Category: Readers’ wildlife

Readers’ wildlife photos

November 20, 2023 • 8:15 am

Please send your good wildlife photos if you got ’em. Otherwise, we’ll run out of contributions before Friday, and this feature will end.

Today we have a photo-and-text story by Athayde Tonhasca Júnior. His words are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

How the mighty have fallen

“And they shall cover the face of the earth, that one cannot be able to see the earth: and they shall eat the residue of that which is escaped, which remaineth unto you from the hail, and shall eat every tree which groweth for you out of the field: And they shall fill thy houses, and the houses of all thy servants…” Exodus 10:5-6, King James Version.

The Bible never sounded as prescient to Americans and Canadians as in the years 1873-1877. On summer days, farmers in the prairie regions watched with alarm and hopelessness as black clouds formed in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. These clouds would eventually grow and descend to lower ground, hiding the sun in the middle of the day and filling the air with the sound of millions of scissors snipping away. The clouds contained no rain, hail or sand: they were made of locusts, billions of them (locusts are gregarious forms of grasshoppers). In 1875, Dr Albert Child of the U.S. Signal Corps timed a swarm flying over Plattsmouth, Nebraska, for five days straight, and telegraphed nearby towns for similar sightings. Dr Child estimated the swarm to be about 3,000 km long and 180 km wide (Second Report of the U.S. Entomological Commission, 1880).  That’s equivalent to 27 million tonnes of moving biomass.

A swarm of locusts in Madagascar, tiny in comparison to the ones befalling 1800’s North America © Michel Lecoq, Wikimedia commons.

Inevitably the locusts would come down to earth, devouring any plant in sight in a few hours; the farmers’ hard labour, mainly in the form of maize and wheat crops, would be wiped out. Here’s how Laura Ingalls Wilder (1867-1957), of Little House on the Prairie fame, described her childhood experience with locusts in Minnesota in 1874:

“Their thin, large wings gleamed and glittered. The rasping whirring of their wings filled the whole air and they hit the ground and the house with the noise of a hailstorm. Laura tried to beat them off. Their claws clung to her skin and her dress. They looked at her with bulging eyes, turning their heads this way and that… Grasshoppers covered the ground, there was not one bare bit to step on. Laura had to step on grasshoppers and they smashed squirming and slimy under her feet … ‘The wheat!’ Pa shouted.” (On the Banks of Plum Creek, 1937).

The protagonist of such a nightmare was the Rocky Mountain locust (Melanoplus spretus).

The Rocky Mountain locust, a feeding juggernaut © Julius Bien (1826-1909), Wikimedia Commons.

Locust outbreaks were nothing new, but Americans and Canadians were in for an onslaught. These racing feeding machines had a devastating impact: vast areas of agricultural land became barren, and many families gave up farming and fled to cities; in Canada, the lack of fresh vegetables caused outbreaks of scurvy, a disease caused by vitamin C deficiency; in both countries, army troops were mobilized to feed thousands of families. In 1877, the Minnesota Legislature passed the ‘grasshopper draft’:  all able-bodied men from 12 to 65 years old should gather locusts for at least one day: failure to comply could result in fines or 10 days in jail. The law made no difference to the Rocky Mountain locust.

Kansas farmers battling locusts © Henry Worrall (1825-1902), Wikimedia Commons.

But then, after the appalling rapacious raids in the late 1800s, the Rocky Mountain locust started to wane. Swarms became intermittent and smaller, and by the turn of the century there were no more locusts to be seen. The last two confirmed specimens were collected in Canada in 1902. In less than 30 years since Dr Albert Child reported the entomological version of Attila the Hun crossing the skies of Nebraska, the Rocky Mountain locust had disappeared from the face of the Earth. Nowadays only a few pinned specimens can be found in museum collections.

