This week, my wife and I visited her sister in North Carolina, who lives near Croatan National Forest. This national park is a huge plot of 160,000 acres of pine forest, saltwater estuaries, bogs, and pocosins. I have posted previously about visiting a beach on the Neuse River, which was also in the park. This time, we decided to hike part of the Neusiok Trail, which is a 20 mile long trail from the beach into the forest; we only did a small portion of the trail.

I had come hoping to get lots of photos of Venus flytraps, pitchers plants, and sundews, but as often happens, I came away with a different experience altogether. Instead of pitcher plants, we came across a really nice grove of palm ferns near the coast. Whether they’re native or not, I haven’t a clue, but they remind me a lot of some places in Hawaii.

Further in on the trail, we found what should have the perfect bog habitat for carnivorous plants. Pine needles lined the tannin stained water bottom, and only a few grasses were throughout the area. Still, even between the grasses, I didn’t find the plants I was looking for. I’ve read a bit on the Internet about how poaching is a huge problem for this area, where collectors or resellers illegally dig up entire stands of carnivorous plants for their collections. I can only assume that any public trails that once had any rare plants are now probably devoid of them.

There were many old trails present along the main trail. Below you can see how an entire path was blazed through the trees, only to be abandoned allowing small brush to take over.

Fortunately, even though we didn’t find any carnivorous plants, we did find some interesting carnivorous creatures. I nearly walked face-first into this spider and web. Fortunately, I didn’t disrupt his web, and was able to get a picture. We also saw a number of small lizards scurrying along many fallen logs.

Accepting defeat on our carnivorous plant search, we decide to head back toward the Neuse River beach, and enjoy the pleasant sea breeze. The beach itself was fantastic with plenty of Cyprus trees growing right up to the water, with their tangled roots exposed.

As we were walking along the beach, we noticed some activity out in the water. Apparently, during this time of year, the sality of the Neuse River increases, and ocean creatures venture upstream. We witnessed proof of this when a whole family of dolphins was jumping and splashing through the water. As many times as I’ve seen dolphins, I still am fascinated every time!

That wasn’t the only activity of the day. Multiple types of birds were patrolling the skies, looking down at the water for signs of their next fishy meal. We witness this crane make repeated attempts toward fish.

Our most impressive bird of the day had to be this Bald Eagle. This amazing bird was also diving into the water for fish, and then retreating back to top of some of the Cyprus trees to enjoy their meal. I wish it would have be closer for me to get a better shot.

I highly recommend visiting this national park if you’re in the area. I still haven’t covered 1/10th of what they have to offer. Next time I go down, I’m going to be sure to contact a ranger first in hope pothat they might be able to guide me toward the carnivorous plants I’m seeking. Until then…

Last night I went over to my friend Aaron’s house to help him get a good photograph of his aquascape for the Aquatic Gardener Association’s aquascaping contest due in a few days. I promised him that I wouldn’t post any pictures of his actual aquascape until after the contest is over, but these are some individual plant shots I took.

The first shows HC, Hemianthus callitrichoides, pearling with a nice fat oxygen bubble on its’ leaf tip. If you look closely you can see some of the downoi reflected in the bubble. Below is a picture of a very healthy looking Rotala macrandra var. ‘Green,’ also pearling away. I’m going to have to go back and take more pictures because Aaron’s got some really awesome plants growing in his tanks. Good luck in the contest Aaron!

Around our camp in the Amazon, all sorts of lizards could be seen scurrying about. Often times, all you’d see is the flash of a tail, and then it would be gone. This pretty little lizard below was in our tent, and all around the camp.

And of course, besides your harmless little lizards, there were also black caymans around. This particular guy was brought to us by some of the local villagers nearby. It’s really amazing how long these creatures will stay in a single pose. I suppose they’re in defensive mode or something, but once they get set, they’ll barely flinch a muscle for 10 minutes straight. That’s great for long exposures in dim light!

