Our weather hasn't been great this week (again). Lots of wind and rain and more tornadoes, very rare this time of year. (Sarasota and Manatee Counties, where serious tornados struck around 4 on Sunday morning, are about an hour north of us.) But by daylight on Sunday morning it was warm here — and as usual when the sun comes out after a rain, the sky was blue and it was hard to believe that we'd had a night of raging storms. (At least, Bill tells me that it raged — I actually slept through the rain and wind — as well as the TV weather updates and tornado alerts that he was keeping an eye on.) We continue to hope for a quick return to the winter weather we know and love, but know that all things considered, we are fortunate.
We were able to get one day trip to the beach (by car) last week — and I will show some pictures of that on other posts. But the lack of outdoor activity is a great opportunity for some needed catching up.
Blogging is such a great way to learn. Whenever I spend time visiting other blogs, I learn something new about another State or another Country — or something new about one of our interests — travel, nature photography, books, boats, food, birds, flowers (and often things I didn't even know I was interested in until I read about them).
And sometimes I even learn something new from posting on my own blog. This post is about the last — things I learned because of my own posts.
There were different pictures of each of the above plants in earlier posts but I couldn't identify them. Then Monica, who blogs as NATURE FOOTSTEP, told me in a comment that the beautiful lavender-colored flower (bottom) was called Calotropis Gigantea (also known as crown flower or Giant Milkweed). It is a host plant for Monarchs. Thank you Monica!
And in a stroke of serendipity, the very next Sunday after I made the posts using Manatee Park flowers, the plant column in the local paper had an article (and picture) about the leathery-looking patterned flower at the center right above. It is called the Dutchman's Pipevine and it is the host plant for the Pipevine Swallow Tail Butterfly.
The two plants on the left are types of milkweed, which are hosts for Monarchs. (I found the ID for that one on a website).
The pictures in the collage below are butterflies that I saw at Manatee Park. The blue one is the Pipevine Swallow Tail and it is not my picture (I did see the butterfly – and as soon as I am lucky enough to take my own picture I will replace this public domain one). The other two are my own. The one on the bottom is a monarch on milkweed and the one on the right top is a Buckeye.
Those are mangrove plants in the background and mangroves are the host plant for the Common Buckeye.
I know I just posted the mushroom-eating squirrel below last Friday and it isn't even a different picture of him, since I only have the two I showed in that post. But I learned something so interesting from a comment on that post that I wanted to share it (which of course also helps me to remember it).
Margaret (of BIRDING FOR PLEASURE) , very generously did the research I should have done before posting about squirrels eating mushrooms. Like most of you, I wondered how the squirrel knew whether or not the mushroom was toxic (and hoped it did have some way of knowing). Here is her comment:
HI Sallie Well I did not know that Squirrels eat mushrooms so of course i had to find out more and thought you might be interested to know this also. Squirrels have the ability to eat toxic mushrooms as described below. Are there any mushrooms that they can't eat without dying? According to Dr. John Rippon, an IMA member and world expert on fungal diseases, squirrels have an interesting adaptation that allows them to eat mushrooms containing deadly amanita-toxins without being affected. There are three important chemicals in the amanitas. Two will knock you right off, but are destroyed in cooking. The third one is the interesting one: it consists of the second amanitin, bound tightly to a glycoprotein molecule. When we digest the mushroom, the enzymes in our gut break the bond between the toxin and the glycoprotein, leaving the toxin free to enter our bloodstream, while the glycoprotein is excreted (a glycoprotein is a [protein containing sugar molecules and accounts for the viscous properties of mucus], in case you don't know). What the squirrels have done is line their gut with a toxin-compatible glycoprotein, so that as soon as it gets split from its original glycoprotein molecule, it gets rebound to the squirrel glycoprotein, and excreted along with it. Obviously, the squirrels don't cook their food to destroy the first two molecules, but presumably those get bound in exactly the same way. Thus, squirrels and a few other animals (guinea pigs also, I believe) can eat mushrooms that are highly toxic to other animals with no ill effects.
Thank you for teaching us something new and so interesting Margaret. (And if you're a mushroom hunter — definitely don't go out in the woods and think you can eat a mushroom just because you see a squirrel doing so without ill effects!)
Thank you to every single one of my blog-world friends for sharing the beauty and inspiration and wonderful scenery … and for giving me a reason to post my own pictures! Special thanks to Monica and Margaret and as always the hosts of the sharing opportunities where I'm linking today: OUR WORLD on TUESDAY (Lady Fi, Sylvia, Sandy, Gattina, Arija, and Jenn); Michelle's NATURE NOTES; and Judith's MOSAIC MONDAY
Because it has rained so much more than usual this winter, the glades are wetter than usual, but there were enough places that had very little water so that we got the idea of gliding over the grass. 