The abrupt extinction of the Rocky Mountain locust is one of greatest ecological puzzles of all times. Many explanations have been proposed, but today’s most accepted theory is that humans unknowingly bumped it off. Which is a great irony, considering the futile efforts of farmers, scientists and governments in killing it. During their grasshopper form, that is, before multiplying, swarming and making a nuisance of themselves, Rocky Mountain locusts gathered along a few river valleys where females laid their eggs in the soil. These fertile riparian habitats attracted settlers as well, who little by little altered the newly occupied pristine habitats by turning the soil over with their ploughs, and by bringing in herds of cows and horses to feed on the nutritious grass – who would trample and churn the soil while they were at it. These disturbances destroyed the insect’s eggs and immature forms developing underground, quickly sealing the fate of the Rocky Mountain locust.

Another animal once blackened the American skies with its sheer numbers: the passenger pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius). This migrating pigeon was believed to be the most abundant bird in North America, numbering from 3 to 5 billion. French-American artist, naturalist and ornithologist John James Audubon (1785-1851) described a passenger pigeon migration in 1813:

“The air was literally filled with Pigeons; the light of noon-day was obscured as by an eclipse; the dung fell in spots, not unlike melting flakes of snow, and the continued buzz of wings had a tendency to lull my senses to repose…. Before sunset I reached Louisville, distant from Hardensburgh fifty-five miles. The Pigeons were still passing in undiminished numbers and continued to do so for three days in succession”.

Passenger pigeon hunt in Louisiana © Smith Bennett, Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, 1875. Wikimedia Commons.

Despite its mindboggling numbers, the passenger pigeon was no match for the war waged against it – relentless hunting on an industrial scale and destruction of its habitats increasingly depleted its populations. By the 1850s, alarm bells started to go off, but with no practical results. In 1857, a bill was presented to the Ohio State Legislature for the passenger pigeon’s protection, but a Select Committee ruled against it, noting that the bird was “Wonderfully prolific… no ordinary destruction can lessen them”. By the 1900s, the pigeon had disappeared in the wild, and only a few specimens hung on in captivity. From 1909 to 1912, the American Ornithologists’ Union offered US$1,500 to anyone reporting a nesting colony of passenger pigeons, but the reward was never collected. In 1914, Martha, the last known passenger pigeon, died at the Cincinnati Zoo. She was about 29 years old and had never laid a fertile egg.

Martha in 1912. After her death, her body was mounted in a display case with the notation: “MARTHA, last of her species, died at 1 p.m., 1 September 1914, age 29, in the Cincinnati Zoological Garden. EXTINCT” © Enno Meyer, Wikimedia Commons.

In On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin noted a relationship between species abundance and the size of their geographic range, and suggested that these factors were important for species’ success: “Who can explain why one species ranges widely and is very numerous, and why another allied species has a narrow range and is rare? Yet these relations are of the highest importance, for they determine the present welfare, and, as I believe, the future success and modification of every inhabitant of this world.”

Indeed, low abundance and restricted range (both expressions of rarity) are considered the main factors in extinction risk, and are the leading criteria for Red List species assessments by The International Union for Conservation of Nature. And yet, two species once widespread and unimaginably abundant, are gone forever.

The Rocky Mountain locust and passenger pigeon tales suggest any organism could tip over into oblivion once it is pushed too far. It could happen to a species near you.

Readers’ wildlife photos

November 19, 2023 • 8:15 am

Please send in your wildlife photos. Now that I’ve resumed this feature, I’m hoping for some good submissions. Thanks!

Today we have more photos of tropical birds from biologist John Avise. John’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.


Panama Birds, Part 3 

This is the third in a five-part WEIT mini-series of birds I photographed in Panama during a seminar trip in 2008. [JAC: Part 1 is here and Part 2 here.]

