What are we?

But first, the clues:

Palustris means swamp, swampy, or of the swamp.

Hot, stylish, phat, fly, and coxa are, or can be, other words for hip, although coxa is more literal than the others in that it refers to the hip bone.

So, now we have “swamp hip,” which doesn’t make a lot of sense. I was going to use a clue such as rosa or rouge but thought it a bit too obvious. So, I left it to you to piece it together, to visualize red fruit, hips, swamp…I only know of one fruit that is referred to as hips, and that is the fruit of roses.

Swamp Rose (Rosa palustris) in the Wetlands (5/26/10).

By the way, rose hips are edible, are very nutritious, can be made into tea, soup, jelly, syrup, and wine, among other things, and they have way more vitamin C than do oranges. So go pick you some hips, but make sure that the hips you pick have not been sprayed with some sort of pest or herbicide.

Swamp Rose grows in our Wetlands here at the Museum and is just one of several common species found in our area. It is very similar to Carolina Rose except for the habitat in which it tends to grow and the fact that the Swamp Rose has thorns that are recurved, curved backwards on the stem. The thorns on Carolina Rose are typically straight.

Multiflora Rose is an introduced plant and has many small white flowers, not single blossoms such as the Carolina and Swamp Roses display. Multiflora Rose can quickly take over a meadow or field edge, crowding out native plants.

What are we? (photo - 11/19/11)

Clues:

Palustris

Hot, stylish, phat, fly, also coxa.

If you don’t know, take a guess!

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Answer here.

Who made these tracks?

What’s this, splashes in the water? Yes, those splashes were made by something, your job is to figure out what. There are four distinct splashes. What creature would make tracks on the water’s surface, however temporary they are?

Things to consider:

My tracks are on the water.

My feeding behavior is a clue to my tracks.

Recent posts to this blog might help determine who I am.

Don’t be discouraged, a little deductive reasoning should help you figure this out.

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added 11/23/11 – Answer

Who am I?

Here's a closer view of me.

A Fabulous Prize could be yours if you’re the first person to correctly identify the subject of the photos!

See if you can find the bird, then identify it.

Don’t scroll down to the bottom of the page until you’ve had a look at the first image.

Can you find the bird?

Good job.

Now, what kind of bird?

Can you identify the bird?

Great, a woodpecker.

Now, what kind of woodpecker?

Drilling wells.

If you still don’t have it, here’s s a clue.

Have a good one,