SPRINGTIME ADVENTURES , episode 19 - Borderland
Yesterday I went to the shallow muddy lagoons that surround the large main bay and harbor of my hometown.
And I spent the whole day on the strange, shapeshifting territory where a sea arthropod, like this crab ...
... and a land arthropod, like this jumping spider ... share the same habitat, at least for a few hours ...
You can see a lot of crabs wandering around here ...
... and swarms of these little flies running around on the mud ...
... and the plants ... are very peculiar ...
... resilient ... strange ... and beautiful ...
When seen up close, they form strange colorful forests, unlike anything else that surrounds them
These are totally Syfy looking little landscapes, a bit like those imagined in old 50' and 60' movies about Mars.
And there some strange little monsters too ...
... like this very small member of the Collembola order
... actually is pretty big for a Collembola, so I could take this picture ...
... but is still a very small creature, so I had to crop the image a lot :)
These cicada relatives that are jumping around long distances between the rocks in the mud are also very small ...
... and not easy to catch ...
There are many poetic looking little things in this muddy place...
like these sea snails trapped in a temporary little desert, waiting for the return of the sea
But the real stars of the show ... are the bubbles ...
They can make this place, even more, Syfy like and surreal ...
So prepare your fingers for a long scrolling job :) because there will be more of those bubbles...
... and other things ...
... this is gonna be one pretty long post ...
... filled with interesting mud formations ...
... and strange, kind of symbolic, findings ... like this heart-shaped shell ...
... or this little white bone ...
Butterflies occasionally come here to take some minerals ...
... Libelulas patrol the area and hunt here ...
... small coastal birds too ...
These lovely small amphipods are usually well hidden in the mud ...
... but sometimes you can see them for a short moment if you displace a bigger rock from the mud ...
... yep ... you don't have much time to take a picture, they are soon in the mud again ...
... very cool little creatures ... kind of cute with that expressive black spots - eyes :)
I saw a brilliantly camouflaged grasshopper, it was early morning, and the coast was all in shade ...
... but with the sun coming up he became more visible ... and jumped away ...
There are many interesting details among seemingly unremarkable muddy things ...
Like these Balanomorpha on the rocks ...
... or the occasional leaf in the mud ...
... crab surrounded by bubbles ...
... or just the patterns on the floor ...
... the common, unremarkable rocks can also look pretty cool ... like some kind of lost treasure ... :) only with a bit of childish imagination, of course
... yep :)
... I feel like I spent all my words ... and I still have pictures to show you ...
... yep :)
... some of the pictures are even black and white! Like the TV we had when I was a kid ... and I had to imagine how the exotic colorful things in documentaries really looked ...
... yep ... bubbles look cool in monochrome ...
... shadows too ...
...and then another macro landscape ...
... and another crab ...
... and then another one ...
... and then a short look at the bigger picture ...
... the sea ...
... and the surrounding vegetation ...
And that's all for today ...hope you like this muddy place in between water and earth ... or at least find it interesting ... have a good day ... or night ... wherever on the planet you are ...
( As always on these posts on Steemit, all the photographs are my work. )
Is it expensive to travel to other planets to take photos of their wildlife? That can't possibly be Earth. Those are all amazing.
:) Macro excursions in small universes that surround us are still the most affordable ... and travel with imagination is also low-cost :) ... Glad you like these strange places
I have no idea how you always find so many cool things!
:) hehe ... a lot of intensive searching ... stone turning, leaves and flowers examination crawling and waiting ... but also helps a lot that nature around here is in spring very rich and varied, a lot of interesting species are now active and easy to find ... there is a great diversity of habitat, in some parts is a typical Mediterranean area with bushes and shrubs on rocky terrain, but then just a few kilometers away you can find more continental looking woods with real trees or agricultural fields and meadows on rich soil ... so I'm able to find many interesting plants and animals and diverse settings for these blog stories, in a radius of just 10 kilometers or little more
To be able to find all that here I have to drive a lot and then use a telescope hahaha
:D
:) ... and ... if it's ok to ask, on which planet are you living?
Universe Caribbean, planet Puerto Rico :D
:D oho - ho, the exotic part of the time-space continuum ! Looking from here this is a great, distant place that everybody ( or almost) would like to visit, I saw only some fragments on TV. :) And now in your posts too.