Golden-hooded Tanager (Tangara larvata):

Gray-breasted Martin (Progne chalybea):

Gray-breasted Martin flying:

Great Kiskadee (Pitangus sulphuratus):

Great-tailed Grackle (Quiscalus mexicanus):

Greater Ani (Crotophaga major):

Groove-billed Anis (Crotophaga sulcirostris):

Keel-billed Toucan (Ramphastos sulfuratus):

Keel-billed Toucan, headshot:

Lesser Elaenia (Elaenia chiriquensis):

Lesser Kiskadee (Pitangus lictor):

Lineated Woodpecker (Dryocopus lineatus):

Readers’ wildlife photos

November 18, 2023 • 8:30 am

Today’s wildlife contribution comes from regular Mark Sturtevant, whose notes and IDs are indented. Click on the photos to enlarge them.

I’ve left in Mark’s intro about duck sites in case any of you are waterfowl fans.

While I am here, I would like to mention something about ducks. There is the Tetrapod Zoology blog, which i believe is run by Daren Naish (https://tetzoo.com) — but then click on the Blog tab. You may already know about this, bu the man likes ducks! There are now two  articles about some interesting species and they are here and here. I know you will like them, especially if you have not seen the articles already.

OK, the post with critter pictures follows. Enjoy!

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Here are more insect pictures. All were taken about a year ago from near where I live in eastern Michigan, and it later includes an especially weird bug that I had not shown here before.

First, here is a Festive Tiger Beetle (Cicindela scutellaris). Getting pictures of these is hit or miss, since they quickly scatter when one approaches. But there is maybe a 50% chance that they will wander back and consider you to be part of the scenery, and then they might get quite close. The sandy ground had a very vivid color in this location, so I used a layer mask to selectively tone that down. This species has a number of color variants, as shown in the link.

Next up is an interesting caterpillar that was on our deck furniture. Note that it adds to its excellent camouflage by having a fleshy fringe to conceal its shadow. My preliminary ID was completely wrong, but I share pictures in different places and in one of them a friend identified it as the larva of one of our Underwing Moths, Catocala sp. These familiar moths are also patterned to look like tree bark, but they generally have flashy hind wings which are visible only while in flight. It is believed that this is meant to deceive predators since they would see it as a brightly colored moth. But if they searched where it landed, they could overlook the moth because when at rest it blends in with tree bark.

Next up is one of those super-duper common moths that everyone sees all the time when walking across a lawn. They are the “grass veneer” moths, and I’d never bothered to photograph one. But of course that was wrong, and I really like this picture! This particular species is the Bluegrass Webworm Moth, Parapediasia teterrellus.

The ornamentals in our yard seem to exist in order to feed Japanese Beetles (Popillia japonica) like the one shown in the next picture. This invasive species arrived in the U.S. in the early 1900s, and  spread rapidly because of its ability to feed on hundreds of host plant species. I remember wondering as a kid if I would ever see one, but now I’ve had quite enough of them.

The moth shown in the next picture is the Virginia Creeper Sphinx Moth (Darapsa myron). The larvae feed on Virginia Creeper and on grape.

I have certainly shown the next insect before. This is the Wasp Mantidfly, Climaciella brunnea, a Neuropteran that mimics a Paper Wasp and has a complex biology as explained at the link They are not common, but I generally manage to find at least one every summer since I go out so often. Although this insect is strange in several ways, I don’t think of it as the weirdest one in this set.

Last summer we were visiting my oldest son in a nearby town, and of course I had to stalk around the yard to look for critters. There was a weird fly on a bush, shown in the final pictures, and I was fairly blown away to find it. This is called a Small-Headed Fly for very obvious reasons (the head is the pimple on the lower right). I’ve never seen one, so of course it had to come home with us for pictures. Photographing this thing turned out to be very easy since it would scarcely move. The particular species is Pterodontia flavipes, and for scale it’s about the size of a kidney bean.

You can see a distinct tooth on the wing margin, and that identifies this as a male although I don’t know what the tooth is for. The compound eyes in both sexes are extremely holoptic – meaning that they are joined together. One sees this in other flies, but here the entire head is nearly a single compound eye!

Flies in this family (Acroceridae) are not common. Their life cycle is of some note in that they are parasitic on spiders. Eggs are scattered in large numbers, and the active larvae must find a suitable spider host and penetrate it.