Look at the claws on this guy below. Can you tell that he’s found in the trees? It may not be as apparent in this picture, but look to the next.

Pretty well camouflaged, isn’t he?

This was my wife’s favorite guy. He has a very beautiful blue ring around the inside of his mouth, and didn’t seem ashamed to show it. I think he’s actually a little iguana, but then again, what do I know?

And, just like the various insects, there are lizards that look like leaves down in the jungle. This lizard is about 6-8″ inches long, and if you weren’t looking closely, you’d likely miss him on the forest floor.

Here’s a semi-aquatic, semi-terrestrial turtle that was brought to us. He doesn’t look much different from a lot of the turtles we see in the United States, but still very cool. And unlike some of the turtles around me, this guy would not stay put in his shell. I had more trouble getting him to sit still then I think I’ve ever had with a turtle. Aren’t they supposed to be slow?

Finally, we were fortunately to locate both a male and female of the same species below. Of course, I don’t remember which is which, but you can see how the patterns on their back are entirely different.

I think I prefer the spotted pattern of the one below, to the barred one above, but they’re both pretty darn fun to look at. And check out their eyes!

Oh, and their teeth! This might be my favorite shot from the trip. I hope you like it.

Besides a few odds and ends that I might throw in, I think this is the last set of nature pictures I’m going to post from our trip. If you’d like to see more general descriptions of our travels, you can read about them on my wife’s blog.

Before I went to the Amazon, I was always one of those people who said they were afraid of snakes. Growing up, the worst we had to worry about were copperheads, but I think the fear that something so tiny could put you in a world of hurt was scary. Right before the trip, I had to help my mom remove a harmless black snake from their deck. Just handling that snake, you could feel the strength that they have. In the Amazon, I witnessed far more deadly snakes than the copperhead, but also saw even more strength in the boas, and more beauty in the coloration of some of these creatures. I hope you enjoy my snake photos.

The snake above is a standard tree boa constrictor. These snakes are so strong, and really coil up around a tree in an instant. Below is its much prettier cousin, the rainbow boa. One of the other photographers happened across this beautiful snake during one of his afternoon walks. With every movement, the iridescent blue shimmered one its skin.

Micrurus putumayensis, below, was quite drab looking in the shade. In the sunlight, blue undertones started shining from its dark patches. A really nice looking snake.

Next is the famous fer-de-lance. This snake is very lethal, and is not afraid to strike. While our guides were handling this snake, it struck multiple times at the handling tools, causing venom to drip down the metal surface. They told us about one unfortunate previous guest who accidentally stepped on one of these, got bit, and needed over four months to finally get back to normal. He nearly didn’t make the first day. Scary stuff, but definitely a snake to respect.

Here is a vine snake that we found on one of our night walks. I kind of like how his head is disproportionate to his body.

Another pretty snake. Unfortunately, I don’t remember whether this one, the next, or both are vine snakes, or varieties of coral snakes. If anyone has any insight, please comment and set me straight.

Again, not sure what kind of snake this is, but isn’t it pretty with the orange and black checkerboard pattern?

While in the Amazon in Peru, we saw (and heard) a huge variety of frogs in the rain forest and at the river’s edge. If you looked close, you could see huge frogs on the river banks. Their eyes would shine as large globes in the night when you flashed your light at the bank. Reeds growing from the river would be home to multiple color forms of a single species of frog. In the forest itself, frogs would inhabit trees and undergrowth alike. At nighttime, you would hear bird calls that were really frog sounds, and vice versa. Since frogs have always been one of my favorite subjects to photograph, and just marvel at, I had a blast taking these pictures. I hope you enjoy them as well.

Above is one of the large frogs that we found sitting on a riverbank. He was not one to stick around for long. He got up into this tree, and this was the only shot I was able to get of him before he scurried up the tree out of sight. It’s hard to tell how big this frog is from the picture, but he’s probably a good 8-10″ from head to foot, with a bit of heft to him.

