Insect life is fascinating. Our property teems with flying, jumping, running, inching, and digging insects and bugs. Recently, a few stealthy specimens revealed themselves – just long enough for me to get a quick pic before they made themselves scarce (as they do).
Continue reading “Around The Farm: Cool Camouflaged Critters”Tag: Bugs
Haiku: In A Bind (Mantid Series #2)
Sometimes, an insect gets itself into a bind, like this big praying mantis that was found with its leg stuck under the weather seal on the outbuilding garage door. Fortunately, helping hands were ready!
Continue reading “Haiku: In A Bind (Mantid Series #2)”Haiku: Quintet In Blue
Sometimes small objects fail to catch our attention, and that’s a shame because there’s such beauty in the tiny world. In the waterfowl enclosure, on the hard-packed mud that I’ve been spraying to try to resurrect the grass (and it’s trying mightily to rebound), a group of miniscule and delicate butterflies flitted around each other, as if dancing.
These pale lavender dancers are Eastern Tailed-Blue butterflies – specifically, females. Males of the species are a striking cobalt blue; while the females may be more subtly colored, their pastel daintiness is nonetheless a pleasure to behold.
As summer transitions to fall, the butterflies will soon be gone…so enjoy them while you can!
Spring Hatch: A Different Kind Of Hatchling
Last fall, we found a very strange-looking object stuck to the trunk of a maple tree. It seriously looked like something man-made, it was so perfectly geometric. We later discovered that they were Wheel Bug egg cases!
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Around The Farm: Weirdly Wonderful Wheel Bugs
One of the really amazing benefits of not using chemicals on our pastures is the great diversity of bug life. While some are breathtaking (Monarchs joyfully flitting about), others are troublesome (Japanese beetles making lace doilies out of leaves). Fortunately, the “pests” have natural predators, like the stately and stealthy Wheel Bug.
Continue reading “Around The Farm: Weirdly Wonderful Wheel Bugs”