I believe the wren photograph is that of a House Wren and not a Carolina Wren. But you better ask the fella over at Ocellated. He’s had more experience IDing little birds from photographs.

Ah, love your design and layout. So cool! And the bug stories are interesting, too. I’m glad we have bugs; they’re the staple in most birds’ diets.

My Duke research is decidedly in the past tense. One of the reasons my website is out of date is that, no longer being at Duke, I don’t have as easy access as I used to, and I’m not completely sure if they’ll let me leave that page up there indefinitely or take it down after another year or two.

Anyway, my research was on dragonflies, looking at adult ecology of invasive and native species and comparing across guilds in south Florida, south Texas, and Hawai’i. Fun field work but did not discover anything revolutionary, so haven’t tried to publish yet. By the time I graduated, I cared a lot more about the Duke Natural History Society than I did about my academic work.

Now I live in the LRGV and work for the World Birding Center, which led to my discovering Ocellated (via TexBirds), which led me here to your blog.

I recommended “Carnival of the Spineless” for its content rather than style. I’m very new even to reading blogs, have never tried to set one up, so I’m generally clueless of design issues.

BTW, another correction: I noticed you have a Scorpionfly under the Diptera. Probably belongs in the “other insects” section.

I have a friend who can probably ID your robberflies at least to genus, if not to species. Will try to point him in your direction.

Cheers,

Josh

As for carnival of the spineless, I have seen the site before (and even have it bookmarked), though I have not been all that impressed with the design/layout.

I haven’t had a chance to check out your site yet…but I will be sure to stop by and visit- especially if there are good photos lurking around in there

Whats kind of research are/did you do at Duke?

Always,
Kelley

I’m a big fan of Ocellated, so any blog recommended there, I’ll be sure to check now and then… And anyone with BugGuide in their links section is officially OK by me!

One correction: in your beetle photo section, you have a photo labelled “Water Boatman - Corixidae”. If this were true, it would belong in the “True Bugs” area. But the photo is of a beetle, specifically a Whirligig Beetle, family Gyrinidae.

And speaking of BugGuide, I’m pretty sure your unidentified fly, the orange one with the white-flecked black wings, is already ID’d in there somewhere. One of the Tephritidae, maybe? Cannot remember off the top of my head. Too late at night to hunt it down now…

I’m very much a newcomer to the blog world, but I know several bloggers who are invert enthusiasts combine forces for some sort of periodic meta-blog they call “Carnival of the Spineless”. I don’t have the URL handy, but I’m sure it’ll show up on Google.

About my website: I know, it’s horribly out-of-date with many broken links. I’m mostly keeping it up for some of my favorite old photos that are up there.

Cheers!

Josh