Samuel A. Johnson

Eight butterflies. Can you spot them all?

Glen Cove, Pikes Peak treeline, on Sedum rhodanthum flowers.

Barista!

Cat on a Hot Foam Roof

Gun Control, Olympic Skier, Screech Owl, Falcon, Hopping Bunny, Happy Cactus

Two more poems

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Ben Franklin

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Another Poem Rejected by the New Yorker.

What is WRONG with them? I didn’t even get a sad-face emoticon. Nothing.

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Limericks

Ever write limericks? It’s not literature, for sure. But there was a contest once, so I wrote this.

On Being Challenged to Write a Limerick

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This paper was rejected by the Lepidopterists Society because I did not make a clear enough distinction between “perching” and “roosting.” The latter involves shade-seeking, while perching means sitting on an elevated leaf or flower and watching for passing insects to harass. Anyway, the point of the paper should be clear. Atalopedes skippers modify their behaviors at high temperatures to avoid overheating. They can’t tolerate temperatures above about 40°C, so if the Texas thorn-scrub savanna warms beyond that, they’ll move north. I would.

Continue reading “My Atalopedes Paper”

Challenge: Alphabetical Poems

Try this. Write a poem that uses each letter of the alphabet in sequence, allowing up to five articles and prepositions per verse, in lightface type. To allow five words (letters) in each line, A, B, C, and D are repeated at the end to make 30 words. Go for it. Here are four examples. If you can think of better word sequences, let me know!

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Latest butterfly records yet

Until this fall, the 22nd of November was the latest date on which I observed butterflies. But this fall I have records from five dates in November and six dates in December, through the 20th, one day short of the solstice. On December 12th I found Colias eurytheme (alfalfa butterfly), Colias philodice (clouded sulfur), and Nathalis iole (dainty sulfur) on the wing in good numbers. On 16 December, Nathalis iole was about, basking laterally against the dark soil on a hillside. And on the 20th, Nathalis iole again, three of them. The previous record for this species was F. Martin Brown’s 3 December 1954 observation. Combined with last February’s records, we now have only about 48 days of butterfly-less weather! Here is Nathalis iole.