Last quail survey point completed this morning and nada. 🙁 So only a one Bob season.
Continuing now with the after quail survey fun. The trail we were on was partially shady. Which of course this was not a bad thing.
However some are out in the open like the Harvester ants. They were hard at work.
Some were carrying these seeds with horseshoe shape on them. Anyone have idea of what type of seed? One ant brought the black pupa and dropped it. I supposed that they decided it wasn’t worth taking back.
Back in the shade again a moss, thalloid liverwort, and a Cladonia lichen made a pretty picture.
Also along the path were the native Slender bush-clovers (Lespedeza virginica). A tiny Diptera lit on top. My searching led me to the Geron genus, a type of Bee Flies (Bombyliidae). Geron has a hump backed, a very long proboscis (2-3 x head length), and a tuft of pile below the base of the antennae.
Spoonflower (Clitoria mariana) or as some call it, Pigeonwings.
A female Striped Lynx Spider (Oxyopes salticus).
Another first for me, a Ganoderma fungus covered with brown spores. The Ganoderma fungus is common enough to find, however not covered with the brown spores!
Surprisingly the Blue Dasher held still for a photo!
We stopped to reflect at the lake!
Now we were about to head to the next part of the trail without much shade.
You always find so many interesting things! And the article on the Komodo dragons was so fascinating. I was one of the tourists who went to see them several years ago. Although tourism represents a threat, it also provides motivation and funding to preserve them – as with so much other wildlife.
Whoa, those horseshoe seeds are very interesting! Are the brown spores from that Ganoderma fungus or from another mushroom nearby?
The spores as far as I could tell were from Ganoderma.
That lake pic astounding. And so glad you’re seeing harvester ants.
We saw several active colonies of harvester ants that day. And several colonies that had been abandoned as well.
We’ll have to keep an eye out for horseshoe marked seeds – would really like to solve that mystery.
Agreed!
You always find so many interesting things! And the article on the Komodo dragons was so fascinating. I was one of the tourists who went to see them several years ago. Although tourism represents a threat, it also provides motivation and funding to preserve them – as with so much other wildlife.
So much to see and so little time. 😉
Did you collect any seeds to grow? I would try one next spring…
I didn’t 🤷🏻♀️. If I see them again I will.