Happy feet

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Before I started recording, the herring gull was actually getting a meal out of this little tap dancing routine. I was kind of far away, but every now and then I could see a silvery flash of something he grabbed out of the wet sand. Maybe performance anxiety doomed his success after that. My favorite part is 0:27 when the ring-billed gull on the left starts half-heartedly imitating him, and then they both look embarrassed.

Before I started recording, the herring gull was legitimately scaring up a meal via this little tap dancing routine (I was kind of far away, but I could see an occasional silvery flash of something he grabbed out of the wet sand). Maybe performance anxiety doomed his success after that.

My favorite part is 0:27 when the ring-billed gull on the left starts halfheartedly imitating him, and then they both look embarrassed.

It's a hard job

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Eastern Promenade, Portland, Maine

When I sat down on the grass to paint this bit of jewelweed, a breeze sprang up on cue, merrily transforming the plant into a wiggly whirl of green and orange stuff. There was a lot of squinting and swearing while I tried, pretty much unsuccessfully, to manually hold various leaves and flowers and seedpods in place long enough to get some idea of what they looked like. Meanwhile a fire ant or something bit me viciously in the rear end, which stung like crazy for a few minutes and then turned numb. At that point I decided the sketch was done.

Jarful of clovers

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Eastern Promenade, Portland, Maine

There are five to six kinds of clover in this jar, all picked from the same vicinity on the waterfront.

  • The big purple one is (of course) red clover, Trifolium pratense. 
  • The fluffy one is rabbitfoot clover, T. arvense.
  • The little yellow one is called hop trefoil or low hop clover, T. campestre.
  • The raggedy one on the bottom left, with some brownish flowerlets, is white clover, T. repens.
  • The pink one at 9 o'clock is a species I don't know, or maybe a deviant of one that I do.
  • The weird one on the right with the elongated flower stalk is called white sweet clover, and it's pretty closely related to the others (note the three-parted leaves), but it's actually in a different genus - its Latin name is Melilotus albus.

Guess what! Not a single one of these is native. Well, MAYBE that pink one.