What's Bugging You?

Well it's been a few (again) since I've posted.  I have good intentions but then time and distractions get the best of me and before I know it a month has gone by between posts.

 So today it's all about....Bugs

So last year we found loads of these caterpillars in the flower beds.  Some were green and some were black but they were all the same type of a caterpillar.  They turn into White Lined Sphinx Moths (also known as a hummingbird moth).
 

We never did see the moths and this year we haven't seen a single caterpillar.

 

Last year for one of the 52 Frames assignments I photographed a bunch of slugs trying to get one with a good shadow.  So while technically not a "bug" I'm sharing this shot.

 

 

Saw this pretty little butterfly on the rose bushes this summer.  I believe it's a Monarch butterfly but I could be wrong.  I was just excited to get a photograph of one.  Upon close examination you can see she has a slight tear in her lower right wing.

 

One day hubby came in and noticed this very weird looking bug sitting on his notebook.  We took some pictures and then set it free.  

 

 Turns out it was a, Banded Alder Borer Beetle.  The say it's black and white but the white color has a bluish tint to it in my opinion.  You can click on the link to read about them.  Weird and cool looking bug.

 

 We see these around here quite often.  Praying Mantis (Mantid)

This one was green.

 

 This one was brown and landed on Coleen/Jupiter's arm while she was out mowing.

 Praying Mantis Folklore

• The French once thought that a praying mantis would point a lost child home.
• In some parts of Africa, it is considered good luck if one of these curious creatures lands on you.
• The Greek word mantis means “prophet” or “seer.” Because of the way the insects hold up the fronts of their bodies and position their huge forelegs when at rest, it appears as though they are praying for insight.. 

 

 Recently spotted this lovely Katydid in the garden.  On the opposite side of the bloom was a very common insect/bug...

Yep, a fly.  I wonder if it became lunch for the Katydid!

Finally we have another, Cat-Faced Orb Weaver hanging around.  I've posted before about this type of spider.  You can read about it here - We find this type of a spider very fascinating to watch.

This one has spun quite the web and every night she comes out to wait for something to get caught in her web.  She's devoured several elder bugs and some aphids already.

Well if you aren't squeamish about bugs and critters then I hope you've enjoyed your visit here today.  If you are...I apologize for traumatizing you.  - Enjoy the rest of your day and don't let things,

"bug" you!

 

 

"Whatever" Wednesday - The Spider Edition

Welcome!   - Tuesday bowling scores this week: 129-116-150 Not a good week.

Just a "Warning" before I get started on this post.  If you hate spiders do not view this post. 

Here is how this all got started....

One night I'm looking out our side window over at my mom's porch to see if the stray cat we feed is done eating yet.  We named him "Blondie" before we discovered that he was a male cat so the name has just stuck.  He's a "feral" type cat as you can't get very close to him before he runs.  I managed to get a picture of him one night out the window so you can see why we call him Blondie.

Anyway this particular night I notice that he seemed to be playing with something on my mom's porch.  I start wondering if he's caught a moth or a mouse so I headed outside to find out what it was.  Of course, Blondie runs and hides under my husband's truck.

I finally discover what he was batting around and playing with.  Turns out he had found this,

on my mom's porch.  I didn't want this poor bug to get eaten by the cat so I rescued it and after taking a couple of pictures inside the house I relocated the Preying Mantis

on one of my roses.  That's were we discovered this....okay now this is where if you have Arachnophobia you look away.

After taking these photo's I set the spider free.  You will notice it's missing one leg which accidentally got pulled off when my daughter was trying to get the spider into the container.  I uploaded these photo's on Bug Guide and was told this was most likely a, Cat-Faced Orb Weaver (probably a female).  If you look closely the two humps on it's back resemble the ears of a cat and the white line is the cats nose and there are two indentations that look like cats eyes as well.  That's where it gets the name.

