More Landscape Photo's Too.

 I like taking close up pictures of bugs with wings because I like seeing their wings, and bugs seem to be a little more...forgiving with proximity to people than un-domesticated animals.  Although I don't know what this bug is, I wasn't able to find out anything bad about it, so I don't think it's too dangerous.

 

 Most of the bugs I take pictures of happen to land on me while I'm out mowing, and sometimes, it gets really difficult to take a good picture with an actual camera when I have only my left hand to use, so I wasn't able to get this one very close.

This one looks kind of like a really small moth, but it was the middle of the day, so I really doubt that it was a moth, from the shape of the wings I might think maybe a Leafhopper, but it seems a bit too chunky for one of them.

 I didn't know frogs had a habit of being so cool.   I keep a little Grabber-Arm tool with me on the mower while mowing to move branches out of the way or other things, and I don't know how long he was there, but he was just hanging out, I guess enjoying the ride.  Which is weird since the tractor was on pretty close to full power so it was rumbling and making lots of noise.  I ended up dropping him off near the tree I noticed him at, since I had to go mow in the sun, and I doubt frogs like the sun much.

 Our pecans are coming in very nice, these are some of the bigger ones.   A lot of the trees we have are still green, but some of them are already starting to brown and open up.  I think this will be a great pecan year.

 I'm going to start taking some landscape-type pictures from now on, these won't necessarily be 'of' anything, and for a while they might be a little bad until I get the hang of taking this style of  photo, so I'll start off with my favorite one, the one I think came out best, of the bayou across the road.  We get all sorts of birds, nutria, gators, pretty much every type of animal in Louisiana is over there at some point in time.

 This one is just a picture of the, mostly, mowed yard, the picture might not do it justice, and this is only about half of it, but it's actually really big.   And while you can't see it right now, it's incredibly wet out there, no standing water at the moment, but pretty much all the dirt is mud right now.  We've had some pretty serious raining over the last couple months, and yesterday we had some more rain, so the ground is pretty saturated.

 And this last one is the tree in the background of the previous picture, it's a pretty big tree.  Not terribly tall, but really wide.  This one is not one of our pecan trees, almost unfortunately, one that big could drop a whole heap of them on it's own



Thanks for stopping by, and if you'd like, let me know which one of the pictures you liked the most, or share your thoughts, I'd be happy to hear them.   Until next time, have a great day or night.

I Can Fly Twice As High

 Before the big rain down here in Louisiana, I took a few pictures of a small plane that sprays the fields across the road, I think most of them came out pretty well.

 The plane is a very small one, flown by a guy who has his own airfield down the road a ways, although, airfield may be too official of a term for it, its just a   small strip.

This is my favorite one out of the plane photos, where he's dropping the pesticide/herbicide (I'm not to sure which, exactly), just because I think it was cool that I was able to get it in a fairly visible way.

While out mowing, down here in Louisiana, the bugs are everywhere, since this one was just a fly, and not a terribly big danger, I decided to take a photo of it, that I think came out pretty well, he didn't stay around long after I started mowing again though.

I love getting these close-up photo's of dragonflies, they tend to be less wary of people being around, or at least they don't run away as fast, so it's a bit easier to get good, stable shots of them.

And this I believe was a Cicada who recently finished molting, because I can't think of any other reason why the Cicada would be on the husk like that, though I have found out it seems they really like this tire, I saw at least 6 other husks on the tire, so it may have just been there because they like it.


Sorry for the long delay, but thank you for stopping by.    I think my favorites in this one are the plane spraying the field and the dragonfly one.  I hope you all have a wonderful day and night, and I hope you stop by again.

Just a few from the yard

The apple trees we have in our little orchard in the back are doing well, but seems to be a bunch of bugs that think so too, but that's ok, at least for now.

 These are some elderberries growing out near one of our pecan trees, I would say they're doing well too, but I don't really know much about Elderberry's, so I don't know.  I will be watching this set for a while, so maybe I will figure out how they turn out.

 This here toad is one of a few that lives in our Cow Bowl, which is really just a big bowl now, since we have no cows.  The primary difference between Frogs and Toads is that with Toads their skin tends to be dry, where Frogs tend to have wet and slimy skin.

I think this is my favorite one, although the photo may look big, this dragon fly was actually really small, but I think it came out great.  Depending on size, Dragonflies can reach speeds of around 20-25 miles/h, and some of the largest fossilized ones have been found with wingspans over 70 centimeters, or more than 2 feet.  That would be a huge dragonfly.


Thank you very much for stopping by once again and I hope you do again.

Elderberry and Traps

So, I took some more pictures of one of the quite a few spouts of Elderberry bushes we have, because I think the flowering on them looks very nice

 And these are the actual Elderberries, or, at least what will become them if they grow long enough.  Elderberries are used quite often in pies, jellies, and even wines for their unusual taste.  However, caution must be used as all parts of the Elderberry plant are considered toxic, according to the LSUA Agriculture Center   Source Links to LSUA Ag PDF at LSUA site :  http://www.lsuagcenter.com/~/media/system/f/7/c/8/f7c8e5621f22d1959b0c8f3f147a8441/listpoisonousornamentalplants.pdf

 This poor wasp here got caught in a really big web, that spanned a good 7 or 8 feet from the ground to a tree branch, I assume it was made by a very tenacious spider, as the web at that location has been destroyed at least twice during mowing, but it keeps putting it back up.   This time I decided to pay honor to the tenacity of the insect and left the web alone and just didn't mow that patch of grass at all.

