Warm night adventure

[urbpan]

After todays cold rains, tropical air has come in ("tropical" meaning 57 degrees--10 degrees warmer than during the day) and it's very pleasant to be outside. We went out to walk the dogs and passed by a chirping snowy tree cricket. I found it with the flashlight and tried to photograph it, but didn't get much of it. After the dog walk, I came outside again, tried to get the snowy tree cricket again (I'm experiencing sudden anxiety about the 365 project--It seems impossible to get another 67 species, now that the leaves are mostly gone and cold and snow are coming) and failed. So I walked around the area a little bit, hoping to hear another one, or find something, anything, that I could photograph for the project. I didn't find anything new, but I had fun walking around and observing some animals that come out on warm dark nights, and trying a new photography technique.




Can you see the snowy tree cricket?


Tree-climbing earthworm.




Leopard slug.


English garden snail.


A baby one.

Watch on YouTube

Comments

[spocks-girl.livejournal.com]

>>Can you see the snowy tree cricket?<<

No, I can't. Hint, please?

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

[momomom.livejournal.com]

Oh my...where's cotton's macro on this one, lol.

[wirrrn.livejournal.com]

Hey,

Leopard Slugs rock. Especially when they mate. The two slugs entwine their penises together and the resultant structure looks like a bioluminescent violet (and of course, both slugs crawl away preggers)

[ladyofthemoor.livejournal.com]

If there is someone who can do this 365 project then it is you!

[bellelvsbeast.livejournal.com]

Wow that leopard slug is beautiful...:)
And I love the tree climbing earthworm, too cool

[psongster.livejournal.com]

I found myself brainstorming about possible urban species posts between here and the end of the year – I hope you don’t mind my sharing my meanderings.

I realized I’m not sure what you consider the parameters of either “urban” (does Arlington, where I now live after 14 years in Central Square/Cambridgeport, count?) or “species” (does it have to be alive? reproducing in situ? not in a currently-cultivated garden?). So some of these thoughts might lie outside your ambit, but it does occur to me that, as winter settles in, the species that are most likely to be “active” are those that have human protection (either intentionally or unintentionally on the part of the humans).

If there’s a cold morning, show people how the leaves curl on rhododendrons – but do I remember a comment on the difficulty of bringing rhodies to a species-identification level?

Pieris japonica – show people the buds getting ready for next spring.

Yews – is one reason they are so ubiquitous is that nothing eats them? So they are ecological space-occupiers?

Termites – I’ve heard that their range has moved north as central heating gives them places to survive the winter.

House spiders – you’ve done cellar spiders, but my house has quite a few spiders of a different species that like to live upstairs and don’t spin “standard” webs – what is their food chain?

Chrysanthemums – I believe several cultures (French and others) associate them with death and dying, and display them only at funerals, which makes sense given the time of year they bloom. Americans plant them all over the place, but the way they are typically grown turns what could be a long-lived perennial into a fragile temporary planting, so that most chrysanthemum plants we see are dying or dead.

Ornamental kale – it was in my adulthood that people started considering them flowers – what miracle of marketing did that?

Pumpkins for Halloween – and lots of interesting things to say about squash.

Colored corn around Thanksgiving – and corn evolution from teosinte or corn genetics or corn economics.

Pointsettas around Christmas – were they bred for that coloration? When did they become ubiquitous in churches?

Mistletoe – where did the kissing tradition come from?

Bird feeders – so what is in them? What do you think about the debates about the desirability of feeding wildlife in general and urban birds in particular?

What do urban birds eat when they are not given feeders? I deliberately leave flower seed-heads accessible to them … there are lots of seed heads to photograph in my garden :-).

Domestic morning glory seed pods are neat, and allow the plants to self-seed, and people rarely look at them.

Bird “suet” feeders – is that really suet? Are suet feeders the last place, outside our kitchens, where we see the remnants of the cattle and pigs that used to inhabit cities? Tell people about the rendering plants that used to give parts of Cambridgeport the nickname “Greasy Village” and a horrendous smell – and the way post-war highways and the trucking industry (and rising standards of cleanliness and smells) exiled livestock from cities, where they had lived for the rest of human history. Sometimes what *isn’t* here is as interesting as what is.

On a similar note – lots of Arlington houses still have metal collectors sunk into the ground outside their back doors, where people used to leave food waste for the nearby pig farmers to pick up.

Coyotes – if Arlington counts as urban, see whether the animal control officer can help you figure out where and when to photograph the family of coyotes that lives in town.

There used to be a large vegetable garden on an unused plot of old industrial land (next to the train tracks??) in Cambridgeport. I got the impression it was the creation of Asian immigrants, who are used to doing that sort of thing in cities. I don’t know whether it is still there, and unfortunately I can’t remember exactly where it was. But it would be neat to see what their winter crops are.

Cats, feral or truly domestic?

Houseplants?

Again … I hope you don’t mind my sharing such thoughts … but your comment about wondering what you were going to do for the next 67 days got me musing.

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the suggestions!

Just to let you know: I have done Pieris japonica, and termites. Yews and other evergreens I'm saving for when I'm desperate (almost there, not quite yet). I'm avoiding doing houseplants if I can, unless I find some that are participating in urban ecology in a conspicuous or meaningful way. That being said, poinsettias have naturally red bracts (or sepals, I forget which) and are native to South America. I saw some urban ones in Quito when I was there, the size of rhododendrons. Red and green plants have been associated with Christmastime since before there was a Christmastime, on account of the symbolism of live during the time of death, and the blood of christ, and all that.

Yes, if I can id a rhody to species, I'll do it, but I have such antipathy for it that I'm not likely to try again. I discussed birdseed and birdfeeders a bit on my entry for sunflowers. The birds that I did during winter (chickadee, downy woodpecker, titmouse, nuthatch) have some discussion of that as well, including one discussion of suet, I think on the downy one but I'm not sure.

I haven't seen urban mistletoe (I think it only grows in mature forests).

I kicked myself after seeing a feral cat in Springfield and didn't photograph it. I would happily write about feral cats (as I did about dogs) but I need to get a picture first. There are none in our neighborhood, so I have to hope to come across some in my explorations.

Thanks again for all the suggestions! It should be interesting to see what happens.

[ndozo.livejournal.com]

I've heard that there is always a spider within 3 feet of you, almost wherever you are. I think there are 67 species crawling around my house right now, so maybe more kinds of spiders? Do you count refrigerator mold?

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

I will certainly do any spiders that I encounter, that I am able to identify. I was never able to find a Phiddipus audax, my favorite, during the warm months. Spiders are notoriously hard to identify, but I'll keep an eye out for them.

I did one kind of mold, and if I can figure out other species, I do them as well.

Thanks for the suggestions!

The Snail on the Slope

[kudryata.livejournal.com]

I am looking for a picture of a snail for my userpic. Would you mind sending the file with English garden snail to me at kudryata@hotmail.com?

Re: The Snail on the Slope

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

I don't have access to the original, but if you right click (or control click if you have a mac) on the image it will show you where the web version is stored. Just credit me, please!