I started a ton of Hibiscus moscheutos (swamp rose-mallow) seeds today from pods I harvested last fall in downtown Durham. The pods are so beautiful that I hated to tear them apart.

In my region, rose-mallow is the 7th most important perennial and supports 28 species of moths and butterflies.

Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) on wild Virginia Creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia) vine near Symphoricarpos orbiculatus and oak in Norman, Oklahoma, United States on February 2, 2025

Some of the camera settings I used to make this photo are at: https://www.rsok.com/~jrm/2025Feb28_birds_and_cats/2025feb02_cardinal_IMG_2766c.html

#cardinal #birds #Parthenocissus #Symphoricarpos #nativeplants #Cardinalis #wildlife #wildlifephotography #Oklahoma #photography

Also at: https://1-john-moyer.pixels.com/featured/cardinal-2766-john-moyer.html

Spring is unfurling

Osmundastrum cinnamomeum, cinnamon fern

https://theconversation.com/butterflies-declined-by-22-in-just-2-decades-across-the-us-there-are-ways-you-can-help-save-them-251468

This is really bleak. Know I’m just singing back to the choir here but what are you guys planting for the pollinators this year?

This one is new for me, sneezeweed, Helenium amarum. They’ve already sprouted in their outdoor cold-strat containers.

Also transplanted year old loebelia siphilitica seedlings to the ground yesterday.

Yellow-bellied Sapsucker (Sphyrapicus varius) on pecan (Carya illinoinensis) tree in Norman, Oklahoma, United States on January 25, 2025

Some of the camera settings I used to make this photo are at: https://www.rsok.com/~jrm/2025Jan31_birds_and_cats/2025jan25_woodpecker_IMG_2666c.html

It feels like it's time for a new #introduction

I'm Daniel! He / him.

I'm a husband and Master #Naturalist from Louisiana and living in northeast #Oregon.

I post about #birds, #birding, #insects, #NativePlants, #iNaturalist, and everything else that I find in our travels around this beautiful Earth of ours.

I am a practitioner of #Soto #Zen #Buddhism, a #photographer, web developer, wood carver, and burgeoning gardener.

Website: https://daniel.observer

An Oklahoma program will pay residents to grow native plants

The grant is open to people living in Oklahoma, Canadian and Cleveland Counties.

#KOSU #Oklahoma #Gardening #NativePlants
https://www.kosu.org/energy-environment/2025-02-21/a-program-in-oklahoma-will-pay-residents-to-grow-native-plants

I know you could use a pink pollen pause in your timeline

Check out the new tiny blooms of the Santa Cruz Island buckwheat

Happy Saturday!

Atlides halesus, great purple hairstreak on Aralia spinosa, devil’s walking stick

#Today 19: got another half-inch (1.25 cm) of light, fluffy snow overnight. Sorghastrum nutans, Yellow Indiangrass caught some of the snow. Sky was overcast when I took these photos. Used Google Photo's "Fix Lighting" feature to brighten the image. Side effect was to make the grass more red. It isn't wrong, but maybe a bit more uniform than what I perceive.

Daydreaming about Mississippi River Wakerobin and the other Spring ephemerals emerging down South as I stare out at a seemingly ever-increasing blanket of snow.

Miss you friends!

Celastrina neglecta (summer azure) laying eggs on Verbesina occidentalis (yellow crownbeard).

Tufted Titmouse (Baeolophus bicolor) on wild Virginia Creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia) vine in Norman, Oklahoma, United States on January 15, 2025

Some of the camera settings I used to make this photo are at: https://www.rsok.com/~jrm/2025Jan31_birds_and_cats/2025jan15_titmouse_IMG_2587c.html

#birds #titmouse #Baeolophus #wildlife #wildlifephotography #Parthenocissus #nativeplants #Oklahoma #photography

( also at https://1-john-moyer.pixels.com/featured/titmouse-2587-john-moyer.html )

Phacelia returns

I'm between rain showers, I snapped a quick pic.

These are the Phacelia from my own harvest last season. They were a test germination. Not the best angle. The important point is seeing them on first real day of furling. They will be bigger when it's time.

A fern moss in our nature park #VosgesDuNord in eastern France. I'm not sure if it's a #Hylocomium or #Thuidium species (or something else). It looks like ferns. In the forest, it often climbs up on on small stems of freshly sprouting trees and then looks like a gnome fir forest.

#ClimateChangeGardening #gardening #bookstodon #books #plants #NativePlants #bloomscrolling #ClimateDiary

Almenachier, serviceberry

Robin Wall Kimmerer’s, “The Serviceberry”

As much economics as natural history, she links the gift economy with nature -storing abundance in the belly of my brother. She examines how capitalism is an unsustainable and destructive system and how it might be replaced.

It’s a beautiful book and very salient to our current economic-ecological problems.

I wish I could get a large enough print of this that I could actually read it. It's a phylogeny of flowering plants along with examples of typical flowers from each genus. Mind blown. #NativePlants #Phylogeny