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Sarah E. Kelsey

@botanylicious.bsky.social

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 📸 botanylicious.darkroom.com ☕ buymeacoffee.com/sarahekelsey

187 Posts130 Follower 110 Folgt

Sarah E. Kelsey @botanylicious.bsky.social · 7h ago

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

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Sarah E. Kelsey @botanylicious.bsky.social · 5d ago

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.

Sarah E. Kelsey @botanylicious.bsky.social · 5d ago

Great egret taking off from the shores of Constitution Lakes is the #BirdOfTheDay #EgretsAndHerons #Ardeidae #GeorgiaBirds #AtlantaBirds #ConstitutionLakes

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.

Matt Bertone @bertonemyia.bsky.social · 7d ago

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.

Sarah E. Kelsey @botanylicious.bsky.social · 6d ago

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

Bruce Stiftel @brucestiftel.bsky.social · last wk.

"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.

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Sarah E. Kelsey @botanylicious.bsky.social · last wk.

New photo essay celebrating the Okefenokee Swamp! Cover photo is a juvenile alligator mostly submerged in a pond that reflects blue sky and longleaf pine forest. Photos in post include alt text. #CNF #OkefenokeeSwamp #PublicLands #NatureWriting #NaturePhotography

Celebrating the Swamp

Okefenokee Swamp is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site

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Evelyndroid's Aperture Science and Bugge-Finding 🏳️‍⚧️🕷️@apsciencebylyn.bsky.social · last wk.

I'm not the only one who loves ant mimic salticids 👀 That weird little thing hugging the back of the spider's head is a mantidfly baby - it will remain attached to this female Peckhamia until she lays her eggs, and then it'll borrow some eggs permanently. #PHORESY!

Red and black ant-like jumping spider on a leaf - wrapped on her pedicel is a small orange 6-legged larvae

Closer shot of the spider, and the sneaky passenger

Helen Bennett 🌿@helenbennett.bsky.social · 2w ago

A quiet 5:00am discovery! 🌿 This beautiful male Green-eyed Flower Bee still sleeping... his jaws tightly clamped to a Verbena leaf. He chose his favourite feeding spot as a safe place for the night 💚 📷 🕊️ #Bees #Pollinators #BugSky #Invert #Insects #UKWildlife #Nature #MacroPhotography #ECK

Sarah E. Kelsey @botanylicious.bsky.social · 2w ago

Two blue dayflowers photographed two Tuesdays ago at Constitution Lakes, pale blue Virginia dayflower (Commelina virginica) and vivid, darker blue Asiatic dayflower (C. communis). #BlueTue #ColorADay #Bloomscrolling #MacroPhotography #Commelinaceae

In the center of five long, wide, dark green linear leaves with parallel venation, the three-petaled pale blue flower of Virginia dayflower. The petals (or perhaps tepals) are wide semicircles that curve and sharply taper to very thin, linear bases that connect in the center of the flower, where there is a spray of bright yellow anthers. The petals of this flower are such a pale blue that they are almost white.

A vivid, brilliant cerulean dayflower blossom with two of its petals visible to either side of a spray of bright yellow anthers; they extend from both sides of the flower at an angle, like wide bunny ears. The flower has long, wide, linear, dark green leaves with parallel venation. Some of the leaves had pale yellow-green spots, perhaps caused by a gall or some kind of pathogen.

Sarah E. Kelsey @botanylicious.bsky.social · 2w ago

Happy #NationalMothWeek! In honor of @mothweek.bsky.social , a post from the archives. Cover photo is a white-lined sphinx moths on sunflower. Post includes voiceover narration and alt text for all photos. #CNF #NatureWriting #BugSky #MothMonday #MacroMonday

It's National Moth Week!

A celebration of my favorite community science event, including Notes from Both Porches - After Dark Edition.