We nicknamed her, "Orbie"

I put this spider on my Azalea bush where she spent one day hiding before climbing up into the top corner of our house.  Below are a more shots of her.

This shot and the next one were taken on the Azalea bush before she moved to the upper corner of our house.

Here you can see her spinning her web in the upper corner of our house.  She would spend all day curled up under the roof ledge and them come out at night and hang down off her web on a single strand.  One night while trying to take pictures of her with Coleen holding the flashlight on her she came all the way down the web, wandered around in my flowers for a few seconds and then zipped back up the web so fast it was hard to believe.  She spent about a week in that spot and then one night she moved and we couldn't find her.  My daughter discovered hanging off the edge of our recycle bin.  I took this shot and it was featured in the Scavenger Hunt this past Sunday.

I didn't want the spider to get hurt and the Recycle Bin just wasn't the place for her to stay so I moved her back to the front of the house. 

She stayed one day there and we thought she had disappeared because we couldn't find her again. 

Then that nnight she came up out of the flower bed onto the living room window and I took this photo of her. 

Yes, I know our windows are really dirty!

Sadly this is the last photo I was able to take of her.  She crawled off the window onto our drain spot on the side of the house and hasn't been seen since.  -  We spent about 19 days watching this spider and let me tell you normally I am scared to death of spiders.  I hate the small ones and those jumping spiders but for some reason I found this one very fascinating and am so glad that I was able to get pictures of her.

I hope you have enjoyed them too.

Scavenger Hunt Sunday - September 9, 2012

Hello, I hope you have all had a great week.  The 1st week of School is official in the books now and so far Coleen is enjoying the start of 2nd grade.

Now it's time to join me on a little "hunt." -  A Scavenger Hunt to be exact.




title="Scavenger Hunt Sunday with Ashley Sisk"

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 Ashley, Ramblings and Photo's host this fun event every Sunday.  Participants are given 5 Prompts to find during the week and photograph them post on their blogs and post a link back on Ashley's blog.  It's loads of fun and can sometimes be challenging which is 1/2 the fun.

This weeks prompts were:  Monochromatic, Starts with the Letter...., Upside Down,
Hair and Soft.

Let's get started:

Click to Enlarge all photos.

Some pears I bought at a local farmers market.  They weren't quite ripe when I bought them so they sat in a bowl near the kitchen window for most of a week until they were riped enough to eat and oh they were Yummy!

Starts with the letter....
"D" for Dinosaur!

Coleen is really into Dinosaurs right now and when we found out the the Gem and Mineral show had a display with real fossilized Dinosaur Eggs I knew we just had to go and check it out. 
The photos in the collage are: Velociraptor Eggs, A Dinosaur Painting on some rock, Dinosaur Poop, Seriously, I kid you not!  Lastly Coleen in front of a T-Rex Model head.  She had a blast.

We discovered this spider in my rose bed one night and captured it to take photos (which have yet to appear on my blog).
We moved her to another plant in the front of our house and then she climbed up to the top of the house where she spun a web and stayed for over a week.  Last night she moved all the way around our house to the Recycle Bin where this picture was taken this morning.  We've since moved her back to the front of the house and she's now spinning a web on our living room window.  In case you are wondering this Spider is known by the name,  "Cat-faced Orb Weaver." - You'll be seeing more photo's of her in the coming weeks.  She's very fascinating to watch.

Hey it's hair, albeit "Synthetic" hair but hair none the less. This is the same doll featured in the Alligator attack from last weeks Scavenger Hunt!















Couldn't decide which shot I liked better for the last prompt so you get both!

Some Dandelion Seeds I happened to spot in the grass while sitting outside this morning.  They are soft enough that even the gentlest breeze will cause them to float away.

Our cat, Snickers fur is super soft.  It's like touching Velvet.

That's it for this week.  I hope you've enjoyed being on the hunt with me and don't forget to pop over to Ashley's blog and browse through the other participants entries.

Have a GREAT week.