June 13th, 2007
fresh from the garden
All three of these photos were taken while I was working in the garden this morning. I was up bright and early — but more about that down below. The Gray Treefrog was found in the front garden while I was hanging out laundry. It was quite a good-sized frog, and in all likelihood, the one that serenades us from the front porch area when rain is imminent.
The second photo is of a Giant Ichneumon that I found in the back yard while watering the vegetable garden at 5:30 a.m. This is the first of these insects that I’ve ever seen here at the farm, although I have photographed them elsewhere in the past.
Third photo is of an Eight-spotted Forester Moth, found flying around between a rugosa rose bush, a cedar tree and some Virginia creeper vine. I’ve seen these around the farm before, but this is the first time I’ve had a chance to photograph one as they’ve usually disappeared before I can switch my camera on.
The weather continues to be hot, and everything must be hatching out at a great rate now. Last night, we were awakened at 4 a.m. by what must surely have been a raccoon with its “kids” wandering through the back garden just outside our bedroom window. There were steady, grumpy growls and occasional screeches accompanied by the oddest “bee-bee-beep! bee-bee-beep!” noises that sounded like several R2D2’s, first moving slowly across the yard, then circling around the house and through the front garden, before fading off across the roadway. I shone the flashlight out into the garden, but we have so many trees, shrubs, rose bushes and perennials around the place that the search was rather futile. And so the mysterious bee-bee-beeps remain….a mystery. Ah well, at least my day got off to an early start. If not for the weird sounds at 4 a.m., I probably would have missed the Giant Ichneumon in the back garden. It seems that all things happen for a reason.
Tags: Gray Treefrog, Hyla versicolor, Giant Ichneumon, Megarhyssa macrurus, Eight Spotted Forester Moth, Alypia octomaculata