Mystery Caterpillar!

We have the neatest caterpillar on a lilac leaf in our front yard. We noticed it about 2 weeks ago, the top picture is from Sept 4th and the other ones are from the 17th. Its crazy how its grown and it seems to be using the leaf like a chrysalis (there is a little white web like stuff) and doesn’t leave the leaf at all. The kids like to check on it when Ethan gets off the school bus everyday. It had 2 long antenna things sticking out the day I took the second pictures but they were gone when I came back with the camera. I am assuming the “eyes” are fake but I don’t know anything about this cute little guy.

*Okay I did a little looking on the web and think it might be a Tiger Swallowtail caterpillar (or some other Swallowtail). If it is then it will turn into the butterfly below! I think one year we’ll have to order a caterpillar kit to raise and release some butterflies at home (Ethan’s class has monarchs now and he is excited about them).

**Check out What’s That Bug?, its a really neat site! We linked to it last summer when we had our friend Sally Spider living with us and I used it to look up the caterpillar quick just now. This caterpiller is no Sally but its special too and I love the picture I took below of it!

***The DEC is another great resource for animal identification.  I found a couple of PDFs for caterpillars and butterflies on our area.  Page 1 Page 2

Slimy Friends

The boys have been finding little snails around the pool and apparently slime doesn’t bother them in the least! I think the snails are cute myself but I don’t really want to let them slide all over me!

We see lots of neat bugs too, here is a tiny grasshoper that seemed to enjoy climbing all over them as well.

Robins Round 2

We have been very lucky that our robins came back and our 2nd batch of chicks were born on Father’s Day. I haven’t even blogged about it until today and only took pictures once! We enjoy them every time we are in the dining room though and they are unfortunately starting to look close to being ready to leave the nest. I really hope we get them next year too.

How to build a snake house

A few years ago I decided to make our backyard be a little more nature friendly. We don’t use any chemicals, we’ve put up bird houses, and I created a branch pile in an out of the way spot for critters to call home. I have also kept a pile of scrapwood by our back porch that was more for my own laziness than for the critters, but Spikey and his friends love to hang out there. Unfortunately, this woodpile is pretty ugly and we’ve also been concerned about climbing kids causing a collapse that could injure one of our snake friends.

While working on our porch extension I decided to make a safer house for the snake. The end result is not very pretty, but it provides a safe habitat for the snakes. Next summer we plan on doing some landscaping and at that time I will revisit the snake house and make something more pleasing to the eyes.

For now this is what we have. The top pile is the snake house, the bottom is one of our unsafe wood piles (now removed). The design is simple. I simply stacked my scrapwood making sure to create openings for snakes to hang out and put a few screws into each piece. The top I covered completely to keep rain out, but there are multiple entrances from the sides and bottom.

Pencil was the first snake to come back and check things out. He slithered right over to Ethan and then went looking for an entrance into their mansion. He didn’t at first and left, but Ben and I saw him return later and find his way inside. I was surprised by how big the fork in his tongue is. He looks big in this picture, but Pencil is no fatter than my pinky

While taking apart the pile we also found a new snake, a beautiful baby eastern milk snake. These look like something dangerous at first, but that is by design. Their pattern is similar to a copperhead, but the coloring much different. We’ve seen these around the backyard a few times (and once in the garage), but this is the one was the smallest we’ve seen. Ethan named this snake Spotty and he was about 12 inches long and as skinny as a pencil.

Of course Spikey was hanging around too. He wanted nothing to do with all the commotion so he hung out pool side. Spikey is getting pretty fat. Not sure if he’s finding a lot to eat or if Spikey is really a she.

Here’s a bottom view of the snake house. I left lots of space on the bottom level to help the pile dry out after rain. You can see how the second story has a gap in the middle. Each level has gaps like this so snake can find places to hide.

Ethan also found a snake skin. We could also see that Spikey’s eyes were getting clouded. This is a sign that he is getting ready to shed. No matter how friendly your backyard snake friends are, give them their space when they are preparing to shed. The loosening skin acts like a cataract and they can’t see very well. This makes them shy and defensive.

Hot Frog Pond

Today we went on a pond walk with a local nature center and the kids had fun but it would have been a lot nicer if it were 10 degrees cooler. Its been too hot and humid without enough warning for me! Everyone who went used a net to collect pond life and then we went inside to look at the critters close up. We learned about dragon fly larva, bull frog tadpoles, diving beetles, crayfish, catfish and more. Luckily we came home and got in the pool and cooled off after. We even found a diving beetle in our pool that the boys think hitched a ride home with us.

Robins are gone :(

One by one the baby Robins left the nest yesterday. I guess I was right that they were getting big but I was hoping for a few more days with them. The kids aren’t sad though, they are talking about when the parents will come back and have another batch of babies. I think Robins have 2 sets of babies a year so maybe they will be back again this summer. I didn’t realize how much I’d miss looking at them while we sat at the table to eat. Once they were big it was a lot of fun seeing them stretch out their new wings and gobble down the worms the parents brought. Jamie kept pointing at the nest at breakfast this morning looking for them. I was going to put up a picture of the empty nest but here is one of the day the first 2 eggs were laid. If we are lucky we’ll see this again! Hopeful

Robins are getting BIG!

I think our Robin babies will soon be leaving the nest, they are getting pretty big and are much more alert. Here they are at 8 days old all snuggled into their nest (I think this is the best picture I’ve gotten of them):

This is yesterday’s picture at 13 days old. I didn’t want to get too close, I was afraid they’d be scared and fall out:

Robin Update!

We have been keeping an eye on our Robin family as they grow and when the parents fly away we’ve ran out a few times to get some up close pictures. Here is the day that the first 2 babies hatched (the 3rd one hatched a day later):

We have a great close up view through our dining room window of the devoted parents with some worms:

Here is a picture I took last night of the babies sleeping (they are 5 days old and pretty homely looking all in a heap like this but when we see them from inside with their mouths open to eat they look really cute):

Spikey Siting

Our favorite backyard snake made an appearance yesterday.

I tried to get a full body shot of him so you can see his girth and his stubby tail. Unfortunately, Spikey was not very cooperative and took off for the safety of the woodpile.

Unplugged Project: Birds

What a fitting unplugged project for us this week! We have had our baby chicks for almost a week now and they are certainly a project but we’ve had quite a few other bird encounters as well.

If you haven’t been at our blog to see the chick posts you really should scroll on down and take a peak at our cute little babies! Yesterday they turned one week old and Ethan noticed that their tail feathers are just starting to poke out. I couldn’t get a good picture of the new feathers and, even though they are cute chicks, their butts aren’t their best feature.

On Saturday we went to John’s work for an Earth Day celebration where we saw a raptor show. We gave Ethan the camera to take pictures and he got some good ones. While there Ethan and Ben each built another Blue Bird house to bring home. We didn’t bring home the $15 stuffed eagle pictured below next to the real one and that made for a sad Ethan (for a few minutes anyway).

We also have been busy watching a Robin build a nest in the bird feeder outside our dining room. She has laid 3 eggs now and every time we sit down for a meal we watch her as she sits on them. She is pretty happy we have a suet feeder right next to her but I know the other birds would like their seed feeder back as soon as she is done with her nest. Further down our porch we have some Phoebes nesting, they come back every year. The boys are learning to tell the difference between a lot of birds.

So we didn’t actually make anything bird related specifically for this project but we did, out of coincidence, have a very birdy week just the same!

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