@swampvids
A sentient swamp is here to chill you out with original nature videos, field recordings, and photography. There might also be some absurdist dark humor thrown in, as one should expect from a swamp. linktr.ee/SwampVids
Updated this important project to include ALL species, not just woodpeckers, mainly over a rattling crow that managed to get into the mix over a misidentification. Did not wish to boot out the rattling crow, the crow is perfect. Please add more rattling crows. 🪶 www.inaturalist.org/projects/woo...
Haven’t figured out how to film birds through a screen.
This is supposed to be a red crossbill. Hope you like it. 🪶
A 'leaf'of peltigera lichen, greyish with bright orange 'teeth-like structures growing from the edges. Surrounded by bright green moss.
Peltigera #lichen
Macro photograph of a pearly white to rose colored leaf beetle with a metallic green head, pronotum, and various lines and blobs on its back, standing on a grean leaf with a number of flower buds at upper left.
A Calligrapha beetle- named of course for the beautiful inscriptions on its elytra- sits on its dogwood host plant. Texas.
Drake mallard mid preen
Female downy woodpecker
Hen mallard
Female northern cardinal
Central Park residents #birds
No caption this week. Just goblet waxcaps, young intermediate wood ferns, and a pile of sunset birds and peepers. Enjoy. 🪶 #fungifriends #naturesky
Never been more indecisive about Friday SwampVid topic.
There will either be 0 or 12 videos that come out tomorrow.
The drunk March weather seems to always help them, if anything.
Wood thrushes have a call known as their “weet” call. It’s often described as being a low-threat alarm call, which sometimes it seems to be, but they do this literally every single night as they’re settling down for the night, like how robins whinny and cheep during the last rays of light. 🪶
Macro photograph of a bright green, spiky cushion of bristle moss growing on rough tree bark among patches of yellow and pale grey lichens. Dozens of tiny brown capsules sit among the upper leaves, each topped with a pale hairy hood that makes them look like a cluster of little horns. These shaggy coverings are protective hoods called calyptrae that shield the developing spore capsules.
A rather ferocious-looking little Bristle Moss.
#moss #bryophyte
All the rusty-sounding "first day back" bird songs is somewhere at the top of the list for favorite things about spring. 🪶
Black bird with white wing markings high about desert cliffs
It took 800 miles of driving over two days, but we finally found California condors in Vermilion Cliffs National Monument this afternoon. They were about five miles off, soaring high above the cliffs, so I don't have photographs beyond proof-of-sighting, but I'm still high on the sighting.
Fish crows are back!
Sandhill crane communication is complex and includes over 20 different styles of these weird trumpet calls, often with pairs calling in unison. The music of sandhill cranes is an integral part of the Okefenokee soundscape, especially at dawn.
Their order, the Gruiformes, have been around for 60 million years, appearing just after the extinction of dinosaurs. Are they actually dinosaurs? All birds are dinosaurs, so sure, why not? But besides that, just listen to them! The bird wishes to welcome you to Jurassic Park. 🦕
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Sandhill cranes are considered to be the oldest extant species of bird on the planet, with fossils dating back to at least 2.5 million years. (For comparison, the oldest fossils of Homo sapiens are around 300,000 years old.) ⬇️
The swamp is a terrible birdwatcher though, so if dancing cranes are what you seek, sorry to have to disappoint you by going off about dinosaurs instead. There are many bird dancing videos to be found though, and you've probably seen it on the Discovery Channel if you were cognitive pre-2000s. ⬇️
Critically imperiled in the state of Georgia, there is a population of year-round residents in Okefenokee Swamp. Infamous for their graceful courtship dances and the tight bond between mated pairs who stay together for life, the human-folk have long admired them for their romance. ⬇️
The swamp has been dying to talk about Okefenokee’s dinosaurs for the past month. No, not the alligators. You’ll need to keep watching if you want those. Dinosaurs = sandhill cranes! The Florida sandhill crane is a subspecies found only in the south.
more in a minute ⬇️
#nature #wildlife 🪶
If SwampVid is obnoxiously late again tonight, it’s because the owls are out.
An eastern skunk cabbage in full bloom inside a circle of melted ice.
This one was properly buried under ice the other day and is already in its bisexual phase. #phenology #skunkcabbage
An exceptionally large white-ish gray bird with impressively long wings flying in the sky.
This is probably a sandhill crane. #birds
Bluebirds are thrushes.
The thrush, obviously.
For reasons unknown, it is significantly easier to put out two videos per week when it's unplanned.
A cluster of two gorgeous maroon and lemon streaked skunk cabbage spathes emerging out of a mucky swamp that they melted.
If you're still struggling to find life in the half-melted tundra, have you tried checking your swamp? #spring #skunkcabbage
Spiders and springtails crawling all over the pores of violet-toothed polypores.
If you think it’s still too winter for life, perhaps you should check under your #FungiFriends.
A rotting log that had been encased in ice for months is beginning to melt and is crawling with springtails.
While you’re out checking your footprints, make sure to check your dead trees too. #springtails #arthropods #bugsky
Dead tree
Springtails
Foggy woods
Wetland
I love mud season
A dried snag with a carpet of the greenest moss you’ve ever witnessed after living through 30 years straight of snow and death.
#mossy
New phone? New phone. #naturesky #wintermelt
