Category Archives: Biology

My first spider calendar

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My Dad is always urging me to send photographs to the nature organizations he’s fond of, with the hope that someday I might be featured in the calendars they send to their members and he can brag to his friends. I’m sick of the nudging so I decided to just make him one. Went with spiders because he’s less likely to know when I’ve misidentified something (he’s an entomologist). If you want to see the original of any of the images, they are all hyperlinked.

Sharing here, in part, in case anyone with experience ordering photo calendars can point me to a better online printing service. This one was from Shutterfly and was fairly easy to set up and configure, but I want to find a company that allows different formats of text within a single text box so that it’s easier to include both vernacular name and Latin binomial. Also, the one I sent to my Dad for Christmas never actually arrived, so I’m a bit disappointed in Shutterfly. And $30 seems expensive (I realize a coupon would help). Anyone have suggestions?

Cover spider is a golden silk orbweaver (Trichonephila clavipes). See original.

I’m on Mastodon!

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Just a quick post to share my account handle: @colinpurrington@flipping.rocks. Plus a screenshot of my profile page in case anyone not on Mastodon is curious what the layout is like. If you need a break from Twitter, I highly recommend the platform.

I chose the flipping.rocks instance because it’s set up for people who like exploring the natural world through photography. But I also follow people from other servers who make interesting posts about biology, geology, archaeology, food, etc. Like Twitter, you can follow anyone who brings you joy, plus block or mute those who are annoying or boring. You can also turn off “boosting” (=retweeting) for otherwise interesting people who tend to overshare. There’s a little bit of learning curve but Mastodon is a very enjoyable social media platform, full of people who like to engage rather than just lurk. Plus no ads.

If you’re interested in joining, here’s a page that lists servers (instances) by location and topic. Your choice influences how your local “feed” is populated. So if you want to see lots of posts about your home city, see whether there’s a server for that (e.g., sfba.social). Similarly, if you’re obsessed with birds, choose a server that caters to bird people (e.g., birds.town). You can also see where your Twitter friends have landed by using Twitodon or other similar services.