The below Jacksonville area photos were added to their respective sections of the website in October 2024. I assembled them here so you didn't have to hunt for photos scattered across multiple pages.

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Daytime rainbow taken through a second-story dirty window in Jacksonville, Florida (August 31, 2024)
[Behind the four palm trees against a backdrop of near complete cloud cover is a partial rainbow extending from the tree tops on the lower right to midway on the left into the window frame. The bands of color are relatively wide and purle, blue, green, yellow, orange, and red are visible from inner to outer stripe across the sky.]

February 6, 2024 - I noticed this hooded merganser couple on a nearby pond.
[The two birds sit in the water with the male facing to the right and the female facing to the back so her face is not visible. The female is on the left and her head feathers are fanned into a circle. The male's head is mostly black with a white swath from behind the eye to the back of his head. The front of his body is white with a thin black stripe. His body is brown with black and white feathers on top. The female is grey with black and white feathers.]

February 6, 2024 - Back view of the female
[Close view looking straight at the hind end of the female whose head is facing right. Her bill is orange on the bottom and nearly black on top. Her head feathers are puffed nearly into a half-sphere on the back of her head. Her top feathers are black with white stripes going the length of the feather. They are shinier and less matted than the underneath feathers which are all brown.]

February 6, 2024 - A close view of a different female
[Close view of a female facing right. Her bill is orange on the bottom and brownish on top. Her head feathers have a small white streak going from her eye to the back of her head. They are much smoother and closer to her head than the other female. The rest of the head is shades of light brown. Her belly feathers are a light tan while the top feathers are a darker brown.]

I think this one is a male eastern bluebird.
[This bluebird facing toward the camera is on a rooftop looking down. The head is greyish blue, but the tail is not visible. The upper belly is a bright rust red which is why I think it is a male. The lower belly is white and the feet are not visible.]

This yellow-rumped warbler looks like it is glaring at me.
[The warbler is perched on a vertical branch facing left in full sunlight. Its body is partially hidden behind the branch. There is only a yellow spot on the back. The rest of the body gray and black with the belly being white and grey. The bird is looking directly at the camera and the angle of its beak is such that the bird appears to be glaring. ]

Just a morning stroll across the Sam's Club parking lot for this frog.
[The frog has its front legs close to its body and flexed as if getting ready for the next leap. The back legs are almost completely stretched.]

Eastern lubber grasshopper
[Side view of the right side of the brown grasshopper with speckles of black on its wings and legs as it is perched on a plant with dark waxy green oval leaves. The wings extend approximately half the length of the body.]

Ghost Bulimulus - an invasive tree snail on a fence
[Two photos spliced together of the same snail. The one on the left is the snail moving upward. The long antenna are dark brown while the body is a caramel brown. The shells is dark brown at the tip and lighter at the wide part near the body. There is one short caramel brown antenna near the right long antenna. The photo on the right is the snail moving horizontally to the right. Both short antennas are visible between the much longer ones. The body is horizontal to the ground, but the shell is pointing toward what would be the 8 in a clock. It seems the shell is just attached like a hump in the middle of the back of the snail.]

A tiny herpetogramma abdominalis moth on the other side of the window
[This moth has two large dark brown eyes, but the rest of the moth is white and light beige. The legs are thin and white. The wings do have a splotchy pattern visible on them which is the beige portion on the white. The wings are fully extended and the complete underside of the moth is visible through the window glass.]

Fir tussock moth caterpillar with its dark antennas blending with the cement (April 2024)
[Top-down view of a very hairy caterpillar crawling across the dark concrete speckled with light-green moss. The long antenna are black and the tail has a section that is brown with the end section being black. This caterpillar has really fat beige tussocks with short white hairs protruding from them. The rest of the body is balck with yellow clumps on either side. The head section on this one is shorter than the prior caterpillar.]

Swamp cicada on its back
[The cicada is on its back on the sidewalk. The clear brown wings extend to the left beyond the body. The four visible legs and part of the body are green. The rest of the body is a blackish brown. The head section appears wider than the boday although it could just be an upper body section.]

Eastern red cedar trying to cross the road. (February 2, 2024)
[Growing in the area between the sidewalk and the road is a tree with a relatively wide trunk. The top greenery of the tree is vertical for the lower third but then the upper parts start curving toward the road making an arc as if the tree is trying to grow across the road instead of upward.]

Date palm flowers and the subsequent "leaves" produced (September 13 and 21, 2024)
[Two photos spliced together. On the left is a front view of the cream-colored blooming strands as seen above the hedges. On the right is the same branch eight days later and each strand is now thin and light green as if it is the start of new palm leaves. ]

The "leaves" continue to develop. Here is the branch two weeks later. (October 4, 2024)
[A close view of just the branch shows the gree and beige coloring. Each future palm strand is a spirally extension from the base. ]

Two different flower clumps on this Firebush with only a few flowers blooming (September 21, 2024)
[This tree has dark green oval leaves with clumps of blooms extending from the ends. The clumps have approximately two dozen long thin orange tubes from which the very tips will open into a yellow bloom with tiny petals at the end and a long tube-like throat. The image on the left has one bloom open. The image on the right has four blooms open. All the rest are completely closed orange cylinders.]

Firebush is a small tree in the coffee family. (September 21, 2024)
[The blooms are on trees which have grown above and are behind the top of a six foot wooden panel fence. There are likely two trees in this image given the shape of the top of the trees. The orange blooms are clumps in the middle of the greenery. ]

Chandelier plant (February 2, 2024)
[Two photos spliced together. On the left is nearly the entire plants from ground to top. They extend beyond the height of a white utility post. The blooms mostly hang from the tops of the plants, but some are at lower levels. On the right is a close view of the tubular red bell-shaped blooms. The plant is not green at all. The stem and what are probably leaves are mostly brown.]

I'm guessing this is some type of iris. (October 4, 2024)
[A plant with large oblong leaves has one stalk atop which an orange bloom sits. The bloom has several very large petals. ]

Common four o'clock bloom (September 21, 2024)
[This plant has several closed blooms-to-be which are white and one completely open white bloom with a long curly stamen. The flowers have a long white-green stem atop which the bloom sits. In the background is a red opened bloom.]

Creeping wood sorrel (April 14, 2024)
[Two five-petal yellow blooms are all yellow except for a red-orange ringing the yellow center stamen. Surrounding it are many three-petal clover-shaped leaves with one long wide blade of grass under the edge of one petal.]

White (April 14, 2024) and yellow (April 27, 2024) blue-eyed grass
[Two images spliced together. The image on the left is a top-front view of a six-petaled white flower. The center of the flower is yellow with the outer part of ringed with purple. There is some purple extending as a line in the middle of the petal. The image on the right is a top-down image of one bloom with six yellow petals. Its center is also yellow and is ringed with purple and extending in a line down the center of the petal. ]

These mushrooms look like little hats. (September 13, 2024)
[Two mushrooms in the grass. The caps are shaped like sombreros and have the head part white/tan and the brim part brown.]

A mushroom with an interesting pattern in its cap (September 13, 2024)
[Top-down view of the circularmushroom cap. The cap has small ridges emanating from the center to the outer edges and some of the ridges are darker than others giving the cap a variegated effect.]

Lots of mushrooms in this one area (September 13, 2024)
[Top down view of nearly two dozen light brown mushroom caps of varying spherical sizes. The caps appear domed and smooth.]

An unusual shape and color, but I've not yet found its name (September 15, 2024)
[The mushroom has a reddish pink cap of a near rectangular shape with several cracks along the top. The stem is either light yellow or off-white and appears large in diameter.]

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All photos © S. M. Garver