Post a beautiful nature picture

[gvallee 2,609]

Peacock Spider - Australia

 

[Sally R 119]

3 hours ago, gvallee said:

Peacock Spider - Australia

 

 

I love peacock spiders! In the place I was renting until a few months ago I had a peacock spider that loved my kitchen. By photographing him with my macro lens I was able to see his patterns closely and found he was a Dunn's Peacock Spider. I put him outside several times thinking maybe he would be better outside, but he just kept coming back into the kitchen again and again (assuming it was the same spider). My images were extremely grainy so I won't try and upload them here. They are so small and it is so amazing the beautiful patterns that are less noticeable unless you look really closely.

[dustydingo 872]

 

Inspired by the beautiful photos of cute robins and the like, I was prompted to respond with an example of the cute little birds we have around here . . .

 

DD

Edited March 30 by dustydingo

[Betty LaRue 2,511]

13 hours ago, Dave Nelson said:

Thanks, Betty.  I went through here once and stayed!  But this week we still have snow on the ground...

I don’t believe there are many places in the world that doesn’t have a downside. It all comes down to whether your location’s downside is acceptable to you. My daughter & family moved to Michigan for her husband’s new job. It took them 8 years of hating all the snow to find work back in Wichita, Kansas. They loved the summers up there, but hated the winters.
I tend to love snow myself, but when does it become too much? I’ll never find out..rooted here in the middle of the country. Frankly, I have never wanted to live in Florida with the heat and humidity. I still love my 4 seasons.

Here in a Wichita, we are having 60s and 70s, green grass, things blooming.

Betty

[Betty LaRue 2,511]

1 hour ago, dustydingo said:

 

Inspired by the beautiful photos of cute robins and the like, I was prompted to respond with an example of the cute little birds we have around here . . .

 

DD

I think your angry bird could give mine a good dustup.

[dustydingo 872]

1 minute ago, Betty LaRue said:

I think your angry bird could give mine a good dustup.

 

I think it could give ME a good dustup!!

 

DD

[spacecadet 3,137]

[gvallee 2,609]

One from your country this time Betty...

Lost Dutchman State Park, Arizona

 

[gvallee 2,609]

23 hours ago, Sally R said:

 

I love peacock spiders! In the place I was renting until a few months ago I had a peacock spider that loved my kitchen. By photographing him with my macro lens I was able to see his patterns closely and found he was a Dunn's Peacock Spider. I put him outside several times thinking maybe he would be better outside, but he just kept coming back into the kitchen again and again (assuming it was the same spider). My images were extremely grainy so I won't try and upload them here. They are so small and it is so amazing the beautiful patterns that are less noticeable unless you look really closely.

 

Yes, they are a pleasure to watch. I remember the excitement when I saw my first one, I could hardly focus.

Jurgen Otto who's the expert in Oz, believes that all species have now been discovered. He's had a few to his name! Not all of them have been described though (no name given yet), science is always a slow process. They're tiny bugg***s, most people don't realise. The size of a match head.

[Olivier Parent 573]

Lake Lérié reflecting La Meije peak in Oisans mountain range (Alps, France) during the fall season (autumn - October)

 

[spacecadet 3,137]

I'm fresh out of birds (wild; I have some humorous ones of some geese), so here's my only butterfly, from Kos, uploaded by accident because I though it was SoLD😮

 

An answer to the squeezed image problem- click on it and you get it in a window, smaller but miraculously unsqueezed.

Doesn't work from AIM.

Edited March 31 by spacecadet

[gvallee 2,609]

Proboscis monkeys, Borneo

 

[Sally R 119]

On 31/03/2020 at 15:02, gvallee said:

Yes, they are a pleasure to watch. I remember the excitement when I saw my first one, I could hardly focus.

Jurgen Otto who's the expert in Oz, believes that all species have now been discovered. He's had a few to his name! Not all of them have been described though (no name given yet), science is always a slow process. They're tiny bugg***s, most people don't realise. The size of a match head.

 

Thanks, I just googled Jurgen Otto and had a look at the variety of colourful peacock spiders. Fantastic! I'd only ever seen photos before and assumed they were bigger, so thought the one in my kitchen was just a regular, small jumping spider. But then I noticed the blue and red and took a photo with my macro lens, and was very excited to realise it was a peacock spider.

