oh baby

I'm loving our new habit of daily morning walks.  Even the humidity has a silver lining:  the hazy air is beautiful in the sunlight!

At home, the ducklings may be nearly grown, but it's quite clear that it's still very much baby time for many others.  So much activity!

Sarcophaga Flies

Squash Bugs

"baby" Squash Bug

Skippers

Milkweed Bugs

flirtin' Spicebush Swallowtail

Twice-Stabbed Stink Bugs

Tiger Bee Flies

Squash Lady Beetle Eggs

Everyone is hurrying to mate, lay eggs, and for those young who won't be overwintering in eggs: a chance to live their brief life before winter comes.  Those recently born are doing what they can...

...like this Cecropia moth.  The pulsating body told me that it had recently hatched.  It has no mouthparts and cannot feed...its brief two-week life will be spent mating and/or laying eggs.

A group Tiger Bee flies, too, just "hatched" on the front porch. I've been absolutely fascinated by their mini drama!  I kept finding these strange shells dropping from our porch ceiling:

It turns out that these are Tiger Bee larval shells.  

These, too, kept falling.  They seemed to be immature carpenter bees:

I kept an eye on things, and was soon rewarded.

Tiger Bee flies don't sting or bite.  They're great pollinators, and they also have been helping us in another way:  they lay eggs in carpenter bee holes.  Their larvae hatch and devour carpenter bee larvae, which is why I kept finding those bee corpses.  We definitely have a excess of carpenter bees so this is a great development!  

Strange, though, that all of the new adults were dripping a white liquid. 

It turns out that it's meconium!  In their pupal state, they don't excrete.  When they emerge, they pump the liquid through their wing "veins" to help harden them.  Once they are fully filled out, they simply drip out the excess.  So interesting!  

Caterpillars, like this Tiger Swallowtail, are eat, eat, eating to prepare for their pupal stage.

This little guy was on the dill that I'd potted up on our porch steps, and I checked his progress every day.  Yesterday, though, he was gone.  Maybe he's made a chrysalis somewhere nearby!  

In other baby news, our young "chogs" have finally grown and left the nest.  We've gone from seeing them multiple times a day to a complete absence, and it's about time...it only takes about 44 days for young groundhogs to mature and leave the nest!  We're worried that a fox has moved in, though, judging from the smell and the increased digging.  A trail cam will be set up soon to verify!  

Phew!  It's been busy, but I'm loving it.  We're getting things done despite the suddenly-hot weather...

...but a little time to relax, too.

Have a great week!  

going stag

 At long last...I'm finally seeing flowers in the back cutting garden.

nasturtiums

Mostly zinnias so far, but I love seeing those spots of color! The perennial garden by the house is holding its color nicely, too.

I always plant the usual solid colors:  lime green, soft pink, white, and deep maroon, but I love to plant more unexpected colors too.  Swoon!

Now, I love seeing the flowers in the field, and I love making bouquets, but I really love how flowers draw insects...my favorite thing to photograph.  

monarch butterfly caterpillar

Eastern pondhawk dragonfly

sarcophoga fly

ragweed leaf beetle

reddish-brown stag beetle

Sometimes the plants that insects frequent give the biggest clue to their identity.  I was combing my zucchini plants for squash bug eggs...again...and got a quick, blurry shot of this unusual-looking moth.  

It was just clear enough for Google Lens to identify it as a squash vine borer moth.  It lays eggs at the base of your squash plants, which hatch quickly.  The larvae burrow into the squash vine and eat, eat, eat.  Sure enough, the following week...

It's all right.  After a series of seriously huge zucchini...

...I'm ready to be done with them.   

Another interesting discovery...the pigweed flea beetle!  It feeds almost exclusively on amaranth, which made it pretty easy to identify.

 Its caterpillar form is already tearing into the amaranth leaves...

...but I'm not planning to harvest the amaranth and I don't mind a few chewed-up leaves.  

Still seeing plenty of deer...

...rabbits...

...and our wood ducks!  💗

(herons too!)

I love watching their progress.  Yesterday they were finally "allowed" by mama to swim the pond all by themselves!  She watched closely from the bank.

After the loss of so many young birds this year, I was ready to relax about our ducklings, until...

At first I thought it was a frog, but as I watched...

Another snapping turtle!  Argh! What do snapping turtles eat?  Fish, like the expensive grass carp that we just introduced to the pond...and birds.  Ducklings, full-grown ducks, and they've even been known to pull herons into the water!  They also eat frogs.  We're talking about trying to live-trap it and move it to the back pond, where it will do less damage.  

Otherwise, a bit of baking...

...and a bit of leisure time.

Looking forward to more.  Have a great week!  

getting my greens

An overabundance of beauty around here right now!

Just as the perennial garden is starting to flag a bit in the heat, the annual flower garden in the back is bursting to life.

Okay, so only the zinnias are really starting to bloom, but even the rows of green are lovely...and I bet this will be completely transformed within a couple of weeks.  I thought I'd hate the look of the landscape fabric, but it is SO nice not to have to weed much...and everything is amazingly tidy!  

My sunflowers are a bit more crowded than I expected, and ditto my tomatoes, but I'll do a better job of spacing them next year.

Lots to see in the garden even without blooms.  So many insects!  As always, constant milkweed beetles...

To-ga!  To-ga!  To-ga!

...unusual butterflies...

zebra swallowtail

...and plenty of the "ordinary" ones.

Pests, like this horse fly...

...and squash bugs, who somehow manage to occasionally hatch despite my diligence with squishing the eggs every few days.

The ladybug nymphs have done their job with the aphids, and now they're well on their way to adulthood.  I've found several in various stages of molt.  Remember this stage?

Here is the progression.  Do you see the crumbled spiny pile at its base?  That's the exoskeleton that you see above!

And escaping into adulthood...

(spider warning ahead!)

This Venusta Orchard Spider looks like its abdomen was decorated with gold and silver leaf...

...while this Thin-Lined Wolf Spider blends into the ground.  This mother is fiercely guarding her eggs.

I've found some really beautiful spider molts, too!

The action is not solely in the garden around here, either.  We see the wood duck babies every day in the front pond.  And they've got company.  Besides our Great Blue Heron, a Green Heron has been hunting here regularly!

Looking for a snack...

I think I've spotted something, and...

Attack!!!!

Grass carp were released into the pond this week to combat the algae problem.  Hopefully they'll clear up this mess by fall!  

We've ju-u-u-ust about gotten things around here in maintenance mode.  Time to relax a little!  The kittens are leading the charge.  They are great motivators!  😄

Have a great week!