I haven't seen foxfire, but I've gotten to see the "synchronous fireflies" in the Smoky Mountains, which was pretty amazing:
http://www.nps.gov/grsm/naturescience/fireflies.htm

And glowworms covering a wall in New Zealand, which was also awesome.

Ok, here are the criteria for the 2012 Wildlife Calendar submissions.  Remember, we are looking for Non-Peregrine photos.

4. Image size should be 2200 x 1700 pixels (11 x 8.5 ratio).

Can you please clarify the orientation (portrait or landscape)...is 2200 height or width?

Thanks for the hard work of putting together the list, Aafke!  I'm sure it wasn't easy given that people used all sorts of different names for the same birds.

I didn't want to derail the Bird Counting Weekend thread too much more than I already had...so I started a new one!  Here's an "english" version of some of the research happening on Chickadees and how their brains actually grow significantly in size when they're building their winter seed cache:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/09/030912072156.htm

OK...here's my final list for the weekend:

Bald Eagle (1 immature)
Ruby-throated Hummingbird (1)
Mourning Dove (2)
Rock Pigeons (> 10)
Blue Jays (2)
American Robin (2)
European Starling (> 10)
House Sparrow (5)
Great Blue Heron (12)
Turkey Vultures (19)
Black Vultures (5)
Canada Geese (18)
Double-crested Cormorants (18)
Caspian Tern (5)
Mallards (11)
Northern Cardinal (1)
Great Egrets (3)
Killdeer (7)
Osprey (1)

You know, that made me realize I haven't heard any chickadees this weekend.  They must be on their way to wherever they go for the winter...

I think Chickadees typically stick around all winter -- they cache seeds and nuts to get through the winter when there aren't as many insects and caterpillars to eat.  There have been some interesting studies about Chickadee brain growth during the caching period...

Mostly rainy, and I didn't get out for a walk in the woods, so I only saw my backyard birds:
Ruby-throated Hummingbird  (they should only be here for another couple of weeks)
Turkey Vulture
American Crow
House Sparrow
American Robin
Northern Cardinal
Rock Pigeon

Kettle of Black Vultures on the way home from work

Shaky, I just returned from vacation (it's early Friday morning September 9th), and the "Show unread posts since last visit" is not working for me, and I really depend on that guy.

The forum did prompt me to log in again after the upgrade, and it did seem to keep track of the posts I've read, because if I navigate through the forum I see the "New" button beside threads with posts I haven't yet read, but nothing shows up when I click "Show unread posts since last visit".

Thanks Aafke, the flowers are beautiful, and I'm envious of the vegetables.  I finally gave up on growing tomatoes because of our wildly abundant squirrel population, which results in my not getting to eat a single tomato.

We've been really entertained the last couple weeks by several Hummers frequenting our feeder and here's a few pics I've taken of them.

http://www.kodakgallery.com/gallery/sharing/shareRedirectSwitchBoard.jsp?token=836216892213%3A2127099699

Thanks for sharing; I love this time of year when migration is in full swing and the adult males are passing through.  We normally have a single female around all summer (early May onwards), but it's nice to see the migrants fighting the hummingbird wars, except that it means summer's coming to an end. 

At this latitude we'll usually see them through the end of September, and last year we actually had one visit in early October, but it's still too bad when it ends.

Patti

We've been really entertained the last couple weeks by several Hummers frequenting our feeder and here's a few pics I've taken of them.

http://www.kodakgallery.com/gallery/sharing/shareRedirectSwitchBoard.jsp?token=836216892213%3A2127099699

What's that one with the dark head??? So cute, great pics, thanks!!!

They're all Ruby-throated Hummingbirds.  The first pic is a male-they have the red throats and the 3rd pic is a female-no red throat.

OH OK, looked a bit dark in the head. Very nice Ruby's!! 

Donna, the color in the ruby-throat comes from iridescence, so when the light is not hitting the throat patch at the right angle, it just looks black.  I find it entertaining to watch one at my feeder who may be just perched, hanging out, and is at an angle where he turns his head from side to side watching for any possible interlopers, the throat patch will alternate from black to red as he turns his head.

Here's a blurb from the Web Site:  The Journey North (it's the site I use to figure out when to hang my hummingbird feeder).  It's mostly geared toward educators and the kids they educate, but it has some good information.  http://www.learner.org/jnorth/

Q. What causes a hummer's colors to have a metallic sheen?

The brilliant, iridescent colors of hummingbird plumage are caused by the refraction of incident light by the structures of certain feathers. Like any diffraction grating or prism, these structures split light into its component colors, and only certain frequencies are refracted back to your eyes. The apparent color of any particular part of a feather depends upon the distance between the microscopic ridges in its gridlike structure. The resulting colors are much more vivid and iridescent than those of birds with only pigmented feathers. Not all hummer colors are due to feather structure, however; the duller, rusty browns of Allen's and Rufous Hummingbirds come from pigmentation. Iridescent hummingbird colors actually result from a combination of refraction and pigmentation, since the diffraction structures themselves are made of melanin, a pigment.

Watch out, Ospreys! MAK's on your track!

Super slide-show - loved that big black butterfly - can anyone ID?

I'm pretty sure it was a Buteous Gigantus Veridarkus Butterfly.

The common name for a Buteous Gigantus Veridarkus is the Spicebush Swallowtail.  Here's a good site for butterflies of New York:
http://www.thebutterflysite.com/newyork-butterflies.shtml
You can check out all of the Swallowtails because they're often confusing, especially that sneaky black female Eastern Tiger Swallowtail.  But I'm pretty sure this one's the Spicebush Swallowtail (both the fronts and back are a good match, assuming both photos are of the same butterfly).

That one was great, and the dog makes it look so easy!

OK, and my next camera will have movement stabilization.  My old Kodak 7590 is still hanging in there, tape and all.  Sorry for the shaky-ness!
The Osprey of Hilton, NY - 8/16/11

A little OT, but I finally broke down a month ago and got a new camera...my first non-Kodak digital.  My Kodak 7590 was still mostly hanging in as well, with a few minor problems.  But the Grand Canyon trip with my sisters convinced me to upgrade.  One sister carries a Canon digital SLR, and that just confirmed my opinion that despite the possibility of some really nice photos, it's much heavier and less flexible in the moment (she never had the right lens on when she wanted it, and didn't want to carry the weight of her big zoom, so the two of us with point-and-shoot cameras had more zoom potential).  An SLR just doesn't seem like something I want to carry on my hiking trips.  Middle sister, however, shot photos with a Panasonic Lumix (a version with 18x magnification).  It was an interesting experiment because in many cases we were all shooting the same scenes in the same light from roughly the same angle, and the majority of the time, once I'd ruled out general artistic differences from the photographer, her photos were better than mine...more colorful, sharper, etc.  So...I'm now the owner of a Panasonic Lumix.  So far I'm really happy with it.  I think the Kodak is more intuitive to use, and I like its user interface better, but I like the photos that I'm getting from the Panasonic.

Thanks for the great information Patti.  Does it also take video's?

It does take videos, though I haven't tried it.  You can take HD videos or standard videos, but I can't remember what format...I think the HD videos are more complicated to get off the camera and process, but I just sort of remember that from my first scan of the user manual, and haven't worked with them.  I should probably practice before I'm in a situation where I suddenly want to shoot video and I'm clueless!