Lovely clear, somewhat breezy day.   So I took the camera out...


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Well, OK, the deep isn't very, and this particular denizen spends time at the surface--but when it dives, it can stay down for hours.

This is a backswimmer, one of the true bugs (sucking mouthparts--see that beak at the front end?) in the genus Notonecta, most likely.   Backswimmers swim upside down, on their backs (duh!)


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In warm weather, the geckos gather on the outside of our window-screens at night to catch their dinners--moths, small beetles, the occasional praying mantis (some praying mantises, the big ones, stalk the lizards.)  As I see them from underneath on the screen, it's easy to see eggs in the pregnant females, but until last night I'd never seen the ( Read more... )

Glitches found and ironed out...severalmany.  Minor stylistic infelicities reworked...manymany.

And in the meantime, since I need to see the ms. fresh for this kind of revision, I have an excuse to get up and go out when it's not raining, thundering, or otherwise sending me back inside.

The result of this sporadic venturing into the outer light is ( Read more... )