September 10, 2007

A pollen covered bee on the sunflower.

A new butterfly species at Robin's nesting place. I think it may be a checkerspot or a crescentspot. I've looked in my National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Butterflies, and I can't tell for certain which one.

The goldfinches are starting to turn from their bright golden yellow to their winter colors. It's becoming more difficult to tell the male from the female.

This is the black swallowtail caterpillar as it is pupating. I took some video of it and tried to download it but the file was too large. It was so interesting to watch it wiggle and turn into a chrysalis. Today it is completely brown. Caterpillar number two pupated today and I missed it. Number three is still eating , but I noticed today that it too is becoming more restless.

I put out a new sock feeder today and the goldfinches flocked to it.

Ornamental Grass

Shirl, and Layanee are posting on ornamental grasses this weekend and inviting others to join in the fun. I posted on July 30 about my grasses but very few of them were blooming at that time.

It is very breezy and sometimes downright windy where I live and I love to watch the grasses sway in the breeze.

Since my post in July, I have added three more grasses to my collection, so now I've got twenty-eight.

Butterflies and Cosmos - Just Pictures

A silver-spotted skipper on the zinnia.

We are in a newer subdivision and there isn't much variety in the birds here since there are so few mature trees. We have plenty of sparrows and doves, a few eastern bluebirds and robins in the spring, and these beautiful goldfinches. Most of the year I just see sparrows so I'm very pleased when the colorful goldfinches show up at my feeders. I love to hear them sing.
I have the sock feeder and a nicer finch feeder in the same tree, but they prefer to eat their thistle seed from the sock feeder.

I didn't realize that doves like thistle seed, but they obviously do, because the doves are always coming to this feeder to eat. Maybe that's why the finches prefer the sock feeder, no doves to share with.

The black swallowtail caterpillars are getting large. The largest one has become quite restless and has been climbing up and down the vase onto the sticks that are propped in the container. Tonight I noticed that it appears to have settled on a stick. I expect to see a chrysalis soon.

Preying Mantis

The praying mantis are getting pretty big and are no longer content to eat the small bugs in the garden. Now they are after larger prey. This one above keeps getting on the hummingbird feeder in the front yard, (yes, I'm still feeding the hummingbirds, but now I have two feeders, story to come later). I've knocked it off with the broom three times already today and it keeps climbing back up. I've seen it actually grabbing at the unsuspecting hummingbirds. Thankfully they are too fast and so far it hasn't harmed any. I had seen a story about a praying mantis eating a hummingbird, I guess it may be more common than I thought for the mantis to eat something as large as a hummingbird. I'm very glad that no hummers were eaten here today. Now if I can just keep deterring those pesky mantids until the hummingbirds fly south.
This one is in the backyard and stayed very still under the verbena stalking butterflies and hummingbirds. I knocked it down after it almost caught a silver spotted skipper.
I've been glad to have the mantis in my garden, and really felt that it was a beneficial insect. Now that it's larger it is becoming a pest and try to eat things that I consider to be more beneficial, the pollinators. Not a good trade off as far as I'm concerned.

I also saw this really large hawk, I believe it may be a Coopers hawk, since we have had those around before. It was diving in my back neighbors shrubs and trees looking for smaller birds.