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Sarah E. Kelsey @botanylicious.bsky.social · 2w ago

Newest Substack post includes more #PollinatorWeek finds around metro Atlanta. Bees, beetles, butterflies, and more. Cover photo is an iridescent flea beetle on leaves. All photos include alt text and post includes voiceover narration for accessibility. #CNF #NatureWriting #BugSky #MacroMonday

More Life on Leaves

and other Pollinator Week highlights

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Kristin Wyatt @kristinwyatt.bsky.social · 2w ago

Look out for that yellowjacket..... wait that's not a yellowjacket, it's actually a Riley's Clearwing Moth! They are amazing mimics that host on the Horse-nettle plant. It's National Moth Week July 18 - July 26. #MothWeek #NationalMothWeek #moths #nature #photography

A black and yellow striped moth with lovely red markings on its clear wings.

Sarah E. Kelsey @botanylicious.bsky.social · 3w ago

Happy #FlyDay! First ever Orange Sulphur butterfly (Colias eurytheme) #butterfly in my Atlanta #garden! #BugSky #Bloomscrolling

Sarah E. Kelsey @botanylicious.bsky.social · 3w ago

This week's essay is mostly photos, a few of the many cool things I've seen in Atlanta area parks in just the first few weeks of summer, like the #queensnake in the cover photo. World Snake Day is just two days away! #CNF #NatureWriting #NaturePhotography #Snake #Herps

Notes from the Field

An early summer gallery of nature seen around Atlanta

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Sarah E. Kelsey @botanylicious.bsky.social · 4w ago

Happy #DragonflyWeek! Here's an ebony jewelwing (Calopteryx maculata), a favorite local #damselfly species, recently photographed at the Abbotts Bridge Unit of Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area. #Odonata #BugSky #PublicLands

Sarah E. Kelsey @botanylicious.bsky.social · 4w ago

Red-headed bush cricket (Phyllopalpus pulchellus) hanging out on a leaf at Constitution Lakes. #Orthoptera #RedWed #ColorADay #BugSky

Sarah E. Kelsey @botanylicious.bsky.social · 4w ago

My last #lifer was a heard-only, and my second most recent was all the way back in February: red-breasted mergansers at Lake Zwerner in North Georgia. #BirdOfTheDay

Six red-breasted mergansers crossing a darkly overcast sky. In this low light, the colors of the birds are muted. The mergansers have pale bellies and dark wings, a russet cast to their pale breasts, and dark heads. Their heads are so narrow they are barely distinguishable from the birds' pale necks, but for their darker color.

Sarah E. Kelsey @botanylicious.bsky.social · last mo.

Georgia's passionflowers and the #insects that depend on them. Lots of #MacroPhotography and an essay. Cover photo is yellow passionflower, Passiflora lutea. Alt text for all photos and voiceover narration for accessibility. #CNF #NatureWriting #BugSky #MacroMonday #Bloomscrolling #Passiflora

Passiflora Fireworks

A highlight of Pollinator Week 2026

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Sarah E. Kelsey @botanylicious.bsky.social · last mo.

Happy #FlyDay! This bright, ornate creature has the unfortunate common name Pepper Maggot, due to its larvae's penchant for solanaceous plants. Pest status aside, I think it's lovely. Here it's on some wild nightshade in a ditch in a Gwinnett County park. #BugSky #Diptera #MacroPhotography

Close-up macro photo of an adult pepper maggot fly (Zonosemata electa), shown from above on a fuzzy plant stem. The fly is many shades of yellow, with a golden abdomen, mustard gold striped with bright dandelion yellow on the thorax, and a yellow head. The wings are transparent but lined with black, the lines in different directions making art deco shapes.

Close-up macro photo of an adult pepper maggot fly (Zonosemata electa), shown facing the camera, resting on a small green tomato-like fruit with long, fuzzy sepals. The fly is many shades of yellow, with a golden abdomen, mustard gold striped with bright dandelion yellow on the thorax, and a yellow head with large, round eyes, yellow ringing reddish centers (at least in the lighting of this photo). The wings are transparent but lined with black, the lines in different directions making art deco shapes.

