Whatzit Dec. 9, 2009
Snapped a photo of this bird in Yellowstone National Park just after the snows melted last spring. I know what it is. Do you?
Snapped a photo of this bird in Yellowstone National Park just after the snows melted last spring. I know what it is. Do you?
So the long-lost Wednesday Whatzit has returned. this particular waterfowl is a migratory visitor to Central and Northern Utah each year. It has a cousin that looks quite similar. for those who remain stumped, there will be a hint as to this bird's identity posted somewhere on Nature's Call by day's end ...
This would be your average garden spider found -- where else -- in a garden, which is/was located on the Tallgrass Prairie of Kansas.
Spotted this well-hidden grasshopper in the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve, which sits just outside Strong City, Kan.
Gail from New Mexico correctly guessed this one as sprinkler droplets on a spider web.
This photograph, from the Museum of Wales in the United Kingdom, is the microscopic view of a snail's tongue. Who knew snails had tongues?!
This little red insect that favors the milkweed plant is -- now write this down because it might be hard to remember -- the red milkweed beetle.
The footprints leading to and from this little hole in the snow are the clue. They belong to a fox, which most likely was digging in order to capture a vole, mouse or other small mammal that sought refuge under the snow.
The plums make it hard to tell, but there are nine robins (that's most of one in the upper-right corner) and one dark-eyed junco in this photo. Robins don't always migrate out of the Intermountain West in winter. Why some go and others stay remains a mystery to which we will have to find the answer.
Hello, Whatzit detectives. How many robins do you see?
Not all robins migrate south in winter. Some hang around, generating heat by moving around and eating. My other half snapped this photo a couple of days ago. It's the plum tree right outside our kitchen window. You don't have to go far to find cool stuff in nature. You just have to stop, look and listen.
These wetlands-choking weeds are called "teasels," and they are as prolific as they come. Each one of those spiny heads (to which children refer as "pokeys," using the kid catch-all name for anything resembling a thistle), contains thousands of teeny seeds. In autumn these seeds fall to the ground planting huge stands of teasel. These burred seed heads most likely came West in the 18th and 19th centuries, carried on the clothing and pack animals of travelers. In the 19th century, American Indians used these spiky pods to card wool. Sometimes pioneer women used them as curlers for their hair. Yowch!
Someone guessed that this is a hawthorn -- a good assumption judging by the berries. But this shrub-like tree's leaves are not lobed, as hawthorn leaves are. This is a mountain ash.
What is this? We've been stumped for weeks now, and suspect that is is some sort of fungus. The photo was taken in Maine's North Woods in July.
