Mammoth Wasp

An amazing capture from Nightjar,

I didn’t have my camera with me when I saw this huge wasp on a wild leek flower last month, but I didn’t know what it was so I tried to use my phone to get good enough photos that could let me ID it later. I wasn’t surprised to learn it’s called a Mammoth Wasp. It really is big. While I wish I had taken my camera, the photos didn’t turn out so bad and I thought of sharing them since it’s such an impressive bug.

Tummy Thursday: It’s Pokémon Birthday Cake Time

The kid’s birthday was already at the start of the month, but of course with my body being an asshole again I couldn’t make a cake for her actual party. Thank goodness teenagers mostly require insane amounts of food and not attention, so she could have her friends over for a small party.

Last weekend we celebrated with our friends and she got her cake for that day. She went for her favourite Eevilution, Leafeon.

The inside of the cake is a standard vanilla cake with a cream cheese and cream filling. The filling was really easy and tasty: I used a packet of lemon flavour jello to mix with the cheese and the whipped cream, added some lime zest and cut canned peaches. The only problem that I had was cooling it down quickly enough for the jello to work so it wouldn’t run all out on me. I then covered the whole thing in a thin layer of buttercream before adding the fondant.

Because a German buttercream (butter with custard) has too much liquid for fondant and an Italian meringue buttercream (my usual go to buttercream) was too much work for the state of my recovery, I made an American buttercream. I usually consider American buttercream the symbol of everything that is wrong with American cake making: It’s just butter and sugar, too heavy and too sweet. I love watching cake videos, but quite often the American ones leave me a bit puzzled: Yes, this looks amazing, but all you have in there is cake and buttercream. Where’s the flavour? Do Americans really spend 200 bucks on a cake that looks great but doesn’t taste of anything but butter and sugar? Please do tell me.

It did work well here, btw, because it was only a small layer to get the surfaces even and it contrasted nicely with the tart lemony filling.

Goldfinches Come for a Visit

This year I planted some cornflowers that grew in front of the window. They were planned as degu treats, but with one thing and another, I didn’t get around to harvesting and drying them. They do look pretty sad to human eyes now, but they look damn delicious to the goldfinches. I rarely get to see them, so I was all the more surprised to find them within 30 cm of my nose, happily munching the seeds.

Spider Having a Snack

I heard this orb weaver spider catch the fly when I was watering the cactuses in my greenhouse. Before I managed to fetch my camera and macro lens, it tucked itself away with the fly in a crevice and began to snack on it. I almost did not find it.

Pictures below the fold. [Read more…]

The Art of … Caine, Again

Surprise! It’s another unfinished painting by Caine, sent in by her husband, Dakota Grease Monkey

Another unfinished artwork by C, directly painted on a wall, circa 2006. About 20″ X 20″, ( .5 X .5 meters).

I don’t know if C ever shared these works, but it’s time to share, now.

How to Beat the Heat, Raccoon Style

A delightful photo from Some Old Programmer,

Our library has a culvert at the side entrance, where a family of raccoons were trying to beat the heat. Eastern Massachusetts, US.

Most Boring Game of “Find That Lizard”

In case you don’t already know, “Find that lizard” is a fun game Dr. Earyn McGee is hosting on Twitter, where you get a photo of a yard or something with a lizard hidden somewhere, often showing how well these creatures blend with their environment. Well, my own lizards are lazy, which is why I got to take this shot:

As you can see, the little fellow lost its tail and is currently regrowing it. You sure deserve a break, buddy!

Milan Royal – Magnifique!

Last week this magnificent bird sat on a dead branch of a nearby ash tree. It is their favorite spot and I have gotten some pictures of kites sitting there already, but this time It was later in the day, so the sun was at a much better angle. And the bird obliged staying in one place long enough for me to actually run with the camera outside.

It is a bit of pity that there seems to be some dirt stuck to the corner of its beak. Really, no sense of style whatsoever. One would expect a model to show to a photoshoot well groomed and clean and not with bits of food stuck to the corner of their mouths.

Still, what a magnificent bird. I shall definitively make a kite-themed knife. Soon.

