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Hey folks who follow this blog: I started posting daily nature photos on Instagram @ rosemarymosco. Follow if you'd like to see more of my critter pics.

çĽćĽ / Permanent Vacation
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Peter Solarz
Not today Justin
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d e v o n
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i don't do bad sauce passes

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trying on a metaphor

Misplaced Lens Cap

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he wasn't even looking at me and he found me
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@northeastnature
Instagram!
Hey folks who follow this blog: I started posting daily nature photos on Instagram @ rosemarymosco. Follow if you'd like to see more of my critter pics.

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Pausing this Blog
I havenât posted anything to this blog for a while because Iâve been busy with other projects. Iâve decided to put it on indefinite pause.
However, Iâve started a webcomic about city nature that readers of this tumblr might like. Check it out at YourWildCity.com and follow my other tumblr, @birdandmoon, for updates.
Also, you can follow me on twitter @RosemaryMosco.
Thanks so much for reading and for looking at my photos!
-Rosemary
Native to Europe and Asia, the winter moth (Operophtera brumata) has few predators in the northeast. Its caterpillars lay waste to trees in the spring, and adult moths swarm in late fall, long after most sensible moths have stopped flying. Only the males have functional wings. Females have tiny vestigial wing tufts and rely on sex pheromones to bring the males to the yard.
Are you seeing many of these balls of leaves in trees? These are the warm-weather homes of gray squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis). Theyâre called dreys and are made of leafy branches, with an inner lining of moss or other soft stuff. With branches now bare and temperatures dropping, dreys arenât ideal places to spend the winter. Many squirrels will find shelter in an attic or other warmer place.
Here in the northeast, itâs getting pretty gloomy out, so enjoy this pretty flower from warmer times. Itâs a swamp azalea (Rhododendron viscosum), a denizen of wetlands. It also goes by the name âswamp honeysuckleâ because it smells nice and âclammy azaleaâ because the flowers have sticky glands. Some mornings I wake up feeling like a honeysuckle, but by 4 pm Iâm all clammy azalea.

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Smaller than the familiar great blue heron, the green heron (Butorides virescens) is an odd little bird. Itâs a tool user, dropping bait in the water to lure fish (see a video here). Even more amazing, perhaps, is its looooooong neck. Most of the time, the green heron is all hunched up, but then something happens and the neck is DEPLOYED.
My friend Maris Wicks and I are starting a new comics project! Itâs a weekly comic about the wonders of urban nature, updating on Mondays. First up: a pretty species of lichen youâre liche-ly to see in cities.
I thought some of you might enjoy my new project. Follow @birdandmoonâ for updates.
When everything in the marsh is turning brown, winterberry holly (Ilex verticillata) warms up the scene with these bright red berries. Unlike American holly, this species drops its leaves in the fall, which makes the fruit even more visible. Only female plants produce berriesâand only when thereâs at least one unassuming-looking male plant somewhere nearby.
Here are some amazing little fungi. They are fluted birdâs nests (Cyathus striatus). See the âeggsâ inside the ânestsâ? Those are actually spore-filled structures. When a raindrop hits a nest in just the right way, it flings the eggs several feet up into the air. They stick to a nearby object (like a plant stem), then dry up and release spores.
Possibly the best thing about these odd fungi is that they often sprout from wood chips in urban gardens. These were right outside a strip mall. Keep your eyes out and theyâll brighten (en-weirden?) your commute.
Black bears (Ursa americana) eat plantsâa lot of plants. Up to 90% of their diet can be plant material. Like a locavore foodie, they eat whatâs in season, and in the fall they enjoy beech nuts. This beech tree has impressive claw marks from a bearâs climbing efforts. Itâs amazing that the animal capable of gouging these holes was basically fueled by trail mix.

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Have you ever found a piece of wood in the forest that looks like itâs been painted blue-green? I used to find these all the time and wonder who the heck was painting fences way out in the forest. But the culprit is a fungus, and this becomes evident when these tiny, cute green mushrooms pop up. Meet the green stain fungus (Chlorociboria sp.). Italian renaissance craftspeople used wood tinted by Chlorociboria in their beautiful inlaid designs (see some here). I love the color so much!
I thought it might be fun to make a collage of some plants that arenât green. These spooky species are naturally ghost-white or blood-colored. They lack the green pigments that enable plants to make food from the sun. Instead, they are parasites, snatching food from nearby plants.
Clockwise from top left: Indian pipe (Monotropa uniflora), summer form pinesap (Monotropa hypopitys), Indian pipe (Monotropa uniflora), beechdrops (Epifagus virginiana), autumn form pinesap (Monotropa hypopitys), one-flowered cancer root (Conopholis americana).
I love parasitic plants so much, and our forests are packed with parasites. Beechdrops (Epifagus virginiana) steals nutrients from the roots of beech trees. Thatâs why itâs purple instead of green - it lacks the green pigments that most plants use to make food from the sun. The products of this thievery are some odd slender flowers in late summer/early fall.
Late summer bloomers, northeastern goldenrods are golden yellowâexcept this one. Meet silverrod (Solidago bicolor). It shines in rocky, well-drained locations, often in disturbed areas such as roadsides. (If youâre sneezing right now, donât blame goldenrods. Their big sticky pollen grains canât sail up your nose; ragweed is the real culprit.)
Bottle gentian flowers (Gentiana andrewsii) are really, really weird. The flower buds turn blue, point to the sky, and then... they donât open.
Ever.
Why do they stay closed? Bottle gentians want to save their pollen for just the best, most efficient kind of pollinator. For them, this means bumblebees (like the one in the first pic). Only those big bees can push themselves (awkwardly) into the closed blooms.

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I found this little beast on an urban sidewalk at night. There are two âpraying mantisesâ in the northeast, and both were introduced from afar; this one is a Chinese mantis (Tenodera aridifolia). People intentionally imported them in 1896 for pest control, and now theyâre everywhere, improbably large and elegant predators hunting in city gardens.
This monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) just emerged. The pale shell of its chrysalis is dangling above it. How did such a big butterfly come out of such a small space? When this monarch first burst out, its wings were small and crumpled, and it had to pump fluid from its abdomen into the wings until they filled out. This is kind of like being born with two deflated air mattresses on your back, plus a small pump (in your butt).