My daughter sent me a picture of a walking stick bug that was crawling on her window. Walking sticks are common but rarely seen because they live in trees and are camouflaged to look like sticks. There are thousands of species of stick bugs. Most of them live in tropical areas. They “naturally prune” trees…. Read more »
Science
Fungus Schmungus #9
I saw this mushroom growing in the grass on a small lawn of a hotel in Arkansas next to the parking lot. I believe it is a type of Ganoderma or Reishi mushroom. I have two other species of Ganoderma on this blog (Fungus Schmungus #2 and #6). I was not able to identify the… Read more »
Goldfinch Nest
I was walking our dog, Webster, along the edge of the ballpark under some pine trees. He sniffed at something on the ground that I thought was a baseball with the covering torn off, but when I picked it up and turned it over it was a small bird nest. I did some research to… Read more »
Fungus Schmungus #8
I found a bunch of these mushrooms near our yard under a large pine tree. They are called Chicken Fat Mushroom or Suillus Americanus. They always grow near an Eastern White Pine and nowhere else. They are a type of bolete mushroom which has pores on the underside of the cap rather than gills. Boletes… Read more »
Red-tailed Hawk Down
Last week, my husband found a young red-tailed hawk at the edge of our driveway. The raptor had a wound on his neck and was covered in flies. I took a video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZ-SKg4er10 while we waited for Iowa Bird Rehabilitation to arrive. She was there within 15 minutes, threw a small blanket over the bird,… Read more »
Fasten Your Van Allen Belts
Last night I saw the Northern Lights in Iowa which is not usual for us, but was due to some large solar flares. The first photo below is in my backyard which is close to city lights. The second photo was taken in the countryside north of Des Moines. I uploaded two videos as… Read more »
Jellyfish
Bob and I stopped at the Bass Pro Shop aquarium in Springfield, Missouri. They had a large number of interesting exhibits, but the Sea Nettles (a type of “true jellyfish”) were fascinating to watch. I made three videos which are on my YouTube channel. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ktEoO7-mB4w https://www.youtube.com/shorts/JjlnKmrKkno and https://www.youtube.com/shorts/oMZQw9Pire0 “True jellyfish” are: Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Cnidaria (nih-DARE-ee-uh) which… Read more »
Naming Snails
I saw several of the same type of terrestrial snails on a trail in a wooded area. I had a difficult time identifying the snail because many species of look very similar. A malacologist (a person who studies snails) uses several different criteria besides shell coloring. I narrowed the type of this snail down to… Read more »
Fungus Schmungus #7
Another mushroom discovered on my dog walk. The scientific name of this one is Coprinus comatus (coprinus means “of dung” and comatus means “hairy”). This mushroom is also known as the “shaggy inky cap.” It is edible in the “shaggy” white phase, but within 24 hours it digests itself and becomes the inedible “inky” stage…. Read more »
Deer Eating Mulberries
I was sitting at my kitchen table when I saw this small buck in our back yard, eating mulberries off the tree.
Shelley Jones Clark