This is a very small pink flower, the Shameplant, known by many names, such as the Touch-me-not, or the Tickle-me, 'The Sensitive Plant' is a plant which will actually move and respond to touching, though it's only similar to a muscular reflex, and not actual conscious response.

 This butterfly here is known as a Black Swallowtail, a member of the Dark Swallowtail group, consisting of this kind and 3 other types.  It is, to the best of my knowledge, a male. Swallowtails tend to fly higher and move faster than some other types of butterflies.  They tend towards hosting with members of the Carrot family, such as hemlock (very poisonous, caution is recommended), Bishopweed, and Roughfruit Scaleseed.

 Which of the pictures do you think was the best or your favorite?   Personally, I liked the first Elderberry one the best, Elderberry is just a very photogenic plant, and looks great in pictures, in my opinion.   

The bugs and the trees.

 So, for the first few pictures, this is a young cicada, even if you've only seen the husks, you've probably heard them, this was the first time I saw a live one, and I think the wings on it look amazing.

                                        From the little research I've done, this is one of the 'Annual Cicada' group, specifically a "Dog Day" cicada.  Annual Cicada's have a life span of 2-5 years, and are the norm for most of the world.  In the North Eastern United States, there are types known as Periodical Cicadas, which swarm every 13 and 17 years, depending on the type.

       

This picture was just to show off how big it was,  I'd say, length wise was probably about finger-length, maybe finger and a half (very scientific measurements)

 This was just a picture that I took artistically, I thought the contrast of the shadow in the middle and the white flower/buds was pretty nice.  I don't know what kind of plant it is, but they are pretty common in the yard, I've seen them on their own, around pecan trees, pretty much anywhere.

In our backyard, we have an orchard with a couple apple trees, and they seem to be doing fair, we also have a pear tree near by, however, it doesn't bear any fruit yet.

Sorry this one looks a bit off, it's a small bug that was climbing on my shoulder while I was out mowing our yard, and I tried to take this photo with a regular camera.  This little bug looks like a leaf hopper to me, which are slightly bad for plants, but not terribly so.  Fun Fact:  There are more species of Leaf Hoppers than all species of mammals, amphibians, birds, and reptiles combined.  That is, a lot.   Source:  Planet Natural's webpage on Leaf Hoppers.

 This is one of our young pecan trees, around 7 years old or so I think, shown here with a person to show it's size.  The power lines are actually a good bit farther back and are in no danger of hitting the tree.    Pecans are a huge business around this area, when it's pecan season you can't turn almost a single corner in nearby Alexandria without going past someone buying them.  While they used to buy them to make stuff with them, most of the buyers just buy them to make Pecan Oil now, I think.


How do you think the photo's turned out?     Which do you think was the best?   Personally, I liked the first Cicada photo on the top left the best, because the wings in that one are very nice looking.   

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you enjoyed the post.

Ladybugs and Mushrooms

 This was a picture from during the ladybugs mating time, they were literally everywhere, not as many of them now, but still quite a lot.

 These are some pictures of a growth of mushrooms that took up the same size as a small tree stump, and the ant hill next to it is pretty big too, last picture is a bit further out to show how big the mushrooms are

A few wildlife-y photos

This is one of the two non-insect pictures I took this time, I think it was called a Canna, or maybe a Kanis, I couldn't hear too well at the time.

  And this here turtle was, as they seem apt to do, laying its eggs in our yard, poking it's head out to look at me as I was going around it.

 And I think all of these insect photos came out great, I believe I got some good ones here.  2 of a (the same) dragonfly and one of a regular house-fly

 A nice close-up of a Dragonfly, although I think it's right wing was broken, which is why it's dipped off, but I am not sure.









And here is the promised 'better next time' egret that I keep promising you all :P

A few 'normal' pictures from everyday life around here

This picture is sort of an update, this is a picture of those 'web-ball' caterpillars.  It's actually called the Fall Webworm, and the web-balls is a cocoon for what becomes a white moth, and they tend to nest in pecan trees, among others, and are, mostly, not dangerous, according to the Louisiana State University Agricultural Center at https://www.lsuagcenter.com/en/our_offices/research_stations/Pecan/Features/Pecan_FAQs/index_seriespage-18.htm

 This is a picture of a couple of our 'house-cats' in our screen room, where we put up a few shelves, for them to climb around on, still inside, technically, while also still sort of being outside.

 Saw at least 4 of these girls out in the yard today, the Red Eared Slider, a fairly common turtle that is quite often kept as pets.

 The family across the way has at least 2 horses, as well as their neighbor has at least 2 horses, and also a couple dozen cows.

Sorry for the quality of this Egret, I will definitely do better, this one was done at 32x magnification, so, he was pretty far away.

And here is my favorite one, I call it 'To the Setting Sun'  Even though it was taken at around 8-9 this morning, haha.

Bug Post

 A bunch of caterpillarish bugs swarming on some little branch, looked weird, so I snapped a couple shots, although, I don't know much about caterpillarish bugs, so this might be totally normal for them