Our protected state flower and the one species of milkweed that the municipality doesn't control. I spent the season radicalising them against traditional landscaping and now they have the tools to do a bit of ecoterrorism :ecoterrorist:
Spines, Thorns, and Prickles | The Huntington
To a botanist, however, not all spiny structures are the same... Spines are derived from leaf tissue and thorns from stem tissue. Prickles come from neither; they are simply corky projections from a plant’s skin, or dermal tissue. Plant anatomy comes into play here, as the internal structure of leaves, stems, and roots are unique in their arrangement.
About the photo - a different source
Solanum atropurpureum is a wild relative of potatoes that grows in Brazil. It has prickles so nasty that they’ve earned it two fearsome nicknames: "purple devil" and "malevolence."
LOOK WHO I SAW AT THE MARSHES TODAY. IT'S THE TEENIEST TINIEST SNAPPING TURTLE PROBABLY HATCHED RECENTLY!!!!! It was less than two inches long and SO CUTE!
https://subium.com/profile/gettoknownature.bsky.social/post/3kz337mnyyk2m
Excellent, if depressing, discussion about the $10 billion project to destroy the Great Nicobar Island, threatening the nesting ground of the largest turtle in the world, cutting over a million trees, and relocating the indigenous population of the island, all to turn it into a shipping and tourism hub. Also goes into the regulatory capture and corruption that allowed this to happen over the past decade or so and the excuses of "national security/defence" etc. used by the govt.
I found another discussion with the author that I haven't watched yet and here's the book they mentioned, The Great Nicobar Betrayal. I'll definitely read it.
Edit. This is not my paper. See the Bluesky link. It's theirs.
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Our paper on convergent evolution of land crabs is out in its final final form. The journal didn't pick my image as the cover, so I'm sharing it here because it must be seen!
https://subium.com/profile/jopabinia.bsky.social/post/3kynzxgpsd32h
I found a field mouse nest at work. They live in a little shrub island full of honeysuckle and currants.
fuck yeah the death metal cardinal is back at my parents’ feeder. dont worry he’s fine he’s just an unlucky cardinal who molts his head all at once lol
https://subium.com/profile/comraderobot.bsky.social/post/3kypbwbc64t2g
Taken from Loveland, Colorado which is the town it threatens to encroach on if the winds shift. The initial report was 100 acres and it grew by 150 or so every hour. I've been doing irrigation work outside for two hours and already have a terrible headache. That smoke plume is heading toward Denver with the entire front range of the Rockies obscured.
Edit: super cool. It has again more or less doubled in size over the past few hours and is now at 3575 acres. The smoke plume in this photo is quaint compared to how it now is. A second fire has started just south of it, also close to a town, so the suppression efforts will be split.
Look at this bird(??) it's very red hence the name coccinea. It is apparently pronounced 'eeEEvee' kinda like the Pokemon but with the stress in a different part of the word. It has a hooked beak for eating nectar from tubular flowers
The first nearby one of the year. 100 acres instantly and at least one beautiful mountain ruined for the next decade+: https://alertwest.live/cam-console/8613
Near this in 2020 the state saw its two largest wildfires almost converge on Estes Park, one of the main tourist towns outside the main national park.
cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/5215694
The American robin (Turdus migratorius) is a migratory bird of the true thrush genus and Turdidae, the wider thrush family. It is named after the European robin because of its reddish-orange breast, though the two species are not closely related, with the European robin belonging to the Old World flycatcher family. American Robins are gray-brown birds with warm orange underparts and dark heads. In flight, a white patch on the lower belly and under the tail can be conspicuous. Compared with males, females have paler heads that contrast less with the gray back.
American Robins are common birds across the continent. You’ll find them on lawns, fields, and city parks, as well as in more wild places like woodlands, forests, mountains up to near treeline, recently burned forests, and tundra. During winter many robins move to moist woods where berry-producing trees and shrubs are common.
When foraging on the ground, the American Robin runs a few steps, then stops abruptly. In long grass, robins may hop or fly just above the ground powered by slow, powerful wingbeats. American Robins often find worms by staring, motionless, at the ground with the head cocked to one side. Robins sometimes fight over worms that others have caught. During fall and winter robins often roost in large flocks and spend much more time in trees. In spring, males attract females by singing, raising and spreading their tails, shaking their wings and inflating their white-striped throats. When pairs are forming in spring, you may see a display in which a male and female approach each other holding their bills wide open and touching them. Female robins choose the nest sites, which are typically on one or several horizontal branches hidden in or just below a layer of dense leaves. Nests are typically in the lower half of a tree, although they can be built as high as the treetop. American Robins also nest in gutters, eaves, on outdoor light fixtures, and other structures. In western prairies, American Robins may build their nests on the ground or in thickets, while in Alaska they sometimes nest on buildings or cliffs. Females build the nest from the inside out, pressing dead grass and twigs into a cup shape using the wrist of one wing. Other materials include paper, feathers, rootlets, or moss in addition to grass and twigs. Once the cup is formed, she reinforces the nest using soft mud gathered from worm castings to make a heavy, sturdy nest. She then lines the nest with fine dry grass. The finished nest is 6-8 inches across and 3-6 inches high. American Robins are strong, straight, and fast fliers.
American Robins eat large numbers of both invertebrates and fruit. Particularly in spring and summer they eat large numbers of earthworms as well as insects and some snails. (They have rarely been recorded eating shrews, small snakes, and aquatic insects.) Robins also eat an enormous variety of fruits, including chokecherries, hawthorn, dogwood, and sumac fruits, and juniper berries. One study suggested that robins may try to round out their diet by selectively eating fruits that have bugs in them. Predators to adult robins include hawks, snakes, and cats.
The musical song of the American Robin is a familiar sound of spring. It’s a string of 10 or so clear whistles assembled from a few often-repeated syllables, and often described as cheerily, cheer up, cheer up, cheerily, cheer up. The syllables rise and fall in pitch but are delivered at a steady rhythm, with a pause before the bird begins singing again. At dawn, the song is more rapid. American Robins often make a mumbled cuck or tuk to communicate with each other or a sharp yeep or peek as an alarm call. They also make a repeated chirr that rises in volume and can sound like a laugh or chuckle. Here is a link so you can listen to this bird too.
This park is really coming together as 21st century design. Large community garden, apple/plum/cherry orchard, and three pollinator gardens that I'm expanding across areas where foot traffic isn't high. There are still big areas of Kentucky bluegrass to redevelop, but lots of resources being poured into rewilding.
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