I put pictures of this fly into the BugGuide web site since they had no records of this species in Michigan.

Thank you for looking!

Readers’ wildlife photos

November 17, 2023 • 8:15 am

Yes, they’re back again, but my supply is limited, so send in your good wildlife photos (submission rules are on the left sidebar).

Today’s submission comes from ecologist Susan Harrison of the University of Californa at Davis. Susan’s IDs and narrative are indented, and you can click on the photos (twice if you want) to make them bigger.

Drake’s Bay

Just north of San Francisco lies the miraculously wild Point Reyes Peninsula.   In 1962, its 71,000 acres of coastal terrain and 80 miles of shoreline were set aside as the Point Reyes National Seashore, managed by the National Park Service for wildlife and hiking. The peninsula is bounded on the northeast by Tomales Bay – an arrow-straight segment of the San Andreas Fault — and on the west by open ocean.  Its southern edge is Drake’s Bay, lined by a long gleaming arc of cliffs and beaches.

Drake’s Bay looking eastward from the tip of Point Reyes:

Seabirds, shorebirds, and marine mammals use Drake’s Bay’s sheltered waters.  So did English pirate Sir Francis Drake, who in 1579 repaired his ship here, reminisced about the white cliffs of Dover, and inscribed a Plate of Brasse — never since found — claiming “Nova Albion” for Her Majesty.

Here is a brief wildlife-oriented tour of Drake’s Bay from west to east, taken in November 2023.

Pt. Reyes Fish Docks, a spectacular birding hotspot:

Red-Breasted Merganser (Mergus serrator) at the fish docks:

Brown Pelicans (Pelecanus occidentalis) at the fish docks:

Black Oystercatchers (Haematopus bachmani):

Young male Northern Elephant Seals (Mirounga angustirostris), preparing for breeding season by contesting a strip of beach:

Long-Billed Curlews (Numenius americanus) at Limantour Beach:

Marbled Godwits (Limosa fedoa) at Sculptured Beach, with view to Arch Rock and Double Point:

Tule Elk (Cervus canadensis nannodes) bulls in the headlands above the bay:

Bonus ducks!  Five female Northern Shovelers (Spatula clypeata) dabbling the surface of nearby Abbott’s Lagoon, another birding hotspot:

Readers’ wildlife photos

November 5, 2023 • 8:15 am

Today we’ll have the last wildlife photos for about ten days, and they come, as always on Sunday, from John Avise. John’s notes are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

Panama Birds, Part 2     

Last week’s WEIT post showcased a dozen bird species that I managed to photograph on a seminar trip to Panama in 2008.  This week’s post shows another dozen or so avian species that I photographed during that same several-week excursion.  As I mentioned before, I found the dark and rainy forest understory to be an extremely difficult environment in which to get good bird photographs.

Chestnut-mandibled Toucan (Ramphastos swainsonii):

Cinnamon Becard (Pachyramphus cinnamomeus):

Clay-colored Thrush (Turdus grayi):

Collared Aracari (Pteroglossus torquatus):

Common Nighthawk (Chordeiles minor):

Common Tody-flycatcher (Todirostrum cinereum):

Crested Guan (Penelope purpurescens):

Crimson-backed Tanager (Ramphocelus dimidiatus):

Crimson-crested Woodpecker (Campephilus melanoleucos):

Crowned Woodnymph (Thalurania colombica):

Fasciated Antshrike (Cymbilaimus lineatus), male:

Fasciated Antshrike, female:

Readers’ wildlife photos

November 3, 2023 • 8:15 am

Today we have a photo-and-text story about “nectar robbers” by Athayde Tonhasca Júnior. His words are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

Benevolent delinquents

Christian Konrad Sprengel (1750-1816) is not widely known nowadays, but the German teacher, naturalist and theologian was a pioneer in recognising flowers as lures to insects. Sprengel made significant contributions to our understanding of the role played by insects in plant fertilization, although his writings, published in German, were mostly ignored outside Germany (which is a common fate in the Anglo-centric scientific world). Even still, Sprengel’s discoveries were acknowledged by Darwin in his own work with plants.

