follow that qar!

Wisteria had taken over the loft deck. The left end of one railing had been pulled down to the deck, the screws yanked through the wood to let it down. Some balusters were akilter. The pruning shears were in hand. The vines were mostly no wider than a half inch and made mostly easy cutting. It was going to be a selective cut at first, but telltale signs around three sides of railing meant it was going to be much more forceful. While I was at it, I found this odd growth under the deck, on the outside toward the maple. When I found the second I can't recall, but it was in a clipped end along a leaf. I let it be for a while and couldn't find it when I returned. I had probably been looking for my glasses and the camera when the easy access larva disappeared, but nonetheless leaned over the rail to try aiming this shot. Time to go back to the caterpillar book. After a glance at bodyforms leafed to the moths and spotted the underwings. The orange flash reminds me of one I ...

Butterfly watching has me attuned to caterpillars, so when I spotted this on a dogwood leaf this evening I was excited to find out which one I had discovered. Our Peterson First Guide didn't offer a match, so I went online to search on characteristics. That got me nowhere. Then I went to 'caterpillar maine dogwood' and up popped two images from Jim McCormac's blog entry on sawflies and yellowjackets. It's not a butterfly or a moth, it's a sawfly. bugman clued me into dogwood sawflies on What's That Bug? which itself pointed to Penn State 's Susan Parker with an Integrated Pest Management perspective and a Chris Adams entry on bugguide.net . On the latter site, danielj reports that correspondent Millie's image was a first for bugguide.net. There are others there . This squirmy thing had climbed to the tip of a pagoda dogwood, but we've got red osiers aplenty. Time to think twice about the positive first impression? "This is an ...

Seeking the fruit of fakir in short order. Nice image. Edit 2012-12-14: Never really got close.

In December 2008, numerous images were transmitted from the International Space Station to Earth using amateur radio slow-scan television. I copied the following images during four passes over northeastern North America. A few weeks earlier (October 2008), space tourist Richard Garriott was aboard the space station. In addition to making lots of contacts with Earthbound hams, he sent many SSTV transmissions and I was able to copy these. The final one, which I attempted in early morning darkness on his last ISS day, says "Goodbye From Space - From Richard Garriott". All these images were recorded using an Arrow antenna feeding a Vertex-Standard VX-150 2-meter handheld transceiver and a Sony voice recorder. The recordings were later played back through MMSSTV to acquire images, which were then labeled using Photoshop. This series was originally posted as individual nodes in Drupal, but with the demise of that website have been moved to Flickr and c...

I was preparing a rare bird documentation form for the Maine Bird Records Committee when I discovered this is not a review species. Rather than discard it, I'm copying it here. Kentucky Warbler Berwick, York County, Maine May 13, 2012 approximately 19:20 These notes were made about a half hour after the observation after consulting field guides: Peterson, Sibley, Golden, iBird. "Flushed at close range on side trail. Gave sharp tchew! note and moved quickly low in thick vegetation. Appeared for less than a second in plain view, though poorly lit. Immediately struck by facial pattern, which I registered as a bold yellow eye ring extending and drooping behind the eye. Dark olive green above with no wing bars, tail spots, or other distinctive markings. Rich yellow below with no streaking seen. First reaction: Kentucky. Did not observe black "moustache," but reasonable (?) to assume it blended with the dark upperparts in the poor light. (And I was distracted by...

360 posts total now that the drupal import is done. Much dust must settle.

Glad to make contact with the W0S operation via AO-27 this afternoon.