Chirp

I pride myself on being an attentive observer of the natural world around me, but apparently I am not.

Backyard Birds of the Day (Or that should be Front Porch Birds of the Day):

Here I have been tiptoeing around, trying not to disturb the mother robin on her nest, and I realized today that they babies hatched days ago. I've been waiting for sounds of babies, and feeding behavior, but all I have seen - including early this afternoon - is the mother bird on the nest, so I assumed that the eggs had not hatched. I was expecting them to hatch between Tuesday and Thursday of this week. From the looks of things, probably over the weekend. I was clued in when I came back from a walk and the mother was not on the nest (as she had been when I left an hour previous), but in a nearby tree, and wasn't annoyed with me for being within thirty feet of her. She barely even reacted when I walked right by her to put the garbage can away (If she had still been sitting on the nest I would have walked all the way around the house to avoid disturbing her, but I figured if she wasn't there, I wasn't going to lug the can all that way). So, I went in the house, and then went out the front door onto the porch, where I have not set foot in almost two weeks, and snapped a shot - in order to minimize disruption I don't even get up on the stool so I can see into the nest, I just hold up the camera.  Surprise! Baby birds! I am a little dismayed that there appear to be only two of them in there - there were three eggs. But I am happy to see the fuzzy, little things - even if I wish I had seen them a few days ago when they were new!

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 I almost didn't even check this out, it looked so much like it was just part of the tree, and even when I did do a double take, and really give it a close look, I almost just poked it to prove to myself it wasn't anything but a weird part of the bark. I didn't poke it, though. I just looked much closer...

 A caterpillar. The way it is hiding its head really added to the "I'm not a caterpillar, I am an abnormality in the bark" effect.

Caterpillar Close-ups!

 This is some good camouflage - it has a spike on its back that looks like a thorn.

Backyard Bug Behavior:

 Ants dragging a caterpillar back to their nest. I was sorry to not have seen this caterpillar alive. It's rather striking.

 If you look around the central subjects of the picture, you can see remains of other dead bugs around. I wonder if these were former meals of the ants, and they discarded the exoskeletons.

 I very rarely get this kind of view of a caterpillar.

 Ants may be very strong for their size, but they just don't seem to be very good at transporting things. Very disorganized, ineffective communication, poor spatial awareness. They waste a lot of energy trying to drag things through spaces where they won't fit. If you ever need help moving into a new home, don't ask ants to help you. They'll spend half the day trying to get your sofa through the door the wide way.

 In the upper left, that gray, curved thing is another dead bug. In the upper right is the ants' hole. Unfortunately, I had to go inside and get ready to go out, so I was unable to watch this unfold to the end.

Random Bugs:

Male velvet ant (I think), which is actually a wasp.

 This could be the previous owner of the discarded exoskeleton I found last week.

 I didn't see the bug when I took the picture.

 I think this is some species of tiger moth. It was on the back porch when we got home this evening. It was surprising, because for some reason bugs are not as attracted to the back porch light as they are to the front porch light, but there were quite a lot of bugs there tonight. Mostly gnats, but also a couple of cool moths.

This is one of those moths that just looks like a drab, grayish brown when you first look at it, and is revealed to be more interesting if you give it a closer look.

Arachnid Appreciation:
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 I didn't notice when I took the picture that there appear to be insect eggs on this leaf.

Is that a mosquito you've caught? See, this is why people should like spiders!