Mud
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Mud-puddling is a feeding behaviour displayed by butterflies. Although they primarily feed on nectar they seek out other essential nutrients including minerals and amino acids in moist substances such as rotting plant matter and mud. Where the conditions are suitable, butterflies form aggregations while mud-puddling.
There are six species of butterflies in this photo taken at Phnom Kulen National Park, Cambodia. I have identified two species. The large butterflies are yellow helens, Papilio nephelus. The white butterfly in flight is the same as the yellow and white butterflies with a dark edge at the edge of their wings. They are chocolate albatrosses, Appias lyncida.
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There is an almost alive quality with fresh-molded mud that makes me want to cry when someone has gone slip-sliding across its folds and joints. I try to leave it as I found it to delight the next person who chooses to admire its unique beauty.
Something different today....
Many swallows built these impressive and unique mud nests on one side of Yellowstone's Soda Butte.
For some reason they didn't stick around to pose for me....
Soda Butte in comments.
Thanks for taking a look! Always appreciated.
American coots display several interesting breeding habits; mothers will preferentially feed offspring with the brightest plume feathers, which has resulted in coot chicks having brightly ornamented plumage which becomes drabber as they age.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_coot
Central Park, Ormond Beach. Florida, USA
www.alltrails.com/trail/us/florida/ormond-beach-central-p...
House Sparrows (Passer domesticus) When you have a bath in a muddy puddle even the splashes are muddy!
The River Forth which flows from the Trossachs in west central Scotland, to the North Sea at Edinburgh, is what I consider my 'own' river. I have wandered its banks since I was a child, exploring every mile of its meandering muddy lengths. My old primary school at Fallin is just out of shot to the right. I have swam in it, fished in it (with moderate success), sailed its lengths and generally delighted in its existence all my life, - it is a very special river. It can be both beautiful and treacherous. On this day back in 2010 however, it was parading its best colours.
We are fortunate to have Bear Lake National Wildlife Refuge, Idaho, here in the valley, just a 15 minute drive from home. I didn't have any luck finding wildlife there today, so looked for landscapes and found this mud circle. The area is a salty mud flat where I have photographed acres of bright red pickleweed in the past. Today most of the plants were gone, leaving a soggy mud flat and a few mysterious circles like this one. Each circle has a cluster of dead plants in the center. I suspect that the area around each plant is a little higher that the mud around it, so it has dried more than the rest of the mud flat, forming a light colored circle. The dark mud was still wet and sticky, so my hiking boots are a caked, muddy mess.
This image could be a close up or a hill side. I deliberately left out any scale indication. It is the eroding side of a hill. I just liked its graphical nature when isolated and stripped of reference points.
But the dried grasses might give it away.
Though warthogs appear ferocious, they are basically grazers. They eat grasses and plants, and also use their snouts to dig or “root” for roots or bulbs. When startled or threatened, warthogs can be surprisingly fast, running at speeds of up to 30 miles an hour.
Warthogs are adaptable and are able to go long periods without water, as much as several months in the dry season.
When water is available, warthogs will seek it and often submerge to cool down. They will also wallow in mud for the same purpose—and to gain relief from insects. Birds also aid these hogs in their battle with insects; oxpeckers and other species sometimes ride along on their warthog hosts, feeding on the tiny creatures invading their hides.
This little camper was walking through the mud with her purple umbrella after a thankfully, small mud slide that didn't cause too much damage. I found it to be a nice color contrast. Hope you enjoy!
Autumn and winter is when most female grey seals haul themselves ashore to give birth.
It seems like a strange time to do it, when icy winds are blowing and the nights are long. One explanation is that after a summer of catching fish, the females are simply in great shape to feed their young.
When pups are born the mothers spin round to sniff them and get to know their smell. The pups are covered in fluffy white fur, not good camouflage on sand or pebbles you might think, but that's because it's a relic from the ice age when they would have been born on snow!
Female grey seals are dedicated parents, spending several weeks feeding their pups and losing up-to 65kg in the process. The pups drink two and a half litres of milk every day and it's so rich pups can grow by as much as 30kg in two weeks.
