2014Backyard bird and butterfly (and dragonfly too) watching

[applestar]

Saw the saddleback caterpillar again, then found a second one with my hand
Posted about it here: Subject: Grow your own on-site garden remedy for stings • bites

I was able to take a picture of the praying mantis in the Good Mother Stallard beans today. I was reaching for a browned leaf to clean up and she was right there! her head swiveled in that creepy way they have, and she looked at me....

[applestar]

You know how you are supposed to eliminate every little standing water to prevent mosquitoes from breeding in them? Well, each time I find a standing water I hadn't noticed and try to get rid of it, I find tree frogs in them.

Today was a 5 gal bucket I had shoved halfway under the patio table. I looked in it and saw that it had a couple of inches of water in it. I was about to tip it out and realized there was this frog clinging on the inside wall

It appears to be a Northern Spring Peeper (Pseudacris crucifer crucifer)

Northern Spring Peeper (Pseudacris crucifer crucifer) Identification: 3/4" - 1 1/4". Spring Peepers are marked by an imperfect, dark-colored “x” on their backs. Peepers can be olive, brown, gray, yellow, or any shade in between. This particular subspecies has a plain or virtually plain belly.

http://www.state.nj.us/dep/fgw/ensp/pdf/frogs.pdf

[applestar]

We have a pets and friends corner in our garden under the mulberry tree where our gerbils and goldfish and any dead critters found in our garden have been buried with great ceremony ever since my girls were little. The process generally involved finding an appropriate casket box/basket, lining it with something pretty, laying the remains in state, adding toys and food, covering with flowers picked from around the garden, then conducting a funeral.

The other day, the girls were still asleep when I found a dead catbird. I was busy and was fully intending to just toss the dead thing into the woods behind the back fence, scooped it up with a soda bottle hot cap that was laying around and was purposefully striding towards the back of the yard,... But as I looked down at the bird that has probably stolen countless number of my blueberries, cherries, strawberries and blackberries, I just couldn't throw it away. We had a history.

So I broke down and decided to give it a place under the mulberry tree -- its favorite haunt -- but still unwilling to spend too much time on it, I just grabbed a little perennial trowel and dug a shallow grave. There was drought and the ground was hard with lots of roots. I layered some leaves to cushion it, and was about to just cover with dirt... But I couldn't.... So next thing I knew, I was picking wildflowers -- just a few -- turned into a meandering stroll around the garden collecting a sizable bouquet from all over the garden ...something from the blueberry patch, something from under the blackberries.... I made myself turn around back to the mulberry tree because otherwise I would have had to dig a bigger hole. I laid the flowers all around and over it, covering it's face with the last flower and a little prayer, and I was FINALLY able to finish burying the silly thing.

[applestar]

Here is a predator...

Look what I found on a hanging pot

...so what are these? Different species? A male? In molt?

[Rairdog]

Closest I can find is a female Budwing Mantis

[applestar]

OK you got me looking. Budwing is apparently flightless mantis from Africa kept for pets, so it didn't seem likely to find in my garden... So some more looking around and I came across this reference:


http://bugguide.net/node/view/4821

Species Stagmomantis carolina - Carolina Mantis - BugGuide.Net

Head and thorax almost as long as the body. Antennae about half as long as middle legs. Pale green to brownish grey, often inconspicuous on vegetation. Males usually brown, females green or brown. Wings do not extend to tip of abdomen, especially in female. (Females apparently flightless, or nearly so.) Abdomen of female strongly widened in middle.

http://bugguide.net/node/view/491302

Muscatine County, Iowa, USA
August 5, 2010
does anyone know the species?

Stagmomantis carolina
It's a Carolina mantis. This one is a female nymph; based on her appearance and the date of your photo, she is the last instar before adulthood.

This was particularly interesting to me because I posted about this egg mass that turned out to be a Carolina mantis ootheca:

Which kind of praying mantis ootheca do you usually find? This kind?

Subject: Some kind of egg casing? Good or bad? >> Carolina Mantis

OK -- it's so nice out I was giving my garden a once over patrol and discovered this half way up on the main trunk of my little ginkgo tree -- t's only knee high and can't afford any munchers.

It looks like an egg casing -- approx. 3" long from top to bottom. Hopefully someone can help me ID before it's too late.

[LIcenter]

Photos from around the garden:

Brown Garden Spider that keeps weaving a 3-4 ft web across my path

d8d6cef93cd2861280d704f4d3da5d83.jpg

Here's one packing up a yellow jacket lunch bucket.

DSC_0073 by schabefrank, on Flickr
DSC_0069 by schabefrank, on Flickr