Friday, September 24, 2010

Today’s Wildlife Sightings

I went for a stroll around the garden this afternoon. I haven’t made it out there during daylight hours all week. I knew there would be some mutant okra to cut and probably some eggplant and peppers too. After the harvesting was done, I took a walk to see what I could see and a theme emerged. I saw a huge grasshopper, my long lost friend the zipper spider, several anoles, a dragonfly, some butterflies, and bees. Here are their portraits…
IMG_1412-2
IMG_1413
I’ve been reading about MCOK’s zipper spider named Cassandra over the past few weeks. I don’t want my girl to feel left out, so I’d better give her a name too. I think I’ll call her Lucy. I first posted a picture of Lucy on a Macro Monday several weeks ago. I hadn’t read much about her kind yet and I called her a he. Until recently, she’s been hanging out by some ditch lilies and an overgrown salvia. But, I cut the salvia back without realizing I was impacting her web. She found this new location, which I think is better than the old one. Today she had 3 meals all wrapped up and saved for later.

This meal has a few little flies trying to steal a bite.
IMG_1422
I’ve been gardening in this yard for 7 years, but last year was the first time I saw any anoles in my yard. I grew up in a small town northeast of Houston and we had anoles ALL over the place (we just called them lizards). I can remember seeing some of them without tails, my dad said that was their defense. When something tried to catch them by the tail, their tail would snap off and they would grow another one.

I can’t believe the clarity of this dragonfly picture. This is one worth clicking on to see all of the detail.

5 comments:

  1. Really nice pictures, especially the dragonfly. I was at Brazoria NWR yesterday, surrounded by dragonflies of many species, but I didn't get a single picture to compare with yours.

    ReplyDelete
  2. i thought the dragonfly was sitting on a snake. nice pictures.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Great detail on the photo. Your blog is awesome. I'll add it my blog roll. :)

    ReplyDelete