Lorenzo, Eggs, and Babies

First thing I did this morning was check on the dagger moth caterpillar, which I've named Lorenzo (to go with Alonzo.)

The early part of the day he worked at making the leaf disappear

But by about noon he had settled down on the central vein and stayed there the rest of the day

From the naked eye his spikes looked dangerously sharp and poisonous, but after looking at this closeup I dared to tickle them with my fingertip. They are very soft and flexible

Since I had my camera around my neck and went ahead and walked the perimeter of the yard and found two more McBuggers:

A Pennsylvania leatherwing (soldier beetle) who had been hiking through pollen

And a cute little skimmer who was posed patiently while I took lots of shots

Yesterday while sitting at the computer I noticed a funny little pattern on the window and investigated. It looks like an insect laid eggs on my window, and now I'll have another life form to keep my eye on.

Cluster of eggs

  

Close up of eggs

A few weeks ago I noticed something funny on the outside of the front door and I sort of brushed it off. When I looked more closely I realized they looked like insect eggs. Last night I happened to be looking through my insect book and saw the same type of eggs. I am happy to know that they are lacewing eggs.

I had already rubbed most of them off. They are teeny tiny white eggs on the tips of long thread-like stalks. The base of the stalks are stuck to the door

And speaking of eggs, the 5 turtle eggs that hatched last fall were kept through the winter by a surrogate mother, then passed to a 2nd surrogate mother for the spring and summer so they could live outside. They are going to stay there and hibernate for the winter. 

I was over there around 7pm, and the babies were putting themselves to bed, but these 3 were still out. They have different color dots on them so they could make sure they were all eating. Turtles tend to be quite piggy about their food

            

This surrogate family has a special compound just for the turtles, with a pond and all sorts of obstacles to   make the turtles' lives interesting. Here the western ornate has owned a little cave cubby at the side of the pond

And here are my 3 boys. Rebel is using Mr. Doc to demonstrate for Elwood how to be the boss