{"id":12927,"date":"2008-06-12T08:55:38","date_gmt":"2008-06-12T12:55:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/?p=12927"},"modified":"2014-01-16T15:17:17","modified_gmt":"2014-01-16T20:17:17","slug":"scott-and-toad-are-friends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/2008\/06\/12\/scott-and-toad-are-friends\/","title":{"rendered":"Scott and Toad are friends"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I made a few new friends this week.<\/p>\n<p>First came the toad below.  He was so oblivious to me that I almost stepped on him at first.  Even when I got down to his level to take this picture from a few inches away, he didn&#8217;t react to my presence except for an occasional blink. We&#8217;ve seen many toads in our backyard before, but they&#8217;re usually black, green, or grey, and never as garish as this orange one.<\/p>\n<p>I believe this to be an Eastern American Toad, though maybe there&#8217;s someone out there who knows better.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/2008Toad.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/2008Toad-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"2008Toad\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-12928\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/2008Toad-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/2008Toad.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><br \/>\nThen came the turtle below, so covered in mud that I couldn&#8217;t make out enough of its markings to take a stab at its species.  He eyed me suspiciously, and perhaps even glared, if turtles can be said to glare.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/2008Turtle.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/2008Turtle-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"2008Turtle\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-12929\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/2008Turtle-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/2008Turtle.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><br \/>\nBut the most interesting new visitor was this moth known as an Eight-Spotted Forester, aka an <i>alypia octomaculata fabricius<\/i>, if I am to trust the various identification guides I checked.  He landed on me, and would not leave.   He kept thrusting his proboscis at me, which rather than piercing my skin as would have occurred had  it been a mosquito, merely bent comically.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/2008Moth.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/2008Moth-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"2008Moth\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-12930\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/2008Moth-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/2008Moth.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Whenever I&#8217;d decide I&#8217;d had enough, and either shake or blow him off, he would just land on another part of exposed skin&#151;a hand, an arm, the back of my neck&#151;and  keep on trying to do whatever it was it thought it was trying to do. I have no idea whether the thing was trying to sting me or mate with me.<\/p>\n<p>As for the snakes, well, there&#8217;ll be no pictures of <i>those<\/i>, as I look at them not through the lens of my camera, but rather down the barrel of my shotgun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I made a few new friends this week. First came the toad below. He was so oblivious to me that I almost stepped on him at first. Even when I got down to his level to take this picture from a few inches away, he didn&#8217;t react to my presence except for an occasional blink. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12927"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12927\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12932,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12927\/revisions\/12932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}