Posts in: Apple

Update: Voting is over and Azurite lost.

Here’s a photo of Azurite with smaller amounts of Malachite at the Freudenstein Castle in Freiberg, Germany. Let it lull you into voting for it in Mineral Cup 2025! Only a few hours left… #MinCup25 #Azurite #Geology #Minerals

A professionally displayed hunk of dark blue nodular Azurite or Azurit (German) from Seabra, Brazil. There are some greener nodules of malachite. It looks like clumps of candy making a rock, all but ensuring that you’ll vote for it. Photographed with permission.

A Nuttal’s woodpecker visited our front yard Toyon yesterday! #Yarden #NuttalsWoodpecker #Birds

Grumble. We all know the check engine light is just a catch-all these days. Probably an emissions fault. #CheckEngine

Brown Pelicans occupying an island at the Arcata Marsh & Wildlife Sanctuary back in July #BrownPelicans #BirdPhotography #Birds #NorCalCoast2025 #Fujifilm #SOoCA Brown Pelican comes in for a landing on a very small island in a large pond. The island is full of other brown pelicans, mostly grooming themselves. They're a dirty brown with awkwardly long necks and long, thick beaks.

Monday. Here’s a Song Sparrow #NorCalCoast2025 #Fujifilm #SOoC

A close-up very round brown-red Song Sparrow is hanging out at the stem of a fennel plant, looking just off axis of the camera lens. Its chest is white with speckles.

It’s the backyard Asian Pear harvest! Yellow are New Century variety and the brown skinned are the more familiar looking Hosui variety. They are odd spindly trees right now. I’m not used to pruning central leader trees, but vase shape. #Yarden #HomeOrchard #AsianPears

A colander with a mixture of yellow and brown skinned Asian PearsA very spindly Hosui pear tree with multiple stakes and lots of tree tape. It has pears still. The sky is blue and there’s more vegetation along a fence in the background. Drip line and gravel are in the foreground.A New Century Asian Pear tree with small yellow skinned pears. It’s better branched and dilated compared to the Hosui tree. In the background, there are ugly metal structures behind a wood fence. In the foreground is gravel and drip line.

Our cultivated California native seedy grapes are ready. The two plants mostly feed Northern Mockingbirds, Western Scrub Jays, and in the late fall, Kinglets, but some grapes will be for the humans in the form of a compote. As a bonus, gaze upon our lone avocado! #Yarden #HomeOrchard

Many bunches of ripe purple grapes hang from a grape vine.A hand is holding a metal colander filled with ripe red grapes. It's being held under a grape vine.An avocado is hanging from an avocado tree. It has a long stem and a narrow, green speckled body. A hand is nearby acting as a scale. It's about five fingers long and three fingers wide.

Sorry to those that are squeamish about spiders, but this Western Spotted Orbweaver was just asking for a photoshoot. This spider took the night-shift last night in our front yard #WesternSpottedOrbWeaver #Spider #InsectPhotography #Yarden #Fujifilm #SoOC

Plan-view of a Western Orbweaver spider with a fat, round abdomen and a tiny brown cephalothorax (head). The abdomen has patterns of brown within a matrix of coffee with cream. Its spider web can be descerned from the background, which is all blurred out. Its legs alternate between brown and coffee with cream. It has hairs on its head. It has spikes on its legs.The underside of the Western Spotted Orbweaver, which appears reddish probably because of light conditions. It has four clear white spots on its abdomen and an elongated white spot just below its head. Its chelicerae are visible. The background is completely blurred out.

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