August 11, 2020 [LINK / comment]
Recent (non-bird) nature photos
When I summarized my bird outings in July in yesterday's blog post, I mentioned a few other nature observations, so I thought I should share some of those other photos. Rather than simply listing them one by one, I thought it would be more fun to present them in an interactive fashion. I was especially pleased with the Pipevine Swallowtail photo (at the top left below), but I have had a few other good recent photos which you can see on my Butterflies photo gallery page, newly updated. (For the time being, that page still includes moths.) The Black Bear is the third such animal I have seen this year, and each time I managed to get a pretty good photo -- scrupulously observing social distancing rules, of course! 
It reminds me that I should present some kind of lifetime chronology of bear sightings.
Click on the links below to see those photos (and others) in a larger size. Roll over to restore the montage.
Pipevine Swallowtail, on North Mtn., July 19. Black Bear, on Rose River trail (SNP), July 20.
Jack In The Pulpit, Red-spotted Eft , Mushrooms, on
at Hightop Mountain (SNP), June 8. at Hearthstone Lake, May 17. Braley Pond trail, August 8.
Skink, at Sawmill Ridge overlook (SNP), June 1.
Mourning Cloak, at Hightop Mtn. (SNP), June 8. || Box Turtle, on Rt. 614 in Highland Co., June 27.
Eastern Fence Lizard, at Coles Run Res., July 1. || Mushrooms, on Wildcat Ridge trail (SNP), Aug. 1.
(NOTE: "SNP" = Shenandoah National Park.)
I have updated my Mushrooms photo gallery page with the two montages shown above, plus another less-dazzling montage I did of fungi that I saw on the Falls Hollow trail on June 20. I have been remiss in trying to identify the many mushrooms I have photographed in recent years, so hopefully I'll get to that task in the next few months. Finally, I intend to update and beef up my Nature photo galleries in general, including the separate pages for Mammals and Reptiles, perhaps separating amphibians from the latter page, and maybe adding a new page for trees as well. The Flowers page is the most outdated of all.
Note that all of the above nature photos are the same size, 600 x 450 pixels, with the Jack In The Pulpit being the only vertically-oriented photo. In contrast, the standard size of my bird photos is 480 x 360 pixels. The smaller size reflects the (mostly) smaller size of the photographic subjects and the fact that it is difficult to get high-quality images of fast-moving birds except under ideal lighting conditions. If I get a better camera in the coming months, I may start presenting bird photos in the larger size.