Author Archives: birds n' bugs

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About birds n' bugs

Retired, living in SW Florida and spending my time at nature photography in my local area. I volunteer with a couple of local organizations to help my adopted home town. Travelling is now by airplane and car instead of a sailboat but happy anyway.

Spider webs and other things they do with silk

Everyone knows the iconic image of an orb weaver spiders web. Like this one from a golden silk orb weaver. But not all spiders spin webs like that. For example, here is a jumping spider I found this morning. It … Continue reading

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Yellow Crowned Night Herons – the babies are up

With a respite in our rainy weather from TS Andrea I walked over to the Yellow Crowned Night Heron nests where the mama’s were playing peekaboo with me. Today I found four babies who were finally able to stand and … Continue reading

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Weekly Photo Challenge: The sign says …

The sign basically says NO FISHING but plenty of folks down at the park seem to completely ignore the admonition.

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Odonata – Dragonflies and Damselflies

The moist days bring the dragonflies out as all of their small insect prey hatches. I see quite a few of them on walks now. Particularly along the mangroves. Here are a few shots from the last few days. The … Continue reading

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Yellow Crowned Night Heron – playing peekaboo again

There is a black olive tree on one of my morning walk routes that had two Yellow Crowned Night Heron nests in it. We had a pretty hefty windstorm the other day so I went that way to check on … Continue reading

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A Hairstreak Butterfly

I found this fellow in the Punta Gorda History Park. It’s a Grey Hairstreak. These have a bit of a disguise. The ends of the wing have little extensions that flutter about in the breeze. It almost look like there … Continue reading

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Crablike Orb Weaver – Gasteracantha cancriformis

These are interesting little spiders because they look like a crab. Generally small they spin their geometric webs in the mangroves and wait for lunch to arrive. They generally sit in the middle of the web and I sometimes think … Continue reading

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Upate on the debris carrying bug

As I said, I posted the images of the bug which had disguised itself with debris. I posted it at bugguide.net as an ID request at 4:53PM and at 4:55PM there was a response with a link to similar images and … Continue reading

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The Sea Grape – Coccoloba uvifera

Sea Grape is a common plant in Florida. We like it and it is as common as pinewoods and palmtrees. In Punta Gorda we even have an art gallery named after it. It can be grown as a tree or … Continue reading

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Long-legged Flies – Dolichopodidae

These flies are very, very common all over the world. There are about 7000 different species so, I have no idea which these particular flies are from. I do know that I see them often but they are difficult to … Continue reading

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