This frog above and the one below were both found in reeds by the river’s edge. If my notes are correct, they are both the same species of frog, but are obviously slightly different color morphs. Both are sitting on water hyacinth as is their natural habitat.

This tiny frog was sitting on this log during one of our afternoon forest walks. Not much larger than a half dollar, I wouldn’t have spotted him if it wasn’t for our guide’s sharp eyes.

Below, we were trying to adjust one of this frog’s legs up on the reed, when it slipped off. I liked the pose, and he held it, so I got this picture.

And finally, the next two are of my favorite frog on the trip. We were out collecting specimens at night, and stopped at a local village’s pond, full of grasses (and cichlids and even a coral snake). One of our guides spotted this little guy. For the pattern on his back, they call him a Giraffe Frog.

Could he be any more cooperative with the camera? I mean really, how awesome is this frog?

The Amazon plays hosts to a multitude of insects. While we were there, we saw new bugs everyday, especially when we did night hikes through the rainforest. At night, bugs come out from their cover of leaves and sunlight, and are a macro-photographer’s dream. They’ll often just sit there, through multiple flashes. Please don’t expect any expertise on these guys, but I hope you enjoy the pictures.

There are some absolutely jaw-dropping beautiful moths and butterflies constantly flying around the forest. Pretty much every color of the spectrum is represented, but unfortunately, getting pictures of any of these specimens is a test of will, as they rarely stop moving. Above is a moth, resting at night. Of course, all of these moths/butterflies have to come from somewhere, and so there is also a large variety of caterpillars munching away at the foliage.

It’s near impossible to know for sure which species these caterpillars are without fully allowing them to complete their life cycle. These two guys below wouldn’t sit still much at all. They were constantly munching on leaves as you can see in the picture.

I was told that the caterpillar below can leave a nasty sting if you handle his spines. Nevertheless, I thought the little guy to be quite pretty.

If there’s anything that never stops in the forest, it’s the leaf cutter ants. These guys will march right over your foot if you put it in their path. When you find a trail, it seems like it goes on forever. These ants truly are magnificent workers.

Not exactly a bug, I know, but we saw a few examples of snails in the forest, so I wanted to fit them in somewhere. Nothing too exotic, but pretty neat.

Spiders, spiders, spiders. There are so many different types of types in the forest. Wolf spiders, tarantulas, tons of different spiders in webs. Fortunately, they make great pictures!

I like the yellow on this guy’s legs. Probably means he’s dangerous or something.

This is a really interesting catydid below. The white feathers on its back end are made of a waxy substance that turns to dust if you touch it. It’s used as a defense mechanism, much like how a lizards’ tail disconnects, allowing it time to get away from a predator.

There are quite a few odd shaped bugs in the forest.

Here’s another odd-shaped one. He blends in nicely with the tree though.

Then there’s a whole smattering of leaf-camouflaged bugs out there. Here’s one catydid. That notch at the top is not a bite or injury. It’s naturally like that so that they blend in better with the other broken leaves on the ground.

This is another camouflaged grasshopper. This is one of my favorite shots that I got — even his eye is camouflaged!

Then there are more brightly colored catydid, such as the one below with a bright yellow line down its back. I often had to cut out their long antennae from the photos because they were so long.

Another catydid that I thought was very pretty.

Of course, there is a darker side of the rainforest. Where damp environments are, so are fungi, and parasitic nasties. This particular grasshopper had the unfortunate luck of getting infected by a parasitic fungus. It slowly grows inside its host, and eventually breaks through the skin, killing its subject and feeding on its remains. Fun, huh?

Here’s some sort of beetle that I found interesting. All of the mosses on the trees provide ample habitat of a wide variety of bugs.

These millipedes were all over the trails in various places. If you startle them, they will ball up into a tight little ball, protecting their soft underside with their hard armored exoskeleton.

This nasty looking thing is called a whiptail scorpion. While looking quite terrifying, it’s actually completely harmless to humans. Infact, we took turns putting this guy on each other’s faces to get that “make mom scream” photo for the trip. We basically considered them really ugly daddy long-legs.

And of course, the Amazon has wasps just like any other place.

I hope you enjoyed my bug pictures. Please don’t use any of them without my permission first. Thank you!

The Amazon is a bird watcher’s paradise. You wouldn’t be in the Amazon if you didn’t hear the loud squawking of mccaw parrots as they flew overhead. It’s really amazing to see these colorful birds out in the wild, as opposed to in a pet store cage. As loud as the mccaws are, the green parrots are even noisier, particularly when you’re trying to sleep!

Besides parrots, I think the toucan is the quintessential Amazon bird that everyone knows. This may be in large part due to Fruit Loops marketing campaign, but nevertheless, there’s no wonder as to why people admire these birds. This particular bird below flew up to this tree, about 50 feet away from the platform I was standing on, about 5 stories from the forest floor. It then proceeded to fly overhead to a different tree where 2 other toucans squabbled with each other before all 3 took off. What colorful animals!

There are numerous birds on the water that prey on fish or other critters that become vulnerable on the water’s edge. I haven’t a clue what this bird is below, but we saw a fair number of this type around.

Even the Amazon has a common duck. While these ducks are slightly different than the common ducks all over North America, their general behavior is the same.

These yellow-bodied birds can be seen all over the Amazon. We saw especially large numbers of them when we were on the boat, making the trip down the Amazon river to the Rio Orosa.

With all of the insects in the Amazon, it goes to figure that there would be plenty of woodpeckers around.

As I mentioned, we just got back from the Amazon Rainforest, about 10 hours by boat from Iquitos, Peru, on the Rio Orosa. The river and forest here is beyond breathtaking. The biodiversity of trees and plants is probably impossible to catalog. There are plants growing on plants, which are covered in lichens, and attached to trees. Our tour operator told us that they recently invited a Ph.d. student down to complete their thesis work, and with approximately 650 trees surveyed, over 500 species of trees were identified, including one tree, “Lonely Jorge,” which is the only known living tree of its kind in the world. They don’t know how it got there, or if anymore of the species exist. Amazing stuff.

The preserve where we stayed has caretakers, who maintain a number of trails through the forest, putting in log stairs such as the ones below. Most of the trails, however, are not are nicely established as these, which is probably a good thing to get a more authentic feel.

Sometimes, our trails would take us right over top one of these huge ant hills. Some of the larger anthills that we saw would be several feet high, and could fill a large living room in your standard American home. Fortunately, walking over these mounds did not seem to invite any punishment from the ants. Maybe we just got lucky, finding the “friendly ants?”

Down the Rio Orosa a little ways, there is a small tributary where huge stands of banyan trees stand. We were not able to reach the largest of these due to low water, but our guides told us that there exists a single banyan tree that stretches over an entire acre of land by itself.

All throughout the rainforest, little creeks and streams flow toward the larger rivers. I didn’t get a chance to survey to many of these for fish, but I believe our guide pulled out a few killies from one creek similar to this.

As I mentioned before, nothing exists by itself in the forest. Every tree trunk shares itself with any number of plants or lichens. There’s at least two species growing on this trunk below.

Below is just another example of the ferns/mosses that grow on these trees.

I just liked this picture because it shows a number of different trees, all growing within close proximity to one another. I don’t remember if this was in one of the “devil’s gardens” or not, but it’s quite possible since there does not appear to be much undergrowth. A “devil’s garden” is created when a certain kind of ant decides to take up home among a particular group of trees. These ants produce and inject citric acid into every “unwanted” plant that comes into their garden, thus killing it. Tasting an ant, they taste like lemons — I wonder why?

The sun comes and goes very quickly near the equator. I watched the sunset in a tower overlooking the canopy of the trees.

After coming home from an often-frequented thrift shop, my wife announced that she had bought me an aquarium book. Immediately, when looking at the cover, it’s obvious that the book was dated, but with plants on the cover, I figure it’s at least worth a look.

Indeed, published in 1952, the author describes how to build a tank from scratch using plywood, glass, and various “cements.” Then, he describes heating your tank using gas and oils, and describes setting the proper flame height to establish the proper temperature. Wow, and I thought I had it hard with my equipment!

Despite this, I continue reading, and to my surprise, there’s a whole chapter on aquatic plants. Plants reproduce by photosynthesis, true. Builders sand is not a good substrate because it compacts, true. Light is important, true. Fertilization will be taken care of by the fish, okay not entirely false, but still reading. Then I come to a section listing possible plants for an aquarium.

As you would expect, they were growing Cabomba caroliniana, but they also grew Cryptocoryne cordata, C. griffithii, Riccia Fluitans, and Utricularia, among others.

Then, the chapter continues on to describe how to layout an aquarium, using rocks and plants to form a aesthetically pleasing look. Use rocks that are well weathered, and avoid different types of rocks in the same aquarium, as it will not look natural. Don’t position the rock in the center of the aquarium, instead offset the rock a little bit to the right or left. Then, use plants to form an nice background around the rocks.

It seems that we’re not as advanced as we think we are in the aquarium hobby today. Sure, we might have the luxury of flow-controlled canister filters, fine tuned in-line electric heaters, and an assortment of manufactured substrates, but at the end of the day, we’re still in the business of making a tank that looks nice using a variety of plants and hardscape materials. Our plant selection may be larger than our grandparents’, but it seems appropriate that the art form of aquarium keeping are continuing from generation to generation.

We woke up Sunday, ready for a full day of collecting around the Miami around. In Miami, canals crisscross the entire area, allowing us plenty of accessible collecting spots via public boat ramps. In addition, due to the large population density, many non-native fishes have made their way (unfortunately for the habitat, fortunately for us) into the waterways. At our first stop, we found a boat ramp behind a fairly large shopping complex. Walking down the canal banks, we didn’t see a any signs of life outside of a few clumps of Hygrophila polysperma and Cabomba. There were more office chairs and discarded garbage in the canal then we saw fish.

We decided to cast our nets into the polysperma anyways, and to our surprise, we found 4-5 small cichlids! There seemed to be two types present, 1 type with vertical bars that are probably juvenile Mayan cichlids, and the other, a much more colorful Jewel cichlid (shown below.) What was originally a very bleak looking habitat suddenly came to life. As we continually pull more of these cichlids from the water, we start to see some larger fish take interest in our activities. Peacock bass start coming in to feast as we startled the smaller fish from their protective plant mats. We continue netting fish for several hours, before deciding to grab some lunch and move on to our next location.

A few miles away, we located another canal system with public access to the waterways. Unfortunately, this dock was much more frequented by jet skis and motor boats, so we decided to investigate a more seclusive pond right next to the canal. A few of us are looking down in the pool, seeing the usual batch of mosquito fish swimming around, when a couple of plants take our eye. First, floating on the surface is a very frilly plant, that upon closer investigation is a carnivorous badderwort. Well, I have to try that one out, and while I’m gathering a few small fronds of that, I notice another plant with elongated brown and yellowish leaves. Immediately, I get excited that I had found a bed of crypts! So, I pull a couple out, and take them to Ghazanfar. “Nope, they’re not crypts,” he says, but instead appear to be some sort of an Aponogeton. In this pool, none of the Aponogeton are taller than7-8 inches. I’m really hoping that they intend to stay that height because every other species that I’ve tried tends to grow multiple feet in length.

Meanwhile, a few other folks had started dipping their nets in the canal, now free of jet skiers. More great fish start showing up in our nets, including a very pretty variety of sunfish (shown below), some shiners/minnows with really nice red on their tails, two varieties of darters, and a new color strain of Jewel cichlids. The Jewels in this canal are much redder in coloration, while in the first canal, they were more turquoise. After being out under the sun for a number of hours, we all decided that it was time to cool off back at the hotel.