Oxygen Generator Exemption

I am doing something not according to the Title of this blog. I have been doing this for quite sometime now. Whenever i think of posting in Nature Notes by Michelle on Mondays, i can't think of other things but oxygen generators exemptions. I looked for plants, but i cannot see unusual ones in my files. So to put things easier and faster i do this. And i am forgiving myself for doing so, as i want to post these finds just to let them be together in a single post.

Whenever i go out on weekend mornings to look for butterflies, i always see a lot of other things aside from my main purpose. Plants, insects, spiders, and other things unusual to my usual sightings are photographed and remain scattered in my files. They will just find some value if i share them with you. I know some of you are arachnophobes, or afraid for spiders, please just close this. I don't want you to be scared.

This is Nephila pilipes syn. N. maculata; Giant orb weaver

 We have lots of this spider in and around our property in the province. When i do not go home on 2 consecutive weekends, even my hoya garden is inhabited by this. It is difficult to pass by its web because it is too sticky and difficult to remove your body. The threads also have bigger strands.

Look  at the smiling face of the old man on the top of its head! It even has some straggly beard strands. This is in my hoya garden.

 This is the same individual as the close-up shot of the first photo.

 And this is the lower part of its web one morning, still complete with jew.


Another individual i saw under the trees in a secondary forest. The face already looks like a scathed old man, with some lacerations as if it had been to a recent fight. It has a more pointed nose and expressions a bit scary than the previous one.

 even the design on that band at the mid thorax looks different than the first one.

 The web of the 2nd individual in the forest is more or less 2 meters on its oblong length

it is up there at the above center of its web

 You can almost see its size in comparison to that tree at the left. Its web in the forest is bigger than that in the hoya garden, maybe because there are lesser prey that happen to pass through it in the forest. They need to big a bigger net trap. This is the farthest distance i can take for the web to be still visible, a little farther and it is not anymore distinctly seen as a spider web.

That in the hoya garden has to be relocated to the nearby area. I let it attach to a long pole together with some parts of the sticky web, then let it drop on some plants in the relocation site. I don't know how long before it can finish weaving its full web again. I hope it manages that soonest, as if a big storm just hit it. At least i am not the human that kills entities like them! 

Nature Notes

November Blooms

I am maybe biased to flowers that cater to butterflies. That is my disclaimer because most of the plants you will see in this post are nectar plants, loved by butterflies, which in turn i love too!

 

 Asystasia intrusa can be invasive, but i always have them for, of course you know what! But if isolated in numbers in plates like the above, they can be beautiful too.

 Pentas lanceolata are favored by the Scarlet Mormon. They favor those in umbels because they will not leave the area for another flower, just insert their proboscis in the next flower within the umbel. Butterflies know energy conservation too.

another Pentas lanceolata color form, favored by the tigers

 This hippeastrum is the only species that bloom more than once a year. In fact this is its 4th bloom. When under the net protection it produced 6 flowers in one scape. 

 This is my first time to see the flowers of Curcuma longa or turmeric.  Actually, above are the bracts, the flowers already gone. Those almost rotten debris at the axils of the bracts are the decomposing flowers.

top view of the Curcuma longa bracts

 This is only a leaf, but it is as lovely as a bloom. It is one of the colorful caladiums. 

Hoya pubicalyx 'Black Dragon' syn. Hoya pubicorolla

 My Garden Bloggers Blooms post is not complete without the hoyas. They are the special flowers in my garden with their own enclosure and get more attention from me and my sister at home. I just go home on weekends and i only do some jobs and taking their pictures. I confess my bias is fully with them together with butterflies!

 Hoya alwitriana starting to open. This is one of the very few hoyas that blooms in the morning, most of them opens in the late afternoon.

 Hoya pubicalyx

 Hoya odorata

Hoya bifunda ssp. integra

Hoya nakarensis

GBBD

Wild Finds Again

If there are longer weekends just like the last 4 day-weekend i am very glad as i can roam the wild areas longer than usual. Last time the All Souls'Day followed by All Saints' Day is adjacent to the normal weekend, so i have at least 2 mornings for my wildlife escapades.

The wildlife i am referring to here is not the usual wildlife most of you refer to. Mine are  just areas untended for cultivation, fallowed or abandoned areas, with mixed tropical weeds and grasses, sometimes a few bushes and trees and sometimes these are even under coconut trees.

 Here are a few of the unusual takes that interest my lens. For me these are already wildlife.

 A group of 1st instar butterfly larvae of most probably Catopsilla pomona. There are 2 leaflets fully occupied like this. The leaf is golden shower, Cassia fistula.

A day after most of the larvae are gone, some went to other leaflets, and the rest maybe eaten by birds.

 These are the leaves on the 3rd day, the undersides leaf skin are fully devoured by the caterpillars, producing a lacey, artsy leaves. 

 Another leaflet left by the larvae, they transfered to a different leaflet, but their numbers are lesser.

 This wooly insect might be the nymp of a planthopper, but i did not see its main body.

 Another interesting wooly mealy bug, almost a centimeter in diameter. I am not sure if it really is a meally bug, as they are normally smaller than this. 

 This looks like a landscape of lichens, algae and mosses. A coconut trunk base is fully invaded by this growths. I looked for lichen moths, but i did not see any.

I often see this red fruits in our abandoned areas, or areas under coconuts. They fruit during this season. I  haven't seen birds eating them. The plant are short at around a foot tall. There are only a few leaves coming out of the ground with one or 2 bunches of fruits in a clump of green leaves. I searched, it is Tacca palmata (Dioscoreaceae).

Nature Notes 2
Our World Tuesday