Sarah E. Kelsey
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botanylicious.bsky.social
Sarah E. Kelsey
@botanylicious.bsky.social
150 followers 120 following 240 posts
Autistic naturalist, photographer, and CNF writer, documenting the Southeastern US through a neurodivergent lens with my weekly newsletter, Falling in a Bog.

✍️ sarahekelsey.substack.com
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botanylicious.bsky.social
Blue-winged scoliid wasp on late boneset for #WaspWednesday

#BugSky #WorldWaspWeek2026 #Scoliidae #Bloomscrolling
A black wasp with shiny black wings that look dark blue in the light, with a long abdomen that is mostly medium brown with gold fringed hairs between each segment and two pale yellow spots on the top brown abdominal segment. The wasp is walking and feeding on the flowers of boneset, which has compound corymbs (branched clusters of flowers arranged so that the top of the cluster appears flat) of small heads of many tiny white flowers.
September 24, 2026 at 12:06 AM
botanylicious.bsky.social
This week, a tribute to #Hymenoptera for #WorldWaspWeek! With a little help from Scottish poet William Sharp aka Fiona Macleod.

#BugSky #Wasps #WaspsAreWonderful #CNF #NatureWriting
A Tiger-Soul on Elfin Wings
A tribute to the unjustly maligned
sarahekelsey.substack.com
September 22, 2026 at 2:43 PM
botanylicious.bsky.social
A Sunday surprise in the back garden! Yellow-billed cuckoo painted with #LightAndShadow in a pecan tree. #BirdOfTheDay
Yellow-billed cuckoo sitting on a branch, body mostly turned towards the camera and face turned to the left of the frame, showing only the profile of the face. The bird has a white throat and belly, gray head and wings and back, and a black-and-white long spotted tail. The bird's bill is yellow and curved, and yellow rings a bright black eye. Part of the bird's white throat and breast are extra bright white from sun through the tree's leaves, while black lines of shadow paint lines down the bird' face and body. The branch is relatively thin, stretching diagonally from bottom left to the center top of the frame, and the canopy is full and bright emerald green.
September 21, 2026 at 12:03 PM
botanylicious.bsky.social
Tufted titmouse and smooth sumac in my garden. #BirdOfTheDay #BirdsWithBerries
A small blue-gray bird, shown in profile, perched on a flame-like pyramidal panicle of dark red berries.
September 17, 2026 at 1:14 AM
Reposted by Sarah E. Kelsey
hardlikearmour.bsky.social
A native Gentian from Goat Rocks Wilderness 8/2026. #ColorADay #BlueTue #ECK #Wildflowers #NativePlants
A close-up photo of a somewhat tubular cobalt blue flower, looking down into its opening. It has 5 petals with stripes in the throat of the tube and speckles where the petals flare out. The anthers are white. The foliage is a bright medium green.
September 16, 2026 at 12:29 AM
botanylicious.bsky.social
Painted lady (Vanessa cardui) on coneflower in my garden last week.

#PinkMon #ColorADay #Bloomscrolling #BugSky #MacroMonday #Butterfly
Against a soft focus green garden background with a soft focus pink coneflower in the foreground, an in-focus butterfly in the midground, shown in profile, gathering nectar from the coneflower (perhaps a flower head behind the one in the foreground.) The butterfly is facing the left of the frame, wing's closed. The wings are mostly a mosaic of white, cream, beige, taupe, tan, and dark brown, with a bright red orange splash on the hindwing (splotched with espresso and white shapes) and along the hindwing edge, four round eyespots, each dark in the center and ringed with white, the first and fourth with an extra outer ring, a thin border of espresso color (brown/black, kind of both or neither.)
September 14, 2026 at 1:50 PM
Reposted by Sarah E. Kelsey
lyndyphotos.bsky.social
For Rob’s clever #Mamas&Papas theme, a mated pair of great blue herons display their affection for each other at #Wakodahatchee Wetlands, #Florida. #BirdOfTheDay #EastCoastKin #birds
September 14, 2026 at 1:43 PM
botanylicious.bsky.social
Such policies are non-inclusive to disabled students. If I were a student in such an environment, I would find this dehumanizing, having to ask special permission to use basic tech like a laptop and automated captions.
djolder.bsky.social Daniel José Older @djolder.bsky.social · 11d
"The University of Chicago’s undergrad social-sciences division will go “analog” this fall, implementing a blanket policy banning technology in class and AI assistance on coursework across the division’s core courses."
www.chronicle.com/article/u-of...
U. of Chicago Bans Tech, AI in Social Sciences Core Courses
The new restrictions apply to students and faculty members.
www.chronicle.com
September 14, 2026 at 12:00 PM
botanylicious.bsky.social
When I saw today's #BirdOfTheDay theme #Mamas&Papas, I immediately thought of this courtship display that I apparently already shared. I'm reposting it for now, though I'll try to do a new post with others from the series later today.
botanylicious.bsky.social Sarah E. Kelsey @botanylicious.bsky.social · May 13
For the #BirdOfTheDay alt theme #Laridae, what appears to be a courtship feeding ritual of two royal terns (Thalasseus maximus) at Jekyll Island two years ago.

