On Horseshoe Crab Mating: a haiku

One suitor clasping:

"Love is to cling!" One sidles:
"In subtlety, love."

For more on the mating behavior of horseshoe crabs, check out this post--and stay tuned for more about our most recent feats of horseshoe-crab voyeurism.

{A note: I do write all text and take all pictures. Please do not reproduce either without my permission.}

Friday Fuschia

No flamingos today but some other pink animals to brighten the start of your weekend.

{A note: I do write all text and take all pictures. Please do not reproduce either without my permission.}

1

Love is in the air (or on the leaf)

I was photographing oxeye daisies in bloom (because I'm visiting California, where the plants laugh at winter!) when I came across this couple enjoying Valentine's Day.

May I wish that all of you, in your own ways, also enjoy the day.

{A note: I do write all text and take all pictures. Please do not reproduce either without my permission.}

Robins Take Over the Universe!!

Or at least our little portion of it.

I was walking to work this morning when I heard a near-deafening cacophony of cheeping and chirping, an overwhelming waterfall of bird sounds.

To my astonishment, I saw a cloud of robins rising from and perching in a holly tree ripe with berries. There were simply too many birds for the holly to support them, so many more were perched on the bare branches of nearby trees or the ledges of houses.

[because this is a poor-quality phone photo I've circled the visible robins--more are too blurred by their motion to be seen. I count at least 80.]

I’ve seen vast murmurations of starlings forming and reforming patterns in the air like plumes of smoke, huge clusters of cedar waxwings gorging themselves silly on wild cherries, bushes dense with sparrows like feathered fruit. I have never seen this many robins in one place, and I’m a little worried.

Does it presage some disturbing, bitter shift in the weather? An extra-long winter during which we’ll all need as many berries as we can eat? Or…the beginning of a vast avian conspiracy to overcome the globe?

Only time will tell.

{A note: I do write all text and take all pictures. Please do not reproduce either without my permission.}

Flamingo Friday: Angles

{A note: I do write all text and take all pictures. Please do not reproduce either without my permission.}