 

If you ever want a good laugh, I suggest googling "jumping spider macro". It makes me laugh every time I look at them 🤣 They look like mini alien beings.

[gvallee 2,609]

22 minutes ago, Sally R said:

 

Thanks, I just googled Jurgen Otto and had a look at the variety of colourful peacock spiders. Fantastic! I'd only ever seen photos before and assumed they were bigger, so thought the one in my kitchen was just a regular, small jumping spider. But then I noticed the blue and red and took a photo with my macro lens, and was very excited to realise it was a peacock spider.

 

If you ever want a good laugh, I suggest googling "jumping spider macro". It makes me laugh every time I look at them 🤣 They look like mini alien beings.

 

Are you familiar with the peacock spiders mating dance? It's extraordinary. There are quite a few videos. Here's one by Jurgen Otto. 

 

[Sally R 119]

9 minutes ago, gvallee said:

Are you familiar with the peacock spiders mating dance? It's extraordinary. There are quite a few videos. Here's one by Jurgen Otto. 

 

Thanks, that's a brilliant video 😀 😂 Love the music/dance combo. Yes I had seen it before on a nature documentary. It's quite amazing the complex world of small creatures that most of the time we don't see. They are pretty groovy dancers too!

[Sally R 119]

On 30/03/2020 at 21:53, dustydingo said:

 

Inspired by the beautiful photos of cute robins and the like, I was prompted to respond with an example of the cute little birds we have around here . . .

 

 

Ha ha! I think we must have some of the grumpiest seagulls on the planet. On one visit I made to Penguin Island that was meant to be "relaxing", it turned out to be seagull breeding season. They were hovering about a metre above you wherever you went on the island while screeching at full volume relentlessly. I think some international tourists were particularly terrified. Bridled terns nest at a different time on the island in much the same nesting spots, as I saw those last year, and they were not aggressive at all by comparison.

[dustydingo 872]

Well, it's not just Australia that has cranky birds . . . here's "proof" that a giant cockatoo, that just happens to live in a zoo in Bali, harassed a couple of women from Australia who were walking through a well-known Florida USA holiday resort . . . oh, and I have a lovely arched bridge over in Sydney I can sell you for a song . . . 

DD

Edited April 1 by dustydingo

[Betty LaRue 2,511]

Bluejay, when you are too big for the feeder.  They are as smart as squirrels.

 

[Sally R 119]

1 hour ago, dustydingo said:

Well, it's not just Australia that has cranky birds . . . here's "proof" that a giant cockatoo, that just happens to live in a zoo in Bali, harassed a couple of women from Australia who were walking through a well-known Florida USA holiday resort . . . oh, and I have a lovely arched bridge over in Sydney I can sell you for a song . . . 

DD

 

😂 Ah-ha! That is the rare species Cockatoo megahumungousii. Not a bird to be trifled with!

[Sally R 119]

3 minutes ago, Betty LaRue said:

Bluejay, when you are too big for the feeder.  They are as smart as squirrels.

 

 

I love this Betty! 

[dustydingo 872]

8 minutes ago, Betty LaRue said:

Bluejay, when you are too big for the feeder.  They are as smart as squirrels.

 

 

Bewdiful. He seems to be stuck working out the best approach?

 

DD

[Sally R 119]

Here is a baby Welcome Swallow. They have a sort of frog-shaped mouth when they are little.

 

[dustydingo 872]

Our equivalent to Betty's delicate bluejay is our delicate long-billed corella . . . hmmm . . . on second thoughts . . .

 

 

DD

 

[spacecadet 3,137]

These geese are fattened up for Christmas in a favourite Flemish town of ours. It has elaborate 17th- century fortifications, including moats, and they alternate between the grass and the water. When they wish to cross the road, the traffic waits, of course.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Allan Bell 1,957]

58 minutes ago, Sally R said:

Here is a baby Welcome Swallow. They have a sort of frog-shaped mouth when they are little.

 

 

It is called a "Gaper".

 

At least when I was a lot younger and a breeder of budgerigars the young with the wide mouth were called gapers.

 

Allan