Tag Archives: Georgia

Scorpion 2021-08-21

“It’s stinging me!” screeched Gretchen as she rushed into the house.

Yes, “screeched” is the word she later used to describe the loud noise she made.

[On the sink]
On the sink

As you can see, she then managed to fling this Striped Bark Scorpion off her, but the Centruroides vittatus landed on the sink.

Like the one I stepped on recently, this one hurt like a bee sting, but caused no noticeable damage by the next morning.

The amusing part is that Gretchen did not get this scorpion here at the farm.

She got it in downtown Valdosta.

-jsq

Praying Mantis 2021-08-07

On the truck:

[Mantis]
Mantis

It’s some kind of Mantodea. Probably a native-to-Georgia Carolina Mantis, Stagmomantis carolina. Probably not the larger bird-eating species. These ones eat insects.

Here’s Gretchen observing it. Continue reading →

Pileated 2020-07-20

I heard a thwacking sound, looked up from the porch desk, and two pileated woodpeckers were on two, then one, pine tree.

[Two pileated woodpeckers on a pine tree]
Two pileated woodpeckers on a pine tree

The crosshatching is the porch screen wire.

These Dryocopus pileatus hang around here all the time, but they don’t usually come that close. That pine tree stob is about twenty feet outside the screen, or thirty (ten meters) from where I was sitting.

Eventually they flew off laughing, like they do.

Pileated woodpeckers mate for life, which would explain why this pair has been here a long time.

Don’t know if it’s always been the same pair, since we’ve been seeing them more than a decade, and apparently the oldest know was less than thirteen years old.

A pair of pileateds wants more than a hundred acres of territory, so they should be very happy here.

-jsq