3:00 snapshot #856 out of sequence

I never intended for this to be a photo journal, but that's what it mostly is. I'm okay with that if you are, the only problem is that sometimes I lose or break my camera. This snapshot was taken on November 19th, before my lens hit the ground. You can see leaves on the tree behind the house, even as we've already taken the snow shovels out to deal with the October snowstorm.

100 Species #99: earwig

This earwig (almost certainly Forficula auricularia) was on our kitchen floor, looking slightly stepped-on. I picked it up and moved it outside where it could properly reenter the food web.

Earwigs are mostly tropical and subtropical animals, but the cold tolerant European earwig Forficula auricularia can be found just about everywhere. It probably came to New England in soil ballast, but it could have come in the cracks of wooden shipping crates, or in potted plants, or almost any other way. They eat just about anything and can get into tiny crevices. It's fortunate that they seem to prefer to be outside, or else they would be as serious pests as cockroaches. As it is, they come indoors more often in humid places (according to anecdotes that people have told me, and my own experience where I find them in the zoo) and are rarely found in swarm-like numbers.

The European earwig was featured here earlier as 365 urban species #191. Earwigs are no more likely to crawl in your ear as you sleep than any other insect (and less so than some others) but just in case, gag gift outfitters Archie McPhee have provided this product:



(thanks to ndozo for the link)

3:00 snapshot #857

On November 20th, we went for a walk in Stony Brook, this time actually walking TO the place as well. It's a very short distance, but it's mostly along busy roads, and a good section of it has no sidewalk. It's less than ideal, and will be downright impossible once the snow comes.


I only took one other picture on the walk, this one.

3:00 snapshot #858

First snapshot with the new lens. Eh, not bad for a bunch of filing cabinets. I like that it goes wider than my old lens. Hows the macro?


Funny you should ask. It doesn't actually have a macro setting, but it focuses fairly close, as you can see from this shot of the tiny break on my old lens.


And not a bad grab of the sunset--don't know if I can credit the optics or whatever with the fact that you can see the houses in the foreground and yet the sky isn't washed out, but I like it. We've had really nice sunsets lately--too bad they're coming at 4:25.