#RoyalTern #JekyllIsland #GeorgiaBirds #BirdBehavior #BirdPhotography #NaturePhotography
A pair of royal terns on a sandy beach. Both birds are mostly white, with light gray wings, black legs, a peaked black head crest, and bright orange bills. In this series of photos, they appear to be doing a courtship feeding ritual. The tern in the back of the pair is holding a fish, in every photo, and the tern in the front is not. In this photo, the front tern is shown in profile, facing left, perpendicular to and partially obscuring the tern in the back, whose head is slightly tilted back and partially obscured by the gray fish held in the tern's bill. A pair of royal terns on a sandy beach. Both birds are mostly white, with light gray wings, black legs, a peaked black head crest, and bright orange bills. In this series of photos, they appear to be doing a courtship feeding ritual. The tern in the back of the pair is holding a fish, in every photo, and the tern in the front is not. In this photo, the front tern is still shown in profile, body pointed towards the left of the frame, but head tilted up and slightly back, towards the other tern and the fish in his mouth. (I think the tern with the fish is the male.) The front tern has also stepped to the left and, compared to the first photo, is not hiding the back tern anymore. The back tern also has head tilted back and is looking up, still holding the gray fish. A pair of royal terns on a sandy beach. Both birds are mostly white, with light gray wings, black legs, a peaked black head crest, and bright orange bills. In this series of photos, they appear to be doing a courtship feeding ritual. The tern in the back of the pair is holding a fish, in every photo, and the tern in the front is not. In this photo, the terns are closer together and both are facing the same direction, toward the left of the frame, heads lowered slightly (compared to the last photo). The front tern (most likely the female) is stepping forward, and the back tern (most likely the male) follows closely behind her, tilting head upward to display the small gray fish held in his bill. One of his legs (his left, but on the right side from the viewer's perspective) is partially raised as though in mid-step. A pair of royal terns on a sandy beach. Both birds are mostly white, with light gray wings, black legs, a peaked black head crest, and bright orange bills. In this series of photos, they appear to be doing a courtship feeding ritual. The tern in the back of the pair is holding a fish, in every photo, and the tern in the front is not. Now the two terns have moved closer together. The tern in the front is now turned towards the right of the frame and is looking up towards the tern in the back, still holding the fish in his bill. The front tern appears to be gazing at him, the fish, or both. The back tern appears to be gazing downward at the female while also displaying the fish to her.
September 14, 2026 at 11:21 AM
Reposted by Sarah E. Kelsey
sandrafriend.com
Today's #BirdOfTheDay theme is #Mamas&Papas, male & female of the same species in the same photo.

A pair of wood storks on their nest at Wakodahatchee Wetlands.

#birds #birding #FloridaBirds #ECK
Two wood storks standing in a nest, one with a bill over the others torso
September 14, 2026 at 10:25 AM
botanylicious.bsky.social
Ruby-throated #hummingbird vs. bumblebee, the bird insisting on visiting *that* flower instead of an unoccupied one.
#AngryBirds #MyBestSide #BirdOfTheDay #Bloomscrolling
A green hummingbird shown in profile and in flight, facing the left of the frame and staring intently, perhaps crankily, into a pink-purple hibiscus blossom in which a black and yellow fuzzy bumblebee is resting. Right next to the occupied flower, facing the camera/viewer, is an open hibiscus blossom with no bees inside it and no pollinators visiting at all. The flowers top a slender woody branch curving gently across the frame and decked with fat green buds along its length. The background is dreamy, soft focus green.
September 13, 2026 at 11:15 PM
botanylicious.bsky.social
For #BigButterflyDay, an Eastern tiger swallowtail visiting buttonbush at Murphey Candler Park after today's storm.