A page of Sprengel’s Das entdeckte Geheimniss der Natur im Bau und in der Befruchtung der Blumen (‘The secret of nature discovered in the structure and pollination of flowers’), 1793 © Uwe Thobae, Wikimedia Commons:

Among many novel contributions, Sprengel recorded the ‘outrage against a flower’ played by some bumble bees; they perforate the base of a flower to get access to its nectar, bypassing its opening. From the plant’s perspective, this is cheating. A bee that avoids the flower’s reproductive parts may not pollinate it: the metabolically expensive nectar could be for nothing. This behaviour is known as nectar robbery, a term that reflects a sympathetic bias towards plants; after all, bees – and other insects and some birds as well – are just getting a resource that would be inaccessible otherwise. Most robbed flowers have tubular corollas or nectar spurs (hollow extensions that contains nectar-producing organs) which are out of reach for many visitors, especially bees with short tongues. You can watch them in the act here”.

Nectar spurs on Aquilegia formosa; not reachable by traditional means © Daniel Schwen, Wikimedia Commons:

It has been long assumed, reasonably, that primary nectar robbers (those that perforate the flower to access nectar) and secondary nectar robbers (species that take advantage of existing perforations), are bad: ‘all plants must suffer in some degree when bees obtain their nectar in a felonious manner by biting holes through the corolla’ (Darwin, 1872). Indeed, robbers may reduce the availability of nectar to conventional flower visitors, therefore affecting plants’ reproductive success. Robbers may also destroy floral structures while in the act of breaking in:

A buff-tailed bumble bee (Bombus terrestris) pilfering nectar © Alvesgaspar, Wikimedia Commons:

In Brazil’s Atlantic Forest, the understory shrub Besleria longimucronata is pollinated by the reddish hermit (Phaethornis ruber) and violet-capped woodnymph (Thalurania glaucopis) hummingbirds—that is, if the stingless bee Trigona spinipes is not around. Despite lacking a sting, this bee is quite aggressive, pursuing and biting intruders with its sharp teeth, so that it can perforate the flowers and take their nectar at leisure. Trigona spp. are notorious nectar rustlers throughout the Neotropical region, damaging many wild plants and crops in varying degrees. Those hummingbirds that are not driven away by the bees avoid the nectar-depleted flowers; even worse for the plant, some hummingbird individuals slip into a criminal life themselves and become secondary robbers, taking advantage of the holes created by the bees. As a consequence of the robber’s direct and indirect actions, the shrub suffers a reduction in seed production (Bergamo & Sazima, 2018).

A Besleria sp. shrub, its violet-capped woodnymph pollinator and the nectar robber T. spinipes © Louis van Houtte, Dario Sanches and José Reynaldo da Fonseca, respectively. Wikimedia Commons:

But as is invariably the case in biology, things are more nuanced. Bees tend to stick around patches of rewarding flowers to save energy and forage more efficiently. But if flowers are low in nectar because of robbing, bees are forced to fly longer distances to get what they need. Also, they often spend less time in a given flower and visit more flowers per unit of time to compensate for lower nectar volume. All this shuffling about has a positive outcome for plants: more flowers are visited, more pollen is deposited on stigmas, and outcrossing (mating of unrelated individuals) is more frequent: the end result is increased reproduction and fitness.

