for viewing animals and I saw my first dusky pygmy rattlesnake (a venomous critter) in the wild: Actually, there were two of them at different intervals along the same path. These are very small snakes, usually maxing out at two feet. You can see this one's tiny rattle, which is about hal...

Today we hiked to the base of Tom's Thumb, a huge monolith atop a mountain (in the middle of the photo above). Being a Floridian and used to flat land, this was a tough hike for me (it kicked my arse if you want to know the truth). It also got really hot on the climb down which didn't help things. I anticipate non-functional legs tomorrow. A yellow velvet ant! We walked right up to this rabbit, I suspect people feed it. Not sure what kind of lizard this is...will have to look it up and update when I'm not so tired. A little more than halfway up. My Dad photographing me taking his photograph. Almost there! The view from the base of the Thumb. Rock climbing gear is required to get to the top. It's still pretty high up at the base!

Lake Bartlett Yesterday I visited two unlikely desert locations, a lake and a river. The water was very low in Lake Bartlett and there were many small flowering plants along the sandy beach which attracted a multitude of insects. I was only able to get decent photos of a few: A fuzzy bee fly I was struck by the bright red of the net-winged beetles.  Every other net-wing I have ever seen was orange. Snout butterfly Ladybug Rio Verde A Syrphid flower fly Blister beetles Mating leaf beetles Snout butterfly The cholla seemed very happy growing on the huge boulder next to the river. They looked as though cultivated - Fields of Cholla. Only the field is a big rock.

The view from the highest point. My Dad, the nimble mountain goat, on the trail in front of me. Here are some insects we met on our way to the top: Unknown Nymphalidae A seed bug Great Purple Hairstreak

Net-winged Beetle These insects were from my Dad's yard (10/12/15). Rhopalidae - appears to be a red-shouldered bug A bee fly - after looking at some photos, I think it is in the subfamily Phthiriinae. The pool drain proved most profitable. I will be checking it daily. Top row, left to right: a scorpion, a centipede, two mantids, two water striders. Bottom row: a honey bee, predacious diving beetle (above), either a darkling beetle or iron clad beetle (below), and another possible darkling beetle I will have to dig into my entomology books at home a little more for the last two. ...And though it did not move for a good fifteen minutes,  this one... ...was still alive!

At some point last night, and unbeknownst to me until this morning, an adorable mantispid snuck inside my house; likely when I was hauling in the groceries. These are one of my favorite insects. A book entitled Florida's Fabulous Insects by Mark Deyrup, describes them thusly: "The mantisfly looks like the prank of an unusually deft student, who has  attached the front end of a miniature mantis to a lacewing." Superficially, mantispids, or mantisflies, look like little preying mantids but they are not related. The mantispids are more closely related to ant lions and lacewings, whereas preying mantids are more closely related to cockroaches. The modified front legs of the mantispid are used in the same manner as mantids, to quickly grasp prey. Mantispid larvae seek out spider egg sacs and feed on the eggs. Here's the little bugger on my hand so you can roughly gauge its size  While in my custody, the mantispid did some adorable things such as cle...