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Horsetails are a type of vascular plant that actually reproduces using spores instead of seeds. Kinda unusual, but these things are relics from an older time, and are known back through the fossil record for over 100 million years. Impressive!  Horsetails growing near a pond at Meadowlark Gardens
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Interesting sculpture at meadowlark Gardens.  Meadowlark Botanical Gardens duck sculpture The monarch butterfly migration was in full swing earlier this month, and I got a pic of this one at Meadowlark Botanical Gardens in Virginia.  Monarch Butterfly at Meadowlark Gardens Okay, yeah, even the squirrels were hiding after that last blog pic. I'll get back to normal here shortly...  I can still see you I went for a walk in the park yesterday, but there was a glitch in the fabric of reality so the photos were all screwed up...  Biking through a time warp in real space Next up... Photos from BrickFair 2017 at the Dulles Expo Center in Virginia. I didn't make any of these Lego creations, but I enjoyed seeing them and will post some photos the next day or two.  Who ya gonna call? Lego Ghostbusters!!! Just a quick pic of a brown thrasher from northern Virginia  Brown thrasher from northern Virginia There are a number of species of these bluet damselflies, and I am not completely sure of these so just leaving it at genus level identification. This pair was flying and perching among a lot of spider webs, which did not seem to bother them.  Bluet damselflies on emergent vegetation over the Potomac River at Dyke Marsh, Virginia This youngster did not seem quite so adept around the webs.  Damselfly in a spider web Now with most of the young birds out of the nest and all, the adults of many species are in molt. The warblers will become LBJ's (little brown jobs) and the male ducks will lose much of their coloration. And here is a common tern molting from its breeding plumage to winter plumage.  Common tern molting from breeding plumage to winter plumage on the Potomac River, Virginia What's wrong with this picture???  Juvenile American robin from Dyke Marsh near Alexandria, Virginia Answer: This bird has no tail! But now that this is obvious, let me note that this isn't exactly a problem. This is a very young first-year bird and just hasn't grown a tail yet. It's fairly common but pretty striking when you see a tail-less bird in the woods.
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Keith Christenson Wildlife Biologist Archives
September 2021
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