After a month or so, females leave their pups and head back out to sea where they feed and mate again. The pups can spend up to two weeks all alone on the beach while they build up the courage (and the right fur) to take the plunge into the sea and learn to fish for themselves.
In addition to battling bulls, I was treated to a unique photo op during the bison rut when we found this bison cow and her friend enjoying some yummy mud.
Bison, like many other wildlife species, eat dirt occasionally to add some vital minerals to their diet.
What you get when walking around in a muddy cow pasture, Mud Socks as shown by this Canada Goose (Branta canadensis)
These two yellow swallowtails were flittering around and stopping down in these little mud puddles. I wondered what was up with that. In checking afterwards, they extract the sodium they can get out of mud puddles to assist them with mating, called mud-puddlin'. So, was the flittering and cavorting around a little mating ritual, or two males fighting over the mud puddles? This was taken in the Timberwolf Ponds area of the Genesee County Parks, July, 2025.
Seventh picture of the series Canes & Mud.
(Is part of a third session, dawn last Saturday, with much softer lights. What do you think about this another sunrise? Soon I will post new photos of both session.)
Magical sunrise in this beautiful place that is the Albufera of Valencia.
The image title is because during the photoshoot, surrounded by all this beauty, calm water, boat, reeds, mud, tranquility, flying birds ... every moment reminded me a lot to the great novel "Cañas y Barro" of the great Valencian writer Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, set in rural Valencia (Albufera) of the early twentieth century, the novel observes and portrays the social reality of the time and place with absolute precision.
Would like to thank this picture to my friend Javier Girbés, which helped me a lot with the location and encouraged me to know this magnificent spot.
On the technical side, say that I only used a neutral gradient three steps filter.
I hope you like it. Have a nice Friday. :)
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We visited Donna Nook yesterday and spent a pleasant, sunny and relatively mild day watching the Grey Seals and their new pups. The pups we saw were all fairly new - we've usually visited a few weeks later, when there are more of the slightly older, barrel shaped ones but there was still plenty to see. This one was enjoying splashing around in a rather muddy looking pool at the edge of the dunes.
Twelfth picture of the series Canes & Mud.
(Just the next day of previous photoshoot, I tryed another time for take longer exposures. For this shot I wanted to guide with the light of dawn on the boat in the foreground)
Magical sunrise in this beautiful place that is the Albufera of Valencia.
The image title is because during the photoshoot, surrounded by all this beauty, calm water, boat, reeds, mud, tranquility, flying birds ... every moment reminded me a lot to the great novel "Cañas y Barro" of the great Valencian writer Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, set in rural Valencia (Albufera) of the early twentieth century, the novel observes and portrays the social reality of the time and place with absolute precision.
Would like to thank this picture to my friend Javier Girbés, which helped me a lot with the location and encouraged me to know this magnificent spot.
On the technical side, say that I only used a neutral gradient three steps filter.
I hope you like it. Have a nice Thursday. :)
My galleries:
Flickr: www.flickr.com/photos/112711738@N06/
500px: www.500px.com/dasanes77
Facebook: www.facebook.com/dasanes77
Instagram: @dasanes77
© Copyright: The reproduction, publication, modification, transmission or exploitation of any work contained herein for any use, personal or commercial, without my prior written permission is strictly prohibited.
Mud bog racing at the Pit in Virginia Motor Speedway. This portion of the race was a timed event where everyone made a pass by themselves down the same course. Later in the day there was head-to-head matchups
These mud cracks were an interesting sight and (in part) a result of a very dry spring - this was taken last May. This is at the Dutch Wadden Sea, a UNESCO heritage site and the largest tidal flat system in the world.
Death Valley—land of incredible textures and formations everywhere you turn. Only us photographers would actually roll around in the mud as I did a couple of mornings to capture some unique layered cracks. Cracks on top of cracks. I wanted to capture something a little different with some serious depth. I stack focused 7 shots here for sharpness throughout. Got a very brief, but intense, flash of color in the sky.