Sarah E. Kelsey @botanylicious.bsky.social · last mo.

A highlight of June was finally seeing a passionflower bee, Protandrena passiflorae. These pollen thieves collect pollen only from Passiflora lutea to feed to their larvae, without actually transferring much pollen between flowers. #MacroMonday #Bloomscrolling #BugSky #Bees #Hymenoptera #Passiflora

Close-up of a yellow passionflower, a small blossom that resembles a sci fi spaceship, at the end of a slender yellow-green vine. The flowers are mostly yellow-green with a fringe of yellow-green radiating from a center surrounded by upright, thin yellow and dark purple fringe-like floral structures, and protruding above these, a darker yellow-green structure with recurved greenish structures radiating from it. This flower is hard to describe.

Close-up of a tiny black bee with pale blackish-blue-ish eyes perched on the greenish yellow fringe of a passionflower, against a background of blue sky and pale greenish leaves

Close-up of a shiny black bee, eyes reflecting the green of the flowers, hanging down from the yellow-green fringe of a yellow passionflower

Sarah E. Kelsey @botanylicious.bsky.social · last mo.

American lady butterfly (Virginia virginiensis) on coneflower in my garden. #PinkMon #ColorADay #BugSky #BloomScrolling #Butterfly

Sarah E. Kelsey @botanylicious.bsky.social · last mo.

I birded without taking many bird photos this June. I liked that this female mallard diving into the Chattahoochee River was close enough that I could see her head underwater and not just duck butt. Friday, 6/26/26, Cochran Shoals. #BestOfJune26 #BirdOfTheDay #Ducks #GeorgiaBirds #PublicLands

Diving brown female mallard duck in brown water, showing the graceful, curved neck of the duck stretched out, very long, as her head and yellow-brown bill poke around at the brown ground. The only thing that isn't brown in this photo are her orange feet.

Sarah E. Kelsey @botanylicious.bsky.social · last mo.

New essay on #neurodivergence and nature, with detours to a Sandhills roadside paradise and my kitchen. Cover photo is a box turtle eating a white mushroom. All photos in the essay have alt text, and the post includes voiceover narration. #CNF #ActuallyAutistic #NatureWriting #NaturePhotography

The Forest for the Trees

On life lists and bottom-up processing

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Sarah E. Kelsey @botanylicious.bsky.social · last mo.

Northern yellow warbler in the wafer ash tree, migrating through my garden in early May. #Birds&Buds #BirdsOfTheDay #GeorgiaBirds #Bloomscrolling

The bright green, trifoliate compound leaves and loose domes of small white flowers of a wafer ash tree fill most of the frame, with a bright yellow bird peeking out from behind flowers in the bottom left of the frame. The petite yellow bird has a black eye, dark gray small, pointed bill, and dark reddish-brown vertical stripes down his breast. The back half (or maybe more than half) of the bird are mostly hidden by the flowers and leaves, just a few small glimpses of bright yellow glowing in the gaps between the small white blossoms.

Sarah E. Kelsey @botanylicious.bsky.social · last mo.

Happy #PollinatorWeek! While looking for #LifeOnALeaf, I found teeny tiny tumbling flower beetles (tentative ID is Mordellistena trifasciata) on elderberry leaves. Though not actively pollinating at the time, tiny beetles are pollinators, too! #Coleoptera #MacroPhotography #BugSky #Mordellidae

Close-up macro photo of a tumbling flower beetle with a narrow, tapered body; reddish brown head and thorax, and wings banded with espresso and gold stripes. The beetle rests on the edge of a slightly fuzzy green elderberry leaf with curved, serrated margins.

Sarah E. Kelsey @botanylicious.bsky.social · last mo.

