Greensboro Birds

NB: In the 18 months that I’ve been toiling at this incarnation of Greensboro Birds, I’ve had almost 23,000 unique visits and, as of a few minutes ago, 45,504 page views! Not bad for a little bird blog, right? And it’s proof that even though our enthusiasm for the natural world often seems to go, in the words of GBirds friend Jess, unmet (as in, “Ohmygod! Look at that [little brown thing that looks like every other little brown thing]!!!” Response: “Um, yeah, cool.”), there are lots of us nature nuts out there.

Speaking of which, Jess, of rattlesnake plantain fame, sent in these excellent shots after reading my posts about dog-day cicadas and that awesome honey bee video:

Cicada nymph shell

Here’s a really nice look at the discarded shell of a cicada. A little creepy, right? But even so, very cool in an H.R. Geiger sort of way. In a nutshell, the nymph crawls from underground, where it’s been living for two years, feeding on the xylem of its host plant, and finds a good place to shake off its shell and emerge as a full-blown winged cicada. Massachusetts Cicada documented a nymph molting, which took about an hour and 45 minutes. These shells remind me of dragonfly nymph shells that clung to the pilings of our pier when I was growing up. They were little horrors that made my flesh crawl every time I’d emerge from the lake too close to the pier and find one of these things right in front of my face. These days, I rarely swim.

Honey bees pollinate the lavender hedge

Yo, here’s my bees! Jess has grown this fantastic lavender hedge, and the honey bees clearly love it. Jess also mentioned something about lavender honey, which sounds delicious. I like the idea that honey takes on the flavor of its preferred local food. My lavender hedge is about three inches high and wide, and absolutely hates the heat and humidity here. This picture makes me a little envious, I have to admit. But the bees look happy and industrious, don’t they?

If you have a photo you want to share with 23k other like-minded people, send it to greensborobirds@gmail.com and I’ll post it to the site!