Have some Flowers

While we took a look at the cultivated garden yesterday, today it’s time to look at the wilder side with some flowers.

These poppies are just amazing. Too bad the rain ruined them all.

Here’s some simpler ones.

Last year I threw some cheap flower seeds on one area. They turned put top be white mustard, which bloomed last year, and alfalfa, which is growing like mad this year. The bees love it, the degus love it, I’ll let it flower so it can seed next year’s crop as well.

And a colourful beetle. It was somewhat shy and I only had the mobile, so the pic isn’t great.

High as a Kite and Higher

There is a pair of kites flying around every day and I hear their typical cries from morning until evening, so they are probably nesting somewhere close-ish. I hope they do and I also hope they will help with local water vole population, i.e. massacre it.

Unfortunately, I did not manage to get both into good focus, so a blurry picture must do.

I did manage to get a few decent pictures of one of them though, from different angles.

The pictures are of suboptimal quality because they fly very, very high. Even finding them through the camera lens is a challenge, and to take focus and press the trigger button on a moving target that high is a bugger, that much I can tell ya.

But no matter how high a kite flies, there was something even higher that day around her. I could not find it in my bird atlas so the species is not determined. If you know it, let me know in the comments.

Close Encounters of the Graffiti Kind

When waiting for my father to come back from a doctor’s appointment, I wandered around a bit and went into an underground garage. I was around and about there several times, but I do not ever remember wandering inside. But the weather was extremely hot and I needed some shade and cold. So I went down the stairs…

…and there I saw beautiful graffiti that immediately caught my eye.

I had to take two photographs and make a composite, this thing is huge, ca 4 m tall and 10 m in length. Graffiti is usually just pieces of vandalism around here, just initials or a highly stylized signature lazily sprayed over some newly painted facade. Those deserve a ding around the ear and a duty to pay for the cleaning/repainting. But this is a work of art and it was probably done with the approval of the garage owner. This must have taken several days of work at least. And that was just the start.

There were some small insect pictures on some of the support columns, and that still was not all. The whole huge second wall was covered with art too. Possibly done by several different artists because it had several distinct styles.

The last two panels of the walls did contain beautiful pictures too, but also bear witness that the graffiti vandals seem incapable of not being vandals for a bit, even when the thing they are vandalizing is someone else’s graffiti.

Kestrel Maneuvre

Unfortunately, I was taking these pictures against the sun and I did not have too much time to get the exposition settings right. The little bugger hovered in one place exactly as long as it took me to take a focus and press the trigger button. So this is the “whoosh” sequence.

What do Jumping Spiders do?

Just ask Avalus, who captured the action and is sharing it with us.

I observed another tiny zebra jumping spider between some sandstone rocks and this time, I have not only photos but also a video showing off the tiny spiders jumping prowess!

I feel like the “spider pig” song, but voiced by David Attenborough, would be an apt background music xD

Photos and video are below the fold. (I couldn’t get Attenborough, but I’m hoping Homer Simpson will suffice.) [Read more…]

«Previous Page
1
…
6
7
8
9
10
…
306
Next Page»

Affinity

Art, Fun, & Nonsense.

Grisly & horrible

Do That to Me One More Time

The Most Baffling Thing About Tolkien

The rise and fall of the evil Sackler family and the opioid addiction crisis

Loneliness, 3

The US healthcare system is a crime against humanity.

Our "luxury" apartment

The Probability Broach: Checks, unbalanced

Mammoth Wasp

Like this:

Tummy Thursday: It’s Pokémon Birthday Cake Time

Like this:

Goldfinches Come for a Visit

Like this:

Spider Having a Snack

Like this:

The Art of … Caine, Again

Like this:

How to Beat the Heat, Raccoon Style

Like this:

Most Boring Game of “Find That Lizard”

Like this:

Milan Royal – Magnifique!

Like this:

Have some Flowers

Like this:

High as a Kite and Higher

Like this:

Close Encounters of the Graffiti Kind

Like this:

Kestrel Maneuvre

Like this:

What do Jumping Spiders do?

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this: