Yellow Velvet Beetle - Lepturobosca chrysocoma

Pardon the dorky title, insects are just unreal sometimes 😭

Orange-legged Drone Fly, Eristalis flavipes

It's that time of year when I spend a good chunk of time with my head crammed into patches of goldenrod hunting for cool bumblebees. I'm always delighted to be fooled for a moment. 😁

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/1230210

Thrilled to pieces to see these bloom for the first time. 😄 I picked up these seeds at my town's local seed swap where they were labeled "Swedish Tall Red". I knew of a few other names for the cultivar but I wasn't expecting the absolute onslaught:

• Dead Viking (coool lol)
• Biskopens gråært
• Bishop’s Grey
• Bishop’s Red
• Swenson's Swedish

I guess people like this plant. Now I'm crossing my fingers and toes that it can set pods and dry in my short season!

[Attempting to figure out cross-posting, and figuring the best place to post stuff like this in general. Apologies if you've seen this a few times!]

All of Orthoptera (grasshoppers, katydids, crickets, etc) were tolerant of my photography shenanigans during a hike the other day. These in particular (Roeseliana roeselii) were just stunning!

Thrilled to pieces to see these bloom for the first time. 😄 I picked up these seeds at my town's local seed swap where they were labeled "Swedish Tall Red". I knew of a few other names for the cultivar but I wasn't expecting the absolute onslaught:

• Dead Viking (coool lol)
• Biskopens gråært
• Bishop’s Grey
• Bishop’s Red
• Swenson's Swedish

I guess people like this plant. Now I'm crossing my fingers and toes that it can set pods and dry in my short season!

So, greetings! 😄

In short:
Early 30s, in an oddball place up north in the US. I draw things, photograph them badly, and enthuse about ecology a lot. I luv the site iNaturalist! Other hobbies and interests include regenerative agriculture, fountain pens (and art supply/media in general), cemetery and burial history, fantasy/scifi lit, roguelike games, animal rehab, and critter-keeping. The scrambling of communities on reddit and twitter has sent me a-wandering, and I like this place. Nice to meet ya!

Rambles: I'm an artist and illustrator by trade (plus whatever work I can find on the side- I've worn many hats!), and admittedly I'm a bit coy about it here on Mander. Posting art online has become so tied up and bogged down with branding, identity, commerce, and the like over the past few years, that the idea of presenting that "face" here up-front-and-center felt...off.

But, it is who I am, and experiences in the industry and the people I've met through it have shaped everything about how I see the world and sciences. In particular, I worked in the graphics department for a state natural resources department for a spell, and it was quite formative. Here's a quiet link to my work. If you have any little projects that could use a doodle to liven them up, I may be able to help.

Anyway, cheers to all of you trying to make something nice happen here. It really does make things better. :)

Author's announcement tweet

Of all the critters I've found in the yard, this one has stuck with me the most. Huge! Crazy antennae! Cutest lil beetle feet. And then...the base of the antennae are laid in/around the compound eyes, like they were cut around it. Insects blow my mammal mind every single day.

Northeastern Pine Sawyer Beetle (Monochamus notatus)

(Test test)

(Apologies if this has been discussed elsewhere and I missed it!)

Open question for our mod and anyone else who would like to weigh in!

I tend to post photos and art, and over time the size of these things can pile up. In my most recent post I linked to an imgur upload instead, and while it works fine, it does require the viewer/user to click-through (and be subjected to iMgUr AdS) (see the edit below) rather than simply view the thing here on Mander.

So right now I prefer the ease of directly uploading and find that it looks nicer, but boy I get self-conscious about literally taking up space. Am I making a mountain out of a molehill?

EDIT: Solved this particular problem! See Salamander's response for the fix.

Hell yeah moss!! Went to trawl my iNat archives for presentable photos.

Crome Sphagnum (sphagnum squarrosum)

laughed my ass off when I found this assortment, laughing again now. pls enjoy

Genus Hygrocybe according to an iNaturalist user!

Two newts I've found in the yard. The top-most is more recent, and the orange one below is from last October. Both are Eastern Newts (Notophthalmus viridescens), and over on iNaturalist the orange one was identified down to subspecies Central Newt (N. viridescens ssp. louisianensis)

I'm eternally delighted by them and honored that they'd stop by my garden!

This year's winter-to-spring transition in my part of zone 4b was rough and the garden is looking haggard because of it, so I took a cruise through last year's photos to find something to share as my first post. Absolutely cannot wait for this year's snap peas- something about the plants just delights me.

These are Oregon Sugar Pod II and Mammoth Melting. This year I added a few other varieties to the mix (Admiral, SS 141) as well as the Swedish Tall Red* just to see what happens.

Happy growing!

*a dry/shelling/field pea