An Oddly Amorous-Looking Tree

Or so it looked to me, at least.  Maybe it was just my mind that was in the gutter^

 

What The Hey

Cicada season is over.  Or so I thought.  I hadn't heard any cicadas buzzing and droning for quite a while now.  But yesterday I was surprised -- nay, a little shocked -- to see this:

Mind you, these were taken from a path that I regularly traverse on my daily walks.  I'm reasonably familiar with the trees along the way.  And these weren't there just a few days ago, I can tell you that!  Are they a different species?  Like 13-year and 17-year cicadas?  Why haven't I heard them?  Are there mute species of cicadas?  But why haven't I even seen any of these newly molted ones?  Where are they all? 

Just A Cool Image

The *recent visits to The Needle prompted me to go back one more time and take this very different shot of it a couple of days ago.

A Fortuitous Juxtaposition

Autumn rain.  Fallen leaves on the sidewalk.

Then something caught my eye, and I looked closer. 

Playing With Parallax

Newly re-painted crosswalk stripes, and new bollards.  I totally gave in to the temptation.

 

Go For It, Big Guy!

A whale hunting a shrimp.

Which reminds me of the old Korean adage, "When whales fight, the shrimp's back breaks", a self-deprecating reference to the fact that little Korea has for so long has had to bear the brunt of the fallout from the conflicts involving its much bigger neighbors, China, Russia and Japan.

Spontaneous Camouflage

Another "only with OCD" photo.  How amazing is this!  Not only matching the background in color, but to have landed just right so the color boundary exactly matches the sidewalk tiles' grout lines (I didn't touch it, honest)!  Flounders and octopuses have nothing on this cone.  I swear I sometimes feel almost like one of those autistic savants who see math or can listen to a song once and play it on the piano -- only with "environmental visuals", if that's a phrase😁

Related posts:  camouflage

Today's Worm Rescue

I was surprised to see this worm in the middle of the sidewalk, as there had been no rain for some time.  And a pretty big one, too.

It was fairly active, so I figured it was in reasonable health.  Unfortunately, it didn't look like there was any reliably deep soil in the immediate area -- I couldn't see where the worm would have come from -- so all I could do was place it in the thin cover of earth over the stones by the side of the path.  At least there was some plant cover, so maybe it would have been able to burrow in.  On the other hand, after I put it down it wouldn't move, so I don't know...

Number of worms rescued(...):  81

Another One From The Archives II

Can't believe I never posted this one!  Of all the things I miss about Southern California, hummingbirds stand out as one of the most memorable ones (there aren't any in Korea).

I used to live on the sixth floor of a building in the very heart of downtown Los Angeles.  A unit below had a projecting balcony, and the renter there had filled it with potted plants, and I was often treated to the sight of hummingbirds crowding the flowers.  I know, hummingbirds over downtown L.A. traffic?  Hard to imagine, but true.

Two Very Different Sky Photos

taken today.  Well, it's past midnight now, so technically it's yesterday.

#1. Taken earlier in the evening -- what a show!  Looks like fireworks going off, no?

 #2. Then, a little later, a diametrically opposed image -- cool and serene, the object of my unrequited love, Selene, in the waxing phase:

Li Bai, the Chinese poet, loved the drink, and he loved the Moon.  On the last night of his life he was out boating on a lake while drunk, and he drowned trying to embrace the reflected Moon in the water.  I fear/love the possibility of my meeting an analogous fate.

Seen In And Around Seoul

Is this even worth checking out?  I'm a TIGER, for pity's sakes

The line they must not cross

In Korea deer have tusks.  Soon we foxes will, too.

I'm referring this to my Department of Waste Management

                                       Badass pussy

EDIT:  Inadvertently left this one out of this animal-themed post:

The ever-vigilant guardian of the market against pigeon invaders

Who Would Do This?

Couple days ago I happened to pass by this spot on my photo junket.  I saw the railing, became curious and went to look down.  And saw this:

Adorability combined with longing and melancholy.  Most likely an accidental juxtaposition, but really, who could resist it (and maybe it wasn't accidental)?

So I went back today to revisit the poignant memory, and this is what I saw:

What the F, who would do this?  It seems someone saw the same view that I saw, but had a very different reaction...

Cloud Reaches Out

 

Lucky Me

Another "Moon Balancing" shot.  But the difference is, I didn't have to go outside to take it -- I took it right from my balcony just now.  I just went to close the blinds, and there she was!

What Were They Thinking Of

I found these stairs in Euljiro, central Seoul.  They look perfectly ordinary when you look up at them from the bottom.

But once you've climbed them and seen the view from the top and are ready to descend, this is what you're confronted with:

Don't quite see it yet?  How about now:

Whose brilliant idea was it to to double the tread depth and mark the halfway points with strips that are identical to the ones marking the actual edge of the step?

In the pic above, #1 is the physical end of the step, #2 is the midway point.  On a cloudy day, with weak shadows and low definition, they would look exactly the same.  Which today was.  I took a misstep and almost took a tumble.  I can't believe nothing's been done about this unwitting visual illusion.  Somebody should sue the building owner or the city or something.

A Straggler

Yesterday afternoon I spent a very frustrating forty or so minutes trying to help a late-arriving cicada nymph (I know, I already said in *this previous post that it would be the last cicada post of the year, but this one stood out).  I hadn't heard any cicadas for some time already, and certainly wasn't expecting to encounter a nymph preparing to molt at this late date, but there it was, crawling across the sidewalk.  As with the previous nymphs I'd come across while out walking, it was going away from the tree it had presumably crawled out of;  I thought I'd do a kind deed and picked it up and put it up on the tree.

Problem was, the nymph was apparently not in the best of health;  it was having problems grabbing the tree bark and kept tumbling off.

I started to keep my hand below it to catch it;  while very small animals are not greatly bothered by falling from heights, still falling off a tree a bunch of times surely doesn't help!  I confess I added insult to (possible)injury by dropping it a few times when I picked it up (I didn't grip it tightly for fear of injuring it, and its shell was quite smooth and slippery).

I tried placing the nymph in a crotch of the tree, thinking it would stop the falls in place of my hand.

But the nymph still kept tumbling.  Then I got the bright idea to place it at the base of the tree just above the roots -- it would have more climbing to do, but at least it wouldn't have far to fall if it fell again...

which it promptly did. 

And when I put it back on, the nymph started climbing down instead of up!

Finally I decided I'd done enough, that if the nymph didn't make it, it wasn't for lack of (my)trying.  I placed it at the base of the tree for the last time and walked away.