Category Archives: Nature Photos

What the hell is that?

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I love taking photographs and videos.  Of what?  Whatever.  Everything.  The slightest opportunity.  Even what others might describe as nothing.  Nature abounds with beauty and wonder, so it’s never difficult to find a subject.  Clouds and the patterns they form, The Kids, every insect wandering through my field of vision, wildlife transformed into every conceivable shape and size, plants both unexpected and mundane, the lake, weather’s many faces, plus a myriad of other sources spanning the pedestrian to the exquisite.  Hence the following.

It’s a simple question: What the hell is that?  I ask myself this very thing nearly every time it rains.  It is then a creature emerges from the darkness (having rarely been seen in any amount of daylight) that seems to be a leech yet does not live in water.  Sure, it looks like a worm of some kind, or perhaps a slim species of slug, but it doesn’t move like either of those.  It moves like a leech, like a creature hunting for something, a beast that lifts its head to look about and decide on direction, a slithering wet something that intrigues me to no end.

Let me apologize in advance for the quality of both the photos and the video.  As I said, it only comes out right after it rains and water reflects and refracts light in ways that greatly diminish visibility.  Likewise, it’s almost always dark when it appears.  It’s for these reasons I can’t offer something better.

Anyway, on to the presentation.

The slimy beast on my patio (143_4380)

In that photo, as in all the others to follow, its head is on the right and its ass is on the left.

One might easily say it looks like a gross example of unfamiliar excrement left behind as a gift from some hateful animal passing through these parts.  One would not be too far off in describing the slimy monster were it not for the fact that it moves on its own, and it reacts to my presence.  For instance, I tested it by putting my hand down in its path.  When it reached me, it briefly investigated my finger before lifting its head and looking over it, and then it turned and worked its way around the obstacle.

Another photo of the slimy beast on my patio (143_4379)

I wish environmental factors had not conspired to make it so difficult to see.  Nevertheless, here’s a brief video of it moving about.  If you watch closely (on the right side of the film) you can see the way it moves its head about in very un-wormlike ways, and certainly not like any slug I’ve ever seen.  Of note on the video: because it was so dark and wet when I captured this, I was forced to lighten each video format it to make them it at least somewhat presentable; this has unfortunately diminished their its quality., and that is especially true with the WMV file (again… damn Microsoft crap).  Also note the AVI file is not the raw video originally captured since it too was lightened.

I’ve seen only one of these small mysteries at any one time, but I suspect there are more living in the immediate area.  I say that because I’ve seen them in different locations around the patio on the same day and within only minutes of each other.  Because that would be insufficient time for one of them to move that distance, I can only surmise they are scattered about.

One more of the slimy beast on my patio (143_4377)

Regrettably, our drought seems to have impacted these unknowns.  The small amount of rain we’ve received in the last month or so has not prompted them to make an appearance.  I suspect they either died from lack of water, moved on to wetter areas (closer to the surrounding creeks or the lake itself), or are hibernating in some way until regular amounts of precipitation return to North Texas.

Irrespective of their present disposition, they are a cool oddity I’d like to identify if possible.  I’m still working on that.  Hopefully, I’ll see them again.

[Update] I have since identified this as a blue planarian (Caenoplana coerulea).

waddle waddle

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Two mallard ducks (a male and a female) waddling toward a shady spot in which to rest (146_4641)

[two mallard ducks (Anas platyrhynchos): a female in the foreground and a male in the background; they were waddling toward the shade to find a place away from the simmering sunshine where they could rest; and a quick note: my friend Sandy who lives down the street from Rick has a mated pair of these birds nesting in his front yard just off the porch; they have been nesting there for many years]

Birdseed gone wild

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I said we needed more rain.  We got it, although we didn’t get enough to break the drought.  Still, every little bit is more than welcome here in these parts.

In the same breath, I also mentioned that “[a]n entertaining side effect of [rain] is how these brief showers cause some of the birdseed to take root and grow.  What sprouts doesn’t last long.  Within a week, the little plants wither and die under the onslaught of the burning sun and lack of water.”

What I did not consider at the time was that we would have four consecutive days with rain (some days with more than others).  The result: birdseed is sprouting and not dying because there’s now plenty of moisture at the surface and the temperature has dropped significantly.  That and it was cloudy for a week, so they weren’t burned by the torrid sun.

Natural light close-up photo of birdseed starting to grow after several days of rain (155_5518)
Natural light close-up photo of birdseed starting to grow after several days of rain (155_5526)

Here there be dragons

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Dragonflies, that is.  And what do you suppose dragonflies eat?  Mosquitoes?  Flies?  Other types of insects?  In this particular case, they eat other dragonflies.

I stepped outside one day and puzzled over a quiet yet distinct “crunch crunch crunch” taking place somewhere in my immediate vicinity.  It took but a few seconds to locate the source of the noise: two dragonflies locked together on the patio floor.  One, green and enormous as dragonflies go, was on its back.  The other, black and only a wee bit smaller, was atop the first.  Their legs were intertwined in what must have been a struggle as they faced each other.

Slowly making my way toward them, I finally realized what was happening.  The one on the bottom apparently caught the other one in flight, and together they crashed on the patio with the prey held on top of the predator.  But that sound…

I tried not to disturb them as I approached close enough to get a good look.  Only then did I understand both the noise and the embrace.

The large green dragonfly was slowly beheading his captured cousin.  The crunching noise was the sound of exoskeleton being chewed apart.  There appeared to be little life in the black insect as its head was by then only attached by a small bit of hard shell, and the large eater was making short work of it.  Yet there was still movement in both the dangling head and the nearly detached body.

As luck would have it, I didn’t have my camera with me.  I surreptitiously moved by them and back inside, grabbed it, and then rushed back outside hoping to grab a few photos.

When I returned to the patio, the crunching stopped.  I noticed as I tinkered with the camera to prepare it for work that the black dragonfly was now completely headless.  A short distance away from the still writhing mass of the two bodies locked in combat was the head.

It was still moving.  A very bizarre thing, that head.  Without any body to support it, the antennae still twitched, the mandibles still opened and closed, and the whole picture of it was a wonderfully creepy sight indeed.  This postmortem gesticulating lasted only a few seconds before it became still and lifeless.

At that point, I turned my attention back to the rest of the carnage.  Still on its back and now beginning to chew on the rest of the body, the large green dragonfly must finally have taken special note of me and my proximity.  Its wings began fluttering despite lying on its back, and with the carcass in tow it took flight and clumsily lifted into the bushes with its lunch.

The whole clump of predator and prey landed between the branches of one of the bushes, although landing seems less appropriate than does crashing given its position when it took flight (upside-down on the concrete) and the extra weight of the decapitated carcass to which it was clinging.

Although the whole of the scene was not easily visible to me given where they landed, I tried to snap a few shots anyway.  Below is the best one I was able to capture.  What you see is the large green dragonfly horizontal (it was resting partially behind a leaf and holding to the branch in front of it) while the headless body of the black dragonfly dangles vertically parallel to the branch.  If you look closely enough behind and below the green monster, you can see part of its body hanging down between the leaves.

After snapping a few photos, I stood and watched as the predator removed one by one the wings of its meal, each dropping silently through the leaves and branches, after which it was all crunching all the time.  Fascinating.

A large green dragonfly sitting in the bushes chewing on the decapitated body of slightly smaller black dragonfly (141_4129)

[I was never able to identify either species]