Some of these effects were elegantly demonstrated by Mayer et al. (2014) in experiments with potted aconite or monkshood (Aconitum napellus lusitanicum). This endangered herb is pollinated by the common carder bee (Bombus pascuorum), and often robbed by the European honey bee (Apis mellifera). The researchers simulated nectar robbing by removing nectaries from some flowers and estimated pollen dispersal by dabbing anthers with fluorescent dye (a pollen surrogate), which was subsequently searched on stigmas collected from plants placed at some distance from the source. The results: bumble bees visited fewer flowers per plant and spent less time per flower. Also, fluorescent dye from patches with robbed flowers was dispersed over larger distances when compared to dye from control plants that had not been artificially robbed:

A bumble bee making way among the petals of an aconite to get access to its nectar © Franz van Duns, Wikimedia Commons:

And robbers often do more than rob. In northwest Spain, the hairy-footed flower bee (Anthophora plumipes) is the main pollinator of kidney vetch (Anthyllis vulneraria vulgaris), but muggers interfere in this relationship: the buff-tailed (B. terrestris) and the heath (B. jonellus) bumble bees may purloin over 3/4 of all kidney vetch flowers. Despite this rampage, robbed flowers have a higher probability of setting fruit than intact flowers. It turns out that robbers are forced to trample all over the plant’s capitulum (an inflorescence of closely packed flowers), touching anthers and stigmas during the act of thievery, pollinating the flowers (Navarro, 2000).

The heath bumble bee, a nectar robber, stomps around a kidney vetch capitulum, pollinating the flowers © Arnstein Staverløkk and Ivar Leidus, respectively. Wikimedia Commons:

Other studies have confirmed the pollination role of nectar robbers, such as the case of the fuzzy-horned (B. mixtus) and frigid (B. frigidus) bumble bees when visiting tall bluebells (Mertensia paniculata) in Alaska. These two bees pollinate flowers during their early stages of development, when pollen is plentiful, but shift to nectar robbing when nectar becomes abundant later on. But this is not only about a change of diet preferences: older flowers to be robbed of their nectar attract pollinators to young flowers nearby, which means that nectar pilfering aids the pollination of tall bluebells (Morris, 1996):

Tall bluebell flowers are pollinated then robbed, with a positive outcome for the plant © Walter Siegmund, Wikimedia Commons:

Sprengel labelled nectar robbing an ‘outrage against a flower’ and Darwin considered it ‘a felony’, but there’s more to it than meets the eye. Careful investigations have shown that in some cases flower larceny reduces plant reproduction and fitness, but there are many instances of no ill effects on plants, or even beneficial outcomes. It all depends on flower and robber morphologies, insect behaviour, flower density, how much nectar is available, how much of it is taken away, and so on.

‘Robbery’ sounds like a wrench thrown in the mutualistic relationship between plants and pollinators, but the phenomenon is way too common and widespread to be considered an anomaly. And like many other natural events, first impressions can be deceiving: the sight of a flower damaged by a rough visitor is not necessarily a harbinger of harm.

Flowers with punctured corollas, indicating nectar robbing. This could be bad, neutral or good for the plant © Raju Kasambe, Wikimedia Commons:

Readers’ wildlife photos

November 2, 2023 • 8:15 am

Today we have photos from biologist Jody Hey. His captions and narrative are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

For many years my family has taken vacations in the town of Tenants Harbor, Maine.  This is in the mid-coast region, about 15 minutes south of Rockland.   The town sees a lot of lobstering, as well as tourists who come by both land and sea.   Geographically the town is a bit unusual among small Maine coastal towns because the mouth of the harbor opens, not into a larger bay, or inlet, or estuary, but into the open ocean.   If you sailed due east out of the harbor, and stayed at that latitude, the first land you would hit would be southern France.

Our vacations to Maine are always in late July or early August, and so the wildlife photography is somewhat limited.  Every year we see pretty much the same things, and the birds are out of breeding plumage.  This post will be limited to photographs of birds who spend most of their time on or near the ocean.

Common terns (Sterna hirundo) are indeed fairly common here. They are speedy, acrobatic fliers and will interact with each other, and with other wildlife:

This picture is included, not because of the bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus), but because of the common tern dive bombing it from behind:

Double-crested cormorants (Phalacrocorax auritus) are great swimmers and fasts fliers, but have to do a lot of work to take off:

Black guillemots (Cepphus grylle) are the only alcid species that commonly occurs in the small harbors of Maine.  Alcids are sometimes called “penguins of the north” as they look a bit like penguins, use their wings to swim underwater, and eat lots of fish:

A variety of shorebirds (i.e. sandpipers and such that feed at the water’s edge) can be seen.  Almost all of these breed in the arctic and when seen in summer in the northern US are typically in migration.

