MUSHROOMS!
Today the kids and I went on a nature walk. It was a gorgeous day and we just had to get out and enjoy the 70’s before the winter hits in Northern WI! We’ve had close to 5 inches of rain in the last couple of weeks so the mushrooms are out in full force. I don’t have time to try to look up these mushrooms to identify them yet, but I thought I’d put these pictures up as they’re so pretty!
Cecropia Caterpillar Starting to Make Cocoon!
After a summer of raising cecropia caterpillars and being down to only one caterpillar left alive, our caterpillar is starting to make it’s cocoon! We’re excited to have another cocoon to hopefully hatch out next summer. With any luck it will be a female and we can get another brood of caterpillars next summer! Here are a couple of pics of the start of the cocoon.
Caterpillar is inside all the silk – kind of under the leaf a bit and sticking out the other side
On this pic you can just see the edges of the caterpillar’s tubercles sticking out from under the side of the leaf.
Moth I.D. – Large Lace-border Moth
This moth comes from the Geometrid moth family. We saw it in our yard in early July. It is white with off-white symmetrical lines across it and a lacy edge along the wings. Very pretty for a moth!
Wildflower I.D. – red clover
The clover is now dying out but back in June, we had tons of it that was attracting tons of butterflies! I thought this red clover pic was really pretty and it has a very small grasshopper on it!
Insect I.D. – Longhorn Beetle (of some kind)
There are over 1,000 types of longhorn beetles, so I’m not sure which one this is specifically but it’s pretty interesting. For a while we were finding these frequently on our sliding glass doors. When you touch them, they try to reach back and grab you with their harmless long antennaes. Their mouths can bite you but as long as you pick them up from behind their heads, you won’t get hurt by them. Their larvae typically like to eat rotting wood and thankfully aren’t a threat to healthy wood (like our house)! The adults feed on flowers. They’re black beetles with extremely long antennaes. The kids thought they were pretty cool!
Moth I.D. – some kind of Tiger Moth
I’m not sure what kind of tiger moth this is, but it’s very pretty and was found in our yard one evening. It’s front top wings are black with white lines or stripes around on it. The wings that are underneath and sometimes hidden are a bright red with black dots or splotches on it. Very pretty! We took some pics then let it go.
Caterpillar I.D. – Variegated Fritillary
We found a lot of these caterpillars on our pansies near the end of June. They were really enjoying their meal on our flowers! They are red and white striped with black spikes on them. We killed most of them so they wouldn’t eat all our flowers but kept a couple to try to raise. They did ok and one made it’s chrysalis which was a very pretty silver color, but unfortunately it didn’t make it for some reason and never emerged. Here’s a pic of our caterpillar.
Our collection of variegated fritillary caterpillars from our pansies
close-up of one we kept
Here’s what it would have turned into!
Wildflower I.D. – Creeping Thistle
Here’s another annoying wildflower that I wish I could have the flower of without the prickles and invasiveness! Unfortunately these are too prevalent in our yard!
Wildflower I.D. – Birdfoot Trefoil
Here’s another common weed that I photographed from our yard. I’ve seen these flowers all over quite a bit in my lifetime but never really looked at them close up. Though they’re obnoxious, the symmetry of the flowers is interesting!
Wildflower I.D. – Daisy Fleabane
We saw these daisy fleabane near a wooded area where we were hiking back in June. They resemble daisies in coloring but are smaller and the white part is more fringed.