#ColorADay #GreenSat #BugSky #Butterfly #Bloomscrolling
Against a dreamy soft focus background of multiple shades of green with a few sparkling white round spots of sunlight, greenish white balls of tiny flowers dangle from slender green stalks and, in a patch of sunlight, a yellow and black-striped butterfly hangs beneath one of the spheres of flowers, gathering nectar. The butterfly's wings are open, showing the ventral pattern.
September 13, 2026 at 1:14 AM
botanylicious.bsky.social
White-eyed vireo photographed on Friday at Murphey Candler Park, privet shadows painting his face. I made this #monochrome so the shadows might stand out more, only to learn that today's #BirdOfTheDay theme is #BirdsInAbstract — perfect!

#GeorgiaBirds #BirdPhotography #FallMigration
Grayscale photo of a small bird hanging sideways from a slender stem of small, oval berries. The berries and twigs cast shadows that look like painted curving lines on the bird's body. The bird has a bright, pale eye, staring down and to the left at the berries with intense focus.
September 13, 2026 at 1:08 AM
botanylicious.bsky.social
Another photo of the ruby-throated #hummingbird visiting verbena at Legacy Park on Tuesday. #BirdOfTheDay #Iridescence

#GeorgiaBirds #Bloomscrolling
A mostly iridescent olive green hummingbird, shown in profile, dark gray wings pointing forward and obscuring the bird's long black bill. The bird faces the right of the frame and a patch of verbena, which the bird hovers just above. The verbena has a compound inflorescence, many branching stems topped with thin columns of gray-green buds or spent blooms and with tiny pale purple flowers. The background is soft focus green dappled with shadow and yellow and golden light and brownish earth tones.
September 10, 2026 at 10:43 AM
botanylicious.bsky.social
Cute green tree frog hanging on some beans, with a squash beetle larva, at Legacy Park today.

#Frog #Herps #MacroPhotography #Coleoptera #TreeFrog
A small green tree frog, shown in profile, with a pale belly, bold white stripe between green back and belly, golden eyes, and yellow spots on a green back. The frog is hanging on a pale green bean pod. On the opposite side of the bean pod is a small, bright yellow, spiky beetle larva.
September 10, 2026 at 1:40 AM
botanylicious.bsky.social
Happy Gall Week! This week's Substack post highlights plant galls and a community science event happening right now!
Cover photo is a red oak leaf covered in bumpy galls.

#CNF #NatureWriting #iNaturalist #GallWeek #CommunityScience #CitizenScience #BugSky
Leaf Spots and Muppet Fluff
An introduction to plant galls and a call to join a community science event
sarahekelsey.substack.com
September 9, 2026 at 10:59 AM
botanylicious.bsky.social
Ruby-throated hummingbird visiting verbena at Legacy Park this morning, for today's #BirdOfTheDay alt theme #BirdsInGreen

#AtlantaBirds
A hummingbird with wide open wings, long black bill lowered into a tiny purple flower in a columnar cluster of buds and flowers on a branche plant. The hummingbird has a shiny olive green head and wings, a white belly, and black and white tail.
September 9, 2026 at 1:25 AM
botanylicious.bsky.social
This week's post highlights the Great Southeast Pollinator Census and some of the Southeast’s great pollinators.

Cover photo is a common Eastern bumblebee on a sunflower. Photos in post contain alt text.

#NatureWriting #BugSky #CommunityScience #YellowThu #Pollinators
A Phone, a Flower, and Fifteen Minutes
The Great Southeast Pollinator Census starts tomorrow!
sarahekelsey.substack.com
August 20, 2026 at 1:45 PM
botanylicious.bsky.social
New post, a collage of photos and stories and musings from the first half of summer and first two years of Falling in a Bog.

Cover photo is a stinging rose caterpillar, multicolored with lots of yellow spines, perfect for #YellowThu #ColorADay

#CNF #NatureWriting #BugSky
Collage
The midpoint of summer, two years of Falling in a Bog, and a glimpse of what's to come
sarahekelsey.substack.com
August 13, 2026 at 11:50 AM
botanylicious.bsky.social
New essay and photos featuring the birds and bugs of #ConstitutionLakes in Atlanta, as well as the Doll's Head Trail.

Cover photo is a great egret lifting off the ground. All photos in the post have alt text.

#CNF #NatureWriting #NaturePhotography #BugSky
Blue Tuesday and Golden Wednesday
Two visits to Constitution Lakes
open.substack.com
August 5, 2026 at 12:08 PM
botanylicious.bsky.social
This was new to me — a spider wasp dragging a spider at least twice her size over water.