#Touchdown of a great egret on the shores of Lake Hatchineha in Central Florida this past winter. #BirdOfTheDay #Ardeidae #BirdPhotography #FloridaBirds

A great egret, a very large wading bird with black legs, a thin and pointy yellow-orange bill, and entirely white plumage, wings raised above the bird's body and out to the sides, about to land, flying low over a shallow, still lake that is bronze-y brown reflecting the wintry brown grasses and other plant matter all around. Some dark green plants with large, flat leaves (I think spatterdock, not water lilies) float on the water.

Sarah E. Kelsey @botanylicious.bsky.social · last mo.

It's #PollinatorWeek and #PinkMon! Some visitors to the #Echinacea in my garden — paper wasp, Zethus spinipes (solitary wasp with no common name), glassy-winged sharpshooter pretending to be a ray flower, and gray hairstreak butterfly. #BugSky #MacroMonday #ColorADay #Bloomscrolling

A paper wasp on echinacea (purple coneflower, though it's really pink). The disc florets comprising the flower's center are tiny pinkish orange and the ray flowers (which look like petals) are long and purplish-pink. The wasp has a slender body a mix of rusty reddish-brown and black, with some pale yellowish stripes, narrow dark wings, and big reddish-brown eyes.

Echinacea (aka purple coneflower, though it's really pink I think), with a black and white potter wasp creeping around under the flower head. The coneflower's center is comprised of tiny orange and green disc florets and the ray flowers (which look like petals) are still forming, very pale pink with a touch of green, narrow and not very long and pointing skyward. Under the flower-head is the involucre, a fancy word for the sepal-like bracts (a fancy word for specialized leaves) under the flowerhead. The wasp is walking around and upwards on the involucre. The wasp's body is very narrow, then curves to a big round bottom. The wings are long, narrow, and black. There are some small white markings on the wasp but he or she is otherwise totally black.

A large planthopper with mottled red wings rests on the pink ray flower of echinacea (aka purple coneflower, but these are pink) as though pretending to be one of them. The petalloid ray flowers are bright bubble gum pink, not totally formed and a bit short, and pointing skywards, obscuring the pinkish orange center of tiny disc florets and revealing all of the green involucre — a fancy word for the narrow, pointed, and abundant green sepalloid bracts (fancy words for the sepal-like specialized small leaves) at the base of the flower head. This scene is the midground of the photo; in the foreground bottom right is part of another coneflower, fully blooming, with the orange disc florets in soft focus and the pink, long ray flowers also in soft focus except those that reach towards the midground and the sharpshooter/planthopper. As they reach that plant, they come into sharp focus.

Sarah E. Kelsey @botanylicious.bsky.social · last mo.

#BirdsInTheirElement — city birds thriving in my neighborhood. Mourning doves on the shed roof, red-tailed hawk in the ivy-covered water oak, mockingbird on my roof, fledgling mockingbird on a fence. #BirdOfTheDay #GeorgiaBirds #AtlantaBirds

A pair of mourning doves, pale grayish tan birds with pale sky-blue eyerings, against a dreamy soft focus background of different leaf greens, resting on a soft focus gray roof of a tan building.

A pale gray mockingbird on the peak of a white roof covered in black shingles (the wood part is white), against soft focus dappled foliage and pale overcast sky. The mockingbird's wings are black with white wingbars. The bird's head is tilted, bill pointed down at something on the ground, out of frame.

An adorable, floofy fledgling mockingbird, pale gray with black wings that have white wingbars, with a medium gray head and darker gray speckles all over white throat and breast. The fledgling is perched on a chain-link fence, the cylindrical metal bar on top a mix of silver and rusty red. The background is all soft focus dark foliage. The fledgling faces the camera.

Sarah E. Kelsey @botanylicious.bsky.social · last mo.

A garden gallery from this weekend celebrating #PollinatorWeek #LifeOnALeaf Cover photo is a pipevine swallowtail caterpillar on pipevine. All photos in the post include alt text. #MacroMonday #BugSky #MacroPhotography #CNF #NatureWriting #PollinatorWeek2026

Life on the Leaves

Pollinator Week begins

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