Only In America

 "...& GUNS"

'Nuff said

Tiny Kleptos

Yes, this is  a klepto. Indeed these are a klepto couple!

And another new species to me.

 Say hello to Argyrodes species yet unconfirmed. She is above and he is below. And yes they are kleptos, or to be more precise kleptoparasites.

That is to say they live on other spiders webs and steal their meals when they aren't looking. I found these outlaws (or spongers, its a political call) living on the periphery of the web of a very large Garden Spider around the side of the house. I've convinced Mrs.B that this is sufficiently out of the way they she is NOT going to walk through the web and so successfully stood advocate for the Argiopes. Now while they may be parasites they certainly seem to me to live a very edgy existence. They skitter about the edge of her web which is now well over 2 feet across and as very small and nimble as they are I several times watched her feel their presence and turn that way. But being as she is literally thousands of times their mass I guess they get away with it as seeming ghosts. They are likely too small for prey themselves, there would be more calories expended in the chase and feeding than she could hope to get out of the meal.  Kind of diet snacks at best.

Meanwhile these two sneak around the fringes of her huge web taking the prey that are like themselve too small for her to bother with. In fact they probably perform a useful function in keeping the web clear of all those scruffy little gnats and mosquitoes that would otherwise clutter it up without any nutritional value to the owner/builder.

Hopefully later today I can update with a species on these. They are either A. nephilae or A. elevatus. Which ever they turn out to be  the common name is, appropriately, the Dewdrop spider

T



     



Those Crazy Beatniks

From the New York Times via the always fascinating Open Culture comes the following tale of the first meeting of 20th Century superstar poets  Allen Ginsberg and Patti Smith.

'It’s November 1969 and Ms. Smith is trying to buy a cheese sandwich at the Horn & Hardart Automat on West 23rd Street in Manhattan. When she finds herself a dime short, Ginsberg approaches her and asks if he can help. He offers her the extra 10 cents and also treats her to a cup of coffee. The two are talking about Walt Whitman when Ginsberg suddenly leans forward and asks if she’s a girl.

“Is that a problem?” she asks.

He laughs and says: “I’m sorry. I took you for a very pretty boy.”

“Well, does this mean I return the sandwich?”

“No, enjoy it. It was my mistake.”

 

 

6 years on , on the cover of Horses one of the finest debut albums every recorded.

Pretty isnt the word but theres a lot of us fell in love with that simple perfect image by Robert Mapplethorpe. 

Up Close and Personal

Here is todays mystery object.

 

An ornate 18th century scimitar as carried perhaps by the rider in Slawkenbergius tale ?

 

No its the 'shin' of a Green June Bug in close up

 

And with a little more distance...

 

There seem to be a lot of these around this year. Or maybe I just seem to be rescueing them from Jrs pool everyday. I really dont seem able to do these justice, the camera doesnt capture the depth or irridescence of the colours.

 

  As you can tell from the shape these are related to the scarabs. We had another equally large scarab to rescue at the end of last week but this one I'd never photographed before.

 

It's the Grapevine Beetle (Pelidnota punctata) but alas, once retreived, it recovered very quickly and flew off before I got a second shot.

 

I don't seem to have seen so many mantis around so far this year but this one was in the Buddlea the other day poised and upside down. Not particularly large either, no more than an inch and a haf'

 

 

This is a robberfly of the genus Diogmites, one of the wonderfully named 'Hanging Thieves'. Not the species I photographed last year, I suspect. This one lacks the green eyes and seems generally leaner and darker. I'll let the folks at BugGuide call this one too.

 

I dont know if anyone ever looks carefully at the dragonflies I'm posting but its not unusual for them to appear to have 4 legs rather than the requisite 6. This is because often as here the front pair are pulled up, knees behind the ears if they had either, and used to help in feeding. They will manipulate larger prey into position this way. It always reminds me of T.Rex with those tiny forelimbs.

You can see the arrangement very clearly here.

 

In flight the legs are used to make a 'basket' with those long spines to scoop up and capture flying insects. 

Biggles and the Imperial Thumbs Down.

On the subject of my Pandora then I have fine tuned the Radio Van Der Graaf Generator by vicious use of the imperial 'Thumbs Down'. Gone are the offers of Led Zeppelin and Phil Collins and the 'station now boast VDGG with a very large side of Jethro Tull and a leavening of Soft Machine and Peter Gabriel era Genesis.

That'll do me for the drive to work.

