Nature This Month | August

 Which picture is your favorite? Mine is the Blond Woolly Bear caterpillar clinging to an Iron Weed stem. 

A beautiful monarch I saw at the end of July.

I had been looking for monarch caterpillar all summer and had only found these moth caterpillars:

My sons brought me these cute little frogs to take pictures of them.

I have been getting some nice sunrise pictures lately.

This large Praying Mantis was perched of our porch eve.

This blond Wooly Bear is my favorite picture in this batch. We were visiting at my parents home when I captured this photo.

I was all excited when I saw this beetle one morning, thinking that I had found a true Ladybug, but alas, it was a Corn Beetle after all.

I learned that Corn Beetles have this M shaped marking and true Ladybugs do not.

And finally, I found a Monarch caterpillar! There were two on this plant. They were so tiny, probably in their 2nd instar.

I set up a habitat inside so that we could watch them grow.

I was a little worried about them at one point when they looked a little droopy after a molt, but there was no need for concern they perked up just fine.

Not everything in nature is beautiful. I saw ants scavenging this dead worm on a sidewalk and decided to capture a picture. Death is part of life. The ants need the nourishment provided by the dead worm and we all benefit from scavengers cleaning up dead carcases in our environment.

This was an interesting flying insect. I never looked it up to see what kind of insect it was.

Another sunrise.

And another.

A beautiful Garden Spider! 

As I gathered milkweed to feed our caterpillars, I ended up bringing in two more caterpillars unexpectedly.

Two of our caterpillars have gone into their chrysalis stage. You can see the final molted skin hanging onto this chrysalis. The butterflies should be emerging any day now!

We saw this beautiful sunset last night on a drive home.

And that is a wrap! Come again next month to see I find on my adventures.