While I wait for banana slugs to emerge from hibernation, I’ve been experimenting with a macro shots.
Banana slugs are large enough to not require a macro lens, but the little non-native slugs who are still active are much more interesting in close ups.
Work it, Love. Beautiful!
Make up please, we need a little powder on that tentacle.
Sweetie, you don’t have a bad side. Just lovely.
Hold that pose, doll.
Filed under Humor, invasive slugs, Non-native slugs, Slugfari, winter
I should be thrilled that the Pacific Northwest is experiencing a mild winter, but I miss banana slugs. [Cue the violins.] Apparently the inconsiderate little jerks hibernate in the winter.
I have no idea when they will come out of their selfish stupor, but since one of their favorite repasts is Trillium and it blossoms in late March, I assume that’s when the big guys will emerge to once again terrorize the forest.
Until then I must amuse myself with invasive slugs, like this this fairly large, (3 inches long) non-banana slug I saw on yesterday’s slugfari. (By the way the fern pot on the front porch still contains baby slugs whom are regularly fed their favorite lettuce.)
Filed under Humor, invasive slugs, Slugfari, winter
Although I haven’t seen any banana slugs in the wild for over a month, baby bananas are still living in the pot of ferns on the front porch. Last week I photographed this baby munching on a piece of lettuce. The soil in the pot glistens with slime and there are tiny slime trails up the wall by the fern pot.
Click on photo for close-up view.
Filed under Baby Slugs, Life on the Porch, My Pet Slug
OK, OK, they’re invasive. But this post is about photos. Even these big brown moving turd-lovers can be pretty.
Filed under Non-native slugs, Slugfari, Top Ten
Another 10 best photos of banana slugs taken during slugfaris in 2011! (There were so many this is part 2 of 2 — so, there are actually 20, but who’s counting?)
Filed under banana slugs, Mushrooms and Toadstools, Slugfari, Top Ten
The 10 best photos of banana slugs taken during slugfaris in 2011! (There were so many this is part 1 of 2 — so, there are actually 20, but who’s counting?)
Filed under banana slugs, Slugfari, Top Ten
In 2011 a big, beautiful banana slug took up residence in a pot of ferns on our front porch for 6 months.
My Pet Slug napping in the fern pot. (Right center in pot.) The wood grate is our welcome mat.
I have yet to see a banana slug as large as My Pet Slug on slugfari.
Hand feeding fresh lettuce to My Pet Slug.
My Pet Slug rushing back to the fern pot after a slime about.
My Pet Slug with one of its offspring.
My Pet Slug often hung out near the base of the fern pot.
My Pet Slug giving its offspring a sluggy-back ride.
My Pet Slug guarding the house against solicitors. [ Taken with an iPhone before I got an SLR.] 
Epic slug fight between an invasive tiger slug and My Pet Slug. The tigerslug won. Video of the fight here.
The warrior returning to the fern pot after disappearing for a few days following the tiger slug fight. My Pet Slug’s right vision tentacle was injured, but later repaired itself.
Sliming before it disappeared into the dirt on a steaming, hot, dry day.
When the temperature rose to over 90 degrees, My Pet Slug disappeared into a hole between the dirt and the foundation of the house next door protected by gobs of its own slime.
Hand-feeding lettuce to a visiting slug in the fern pot.
My Pet Slug chased this large banana slug around the porch. Was their encounter territorial or sexual? 
A few weeks after My Pet Slug disappeared, I saw this slug on the back of the next door neighbor’s house. Our houses back onto a nature trail, forest and creek. Could it have been My Pet Slug? I’ll never know. There is more to this story.
My Pet Slug is gone, but I continue to feed lettuce to its babies who haven’t left the pot of ferns. I hope another banana slug makes our fern pot its spring/summer home in 2012.
Filed under Baby Slugs, Background, banana slugs, Humor, Life on the Porch, My Pet Slug, Non-native slugs, Video, Visiting Slugs
For over two weeks we’ve had freezing temperatures at night and in the morning. Most days it gets above freezing in the afternoon, but slugs are sluggish this time of year.
However, regardless, but and all those exception words — the sights in the forest continue to enthrall. Walking in the forest is always a treasure hunt. Saturday was all about ice crystals. On spiderwebs. On plants. Everywhere.
The dark, brown, “dead” forest was filled with beauty! From spider webs covered with ice.
To icy seeds.
It was as if nature had decorated for the holidays.
Red and green and icicles.
Pops of color!
A work of art. Mixed media – spider web covered with ice crystals. Amazing!
Since the banana slugs moved out of the front yard and into the forest, I’ve been walking in the woods to see them in nature.
But now the forest is covered with leaves and it’s nearly impossible to spot my favorite mollusks.
It’s hard to believe that somehow by next spring, the leaves will have broken down and be part of the ground.
Oh, and back to banana slugs. They aren’t climbing trees this time of year. And just when I’m in the depth despair about enduring a long, long, banana slug-less winter…
One appears under the leaves.
How can anyone resist that cute little face?
Filed under banana slugs, Slugfari
If it were a perfect world, I would post beauty shots of banana slugs every day. But I don’t see many this time of year. That’s not to say there aren’t still lovely treasures to be found in the forest. Case in point: toadstools and mushrooms, although, as of late, they have also been hiding under the leaves.
I wonder what I’ll find in the forest this winter.
FYI, if my personal creed did not allow me to rip these out of the paws of squirrels, I’d have had more shots.
Filed under Fall, Humor, Mushrooms and Toadstools
My Pet Slug