I managed to catch these two greater yellowlegs (Tringa melanoleuca) while they were flying:

This shot includes another greater yellowlegs in the foreground, as well as a short-billed dowitcher (Limnodromus griseus), although I’m no expert on telling these apart from their sister species, the long-billed dowitcher (Limnodromus scolopaceus) and I could be wrong:

Another dowitcher (I’m guessing short-billed), on its own:

A lesser yellowlegs (Tringa flavipes):

Here we have sanderlings (Calidris alba) and semipalmated plovers (Charadrius semipalmatus).   The sanderlings are the gray ones with black legs.  For some reason these two species often flock together.  In the first shot they are fidgeting as the tide is coming in, and then a moment later, in the second shot, they have taken flight:

 

Herring gulls (Larus argentatus) are noisy and often not afraid of people,  but their effortless flight was part of the inspiration for the once very popular book Jonathan Livingston Seagull:

Osprey (Pandion haliaetus) commonly breed here, though I can well remember back before the year 2000 when it was very unusual to see them:

And finally some non-birds.  Harbor seals (Phoca vitulina) are fairly common in the harbor.  Sometimes they pop their heads up to take a look at you, looking like puppy dogs when they do:

Readers’ wildlife photos

October 31, 2023 • 8:30 am

Today’s photos, a mélange, were sent a few months back by Jim Blilie, and I just found them. Jim’s notes are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

Mount Adams lies directly north of our home.  I frequently take its photo since it is the dominant view from our place.  These are all taken from our driveway.  Our new home will have a similar, though even better, view of Mount Adams.  I have climbed Mount Adams three times, always from the opposite (north) side.

The first two images show Adams in mid-winter with a full mantel of snow and just a few days ago, with nearly all the snow melted.  We have had a very dry spring and summer, with no significant rain since the first week of May and very little prior to that.  Bad fire season this year, though we have actually been quite lucky so far.

The next one shows a morning shot of Adams with some of our resident Black-tailed Deer (Odocoileus hemionus, subspecies of Mule Deer).

The next one is an early morning, winter shot of Adams:  Misty morning.

We walk our local (very lightly traveled) road almost every day, if we aren’t doing a proper hike in the hills. This is a shot from a walk this winter with sun bursting through the local ground fog.  Iphone 11 photo.

The next one, another winter shot, I call “morning coffee”.  I step onto our front porch with my coffee almost every morning to view Mount Adams and Mount Hood.  Even frosty mornings.

Next is old structures at Mission San Juan Capistrano.  We visited Palm Desert and Seal Beach, California in February.\\\

Next are a couple of shots from Ballard Locks in Seattle.  We visited friends in Seattle for a long weekend.

Next is a photo of Mount Hood from the top of Chinidere Mountain.

Next is Ripples in the Deschutes River.

Finally, a very old one.  Goat for dinner, Nepal, 1991.  Scanned Tri-X-Pan negative.

Equipment:

Pentax K-1000 camera and Pentax M 85mm f/2.0 lens (Nepal photo) iphone 11
Olympus OM-D E-M5 camera (Crop factor = 2.0)
LUMIX G X Vario, 12-35MM, f/2.8 ASPH.  (24mm-70mm equivalent, my walk-around lens)
LUMIX 35-100mm  f/2.8 G Vario  (70-200mm equivalent)
LUMIX G Vario 7-14mm  f/4.0 ASPH  (14-28mm equivalent)
MEKE 3.5mm f2.8 220 Degree Manual Focus Circular Fisheye Lens  (7mm equivalent)
LUMIX G Vario 100-300mm F/4.0-5.6 MEGA O.I.S  (200-600mm equivalent)