Memes
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Egg to Caterpillar, Giant Swallowtail (Papilio cresphontes) | Wildlife Wednesday
Over a month ago now, I noticed a giant swallowtail ovipositing on the rue. I had bought pots of rue a year or two ago just for this reason and to have another source of food for when they came through and found my citrus instead—it was a place to relocate them as necessary. But in this time I had yet to see any activity on the plant and thought that maybe nothing would come of it after all. But then as I took a break from pulling weeds, sweat rolling down my entire body, I saw an adult visiting and as soon as her abdomen curved I knew it…
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Variegated Fritillary (Euptoieta claudia) caterpillar | Wildlife Wednesday
A few weeks ago I was deep into one of the edible perimeter beds by the blackberries, weeding. I’ve let a small crop of native violets grow in there because they are edible and also pretty. I’ve been transplanting some of the ones that crop up in other parts of the garden to the flower garden but the deer come and browse on those which is another reason I keep the ones tucked inside the edible garden. I noticed a caterpillar. It resembled a gulf frittilary but those munch on passiflora vines. I took a few phone photos and then went to grab my dSLR and reverse macro lens and…
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Zebra Swallowtail Caterpillar (Eurytides marcellus) | Wildlife Wednesday
Our trip to east Texas last weekend had us visiting the Watson Rare Native Plant Preserve and two Big Thicket National Preserve units, the Turkey Creek Unit (and the Pitcher Plant Trail) and the Hickory Creek Savannah Unit (and the Sundew Trail). I can’t recall where we saw the first zebra swallowtail adult fly by but we did end up seeing several along the Sundew Trail. One of them was flying slow and low to the ground, which at first had us thinking it was searching for nectar plants. But it avoided several flowering plants and I finally decided it was looking for pawpaws to lay eggs! From then Chris…
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Neighborhood Nature | 3
Last weekend was the iNaturalist City Nature Challenge, though iNaturalist pushed it as less of a “challenge” and more of get out and enjoy nature safely and where you can locally. That didn’t put a damper in folks getting out to explore their greater local area, though, and I did my best to capture as much as I could on foot in the neighborhood. Some of these are from that weekend but many are just from daily sightings around the yard or just beyond! And of course this isn’t all of what I documented for the CNC, just a few highlights. Fall Webworm Moth, Hyphantria cunea I have no idea…
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Friday Five | Isolation Things
It’s been a bit since I’ve done a Friday Five, so here are five good things for your Friday! +The Wild Wander show on YouTube—primarily based in north Florida, the episodes are only a few minutes long, though this last one was about 15 minutes. All of them share some kind of interesting natural history feature about north Florida. It’s a show you could find on NatGeo or Animal Planet! +Easter: Easter weekend has zoomed on by but we had a great weekend at home for Easter. In fact, our first Easter at home! We’ve either gone to my parents or camping for Easter since Forest was born so this…
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Gulf Coast Penstemon, Penstemon tenuis | Wildflower Wednesday
A year or two ago I purchased this gulf coast penstemon from a nursery. Or maybe I started it from seed. I honestly can’t recall at this time. But I’ve been watching the basal rosettes of this particular plant and several others and biding my time for blooms. Every so often the deer come by and chomp the leaves and set the plants back and I figured I would never get to see the blooms. It really is trial and error here with the deer. You can’t take anything labeled “deer resistant” at face value. I have begun to notice which plant families are actually more deer resistant and have…
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Neighborhood Nature | 2
Late last week Forest and I hit up the empty lot across the street to see what kind of nature we could find. Turns out there is quite a bit going on in that little lot! Texas Vervain Verbena halei — I might have to keep an eye on this particular plant, if it doesn’t get mowed, and collect some seed to throw into the garden. Metriorrhynchomiris dislocatus — Since we’re just poking around and going slowly I’ve been trying to look for little bugs a bit more than I usually do. Texas Ragwort, Senecio ampullaceus Scaphoideus incisus – cute little leaf hopper nymph! I wouldn’t have noticed it if…
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Neighborhood Nature | 1
Considering we’ll be staying close to home for the foreseeable future I figured it would be nice to start a new theme here—Neighborhood Nature! I definitely encourage you to join along if you’d like and showcase what you see around your own neighborhood. Yesterday evening we went out for a walk and right off the bat I rescued a caterpillar crossing the road. I took a few photos of course and later when I tried to identify it on iNaturalist nothing seemed to fit. I opened my caterpillar book and still had a hard time thinking any of the potential families that I knew would fit. Then my book haphazardly…
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Silent Sunday | Trout Lillies
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Forest Friday | Was he really that small? Edition
It’s been a hot minute since I’ve done a Forest Friday here. And seeing as the kid is nearly 5.5 and heading for 6 very quickly, I’ve been reminiscing over his baby and toddler days a lot the last few months. He’s hurtling for the bigger little kid era, ditching the preschool years and tendencies slowly but surely. All of this is good, of course, he’s acting age appropriate, but I’m still a bit wistful for the baby and toddler era in many ways…of course in other ways I’m thankful we’re past those—nursing, diapers, whining without saying what he wants—oh wait, scratch that last one, that still goes on! There’s…