This mornings drive to work was accompanied almost entirely by Jethro Tull's Thick As A Brick. Not the edit as I thought when it popped up but the whole 22 minutes of Part 1.

"So!  Where the hell was Biggles when you needed him last Saturday? "

Biggles! Is Biggles still read? Even in my youth Capt. W.E. Johns' stirring tales of flying ace and all round adventurer James Bigglesworth were the stuff of comedy thanks to Monty Python. At school we spent hours of harmless 'fun' tormenting 1st and 2nd Year library assistants with searches through the card index for nonexistent and nonesensical Biggles titles. Biggles Flies Undone...Biggles Meets His Auntie On Top Of A Mountain...Biggles Controls The Means Of Production....Biggles Defends The Bourgeoisie.

I should be ashamed of myself.

Historical Aside:

Damn it, now I'm old there are way too many passing thoughts that merit the epithet 'historical'. But, still, on the subject of Biggles and Monty Python then I seem to think that the first time I became aware of the term 'gay' in its other than jolly context was in Monty Python's Biggles sketch.

         

My Due Reward

Well it looks like I finally managed to fix the blasted leaking toilet. I won't say for sure until tomorrow morning if the floor is still dry.

 

But as my reward I took myself out in the pleasant sunshine, a little cooler these last 2 days just in the mid-80s. I wanted some better pictures of our Black Swallowtail cats and anything else was a bonus. 

 

The caterpillars change dramatically with each shed skin. Right now the fennel has about 3 stages of cats. They start out almost entirely black and each stage adds a little more colour, white, orange, green.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We have lots and lots of Black Swallowtails of course. But we also have our state butterfly the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail (Papilio glaucus). And we had a particularly nice specimen today on the mallow.

 

 

 

Our garden arch, built for Mrs.B and my wedding in the backyard just 9 years ago, is grown now with vines and honeysuckle. The honeysuckle always seems to be a popular spot with the Basilica Orbweaver

 

 

And I do see Ruby Throated Hummingbirds in the yard on a fairly regular basis. But somehow I never seem to have the right lense. The same was true today I still didnt have the long lens but the macro. Still just for once the pictures were usable once 95% on the frame was cropped out. One day I'lll get them, but these will do to post at least. They really do love that salvia. 

 

 

 

Now I'm going to check on the toilet. Wish me luck.

Memory

I was looking at Ashes news today. For my american readers that means the cricket Test Match series in England this summer between England and our oldest dearest enemies the Australians. 5 Five day games over the course of the summer where you could play them all and still end up with out a single 'result'. Not this summer though as England have won the first two already, the first one of the closest in years the second by one of their biggest margins ever.

But it was something else I found that I wanted to share. This is a little piece of cricketing history that brings a whole world to mind for me. It was the summer of 1977,  August 11th and the opening day of the fourth test. I had just finished my A levels and come to think on it I was on the Isle of Eigg off the west coast of Scotland. I was hiding out from my exam results, looking for some decent beer but finding nothing but cans of McEwans. Counting birds or something I think and hanging out with the local hippie commune listening to Jethro Tull.

 And it came to pass that Yorkshireman Geoffrey Boycott scored the 100th century (a century is a score of 100 or more) of his cricketing career. Not many ever score 100 hundreds and none had done it before in a test match and absolutely noone had done it on his own home ground of Headingley before a largely Yorkshire crowd against our very oldest rivals. And as an aside, anyone who knows Geoffs reputation would be amazed that he scored the century on the opening day of the game. Boycott? 100 runs? In only one day? 

Boycott drives Greg Chappell for 4 runs to complete his 100th first class Century. He went on to score 191in that innings, his highest score against Australia and was the last man out as usual

What I wanted to share is the BBC Radio commentary from Test Match Special on Radio 3 that day. The commentators are Christopher Martin Jenkins (CMJ) and another Yorkshire and England hero by then retired, the legendary fast bowler 'Fiery' Fred Trueman.

Test Match Special, the true sound of an English summer.

Curious Historical Aside

I might have been listening to this on Eigg, I wasnt paying much attention to the rest of the news.  On my return to the world after 3 weeks in a tent. I was astonished to see the headlines in the press concerning the apparent attempted theft of  Elvis Presley's body.  I had to admit that I didn't even know he'd finished with it. He had died August 16th possibly of delayed shock at the news that Geoffrey had scored a century in only one days play.

In the early 21st century its almost impossible to beleive one could be so isolated as to miss that snippet of news for days. But then, no cell phones, no internet and I must admit, little or no Elvis Aaron interest.