#FlyDay #SpiderWasp #Spider #Wasp #BugSky
A large black wasp dragging an even larger brown spider, both of them on the surface of shallow water, in the center of a ring of ripples. The water reflects pale sky above and shows brown sand beneath the surface.
July 31, 2026 at 3:14 PM
botanylicious.bsky.social
Great egret taking off from the shores of Constitution Lakes is the #BirdOfTheDay #EgretsAndHerons

#Ardeidae #GeorgiaBirds #AtlantaBirds #ConstitutionLakes
A great egret in tall greenery on the muddy shore of a lake (dark and in the background). The egret is a very large white bird with wings raised above black legs, at an angle lifting off the ground (though mostly obscured by greenery). The bird is shown in profile, facing the left of the frame, and has a long, dagger-like, bright orange-yellow bill, as well as a bit of green between bill and eye. A great egret in tall greenery lifting off from the muddy shore of a lake (dark and in the background). The egret is a very large white bird with wings flapping downward. The bird's black legs are just above the ground. The bird is shown in profile, facing the left of the frame, and has a long, dagger-like, bright orange-yellow bill, as well as a bit of green between bill and eye. A great egret in tall greenery just beginning to fly above the muddy shore of a lake (dark and in the background). The egret is a very large white bird with wings upraised, and long, black legs. The bird is shown in profile, facing the left of the frame, and has a long, dagger-like, bright orange-yellow bill, as well as a bit of green between bill and eye. A great egret, a very large white wading bird with black legs and a bright orange-yellow bill, flying towards the top right of the frame, against a background of leafy branches of a shady forest.
July 31, 2026 at 2:57 PM
Reposted by Sarah E. Kelsey
bertonemyia.bsky.social
Be a dipterist. Be in Costa Rica for #FlySchool2026. See a muscoid #fly perching on a leaf. Tell student so they can collect it. Success!! Wait a minute 🤔 That's not a fly, but weevil mimicking one!

This was so convincing, even rapidly moving & poking its wings out 🥰 #Curculionidae: cf. #Mnemynurus
A weevil with red around its neck, resembling the eyes of a fly. It has large brown eyes and a long yellow proboscis curving under the body. It's on a white background facing the viewer. A weevil with red around its neck, resembling the eyes of a fly. It has large brown eyes and a long yellow proboscis curving under the body. The wing cover are mottled brown and white. It is on a white background facing left. A weevil with red around its neck, resembling the eyes of a fly. It has large brown eyes and a long yellow proboscis curving under the body. The wing cover are mottled brown and white. It is on a white background facing away. A weevil with red around its neck, resembling the eyes of a fly. It has large brown eyes and a long yellow proboscis curving under the body. The wing cover are mottled brown and white, and the wings are sticking out the back. It is on a white background facing away from the viewer.
July 30, 2026 at 3:24 AM
botanylicious.bsky.social
After weeks of being indoors or focusing my camera on bugs, I went to Constitution Lakes with my birding lens yesterday. How perfect that today's #BirdOfTheDay is #YourChoice so I can share yesterday's great egret seeming to consume the golden evening light.

#GreatEgret #Ardeidae #ArdeaAlba
Great egret, a very large white wading bird with black legs and a yellow bill, in profile facing the left of the frame, standing above a slightly rippled reflection, in dark greenish-brown water that, in some places, reflects sparkling golden evening light. The bird is lined up with one of those sparkles, bill partially open, so that it looks like part of the golden light is captured in the bird's bill. A more closely cropped and slightly brighter version of the same photo: Great egret, a very large white wading bird with black legs and a yellow bill, in profile facing the left of the frame, standing above a slightly rippled reflection, in dark greenish-brown water that, in some places, reflects sparkling golden evening light. The bird is lined up with one of those sparkles, bill partially open, so that it looks like part of the golden light is captured in the bird's bill. In this version, the bird takes up about a third of the frame.
July 30, 2026 at 1:22 PM
Reposted by Sarah E. Kelsey
brucestiftel.bsky.social
"In joining the list, the Okefenokee gives Georgia its first World Heritage destination and the U.S. its 27th site to make the cut. It’s also the first natural site in the U.S. to be added to the list in more than 30 years."

www.ajc.com/news/2026/07...
#UNESCO #OkefenokeeSwamp
Georgia’s Okefenokee Swamp is now a UNESCO World Heritage site
The Okefenokee is the first natural site in the U.S. to be added to the World Heritage List in more than 30 years.
www.ajc.com
July 26, 2026 at 3:56 PM