Late this afternoon I asked my husband if he'd like to go over to the nearby wildlife refuge for a little bit. Since we both enjoy doing this, I was pretty sure he would want to go. Many birds are starting to show up during this time of migration, so we were expecting, at the very least, to see a lot of geese. However, soon after we got out of the car we heard the sounds of a couple of great horned owls. As we proceeded down the boardwalk, we met some other birders. After a time of all of us being still, watching and listening, one of the birders spotted a great horned owl sitting on a branch high in one of the trees off in the distance. (The second great horned owl had flown off soon after we arrived.) It was kind of hard to get very good photos of the owl due to the many branches which were in the way.
As we were walking on the boardwalk, we saw a caterpillar walking on the railing. I hadn't seen one quite like it, and thought perhaps if I took a photo of it I would be able to identify it when we returned home. The identification is going to take me a little longer to do I think. A few weeks back I took a photo of a caterpillar when we were at a different wildlife refuge. It is one that is commonly seen, and probably the first kind of caterpillar I remember seeing when I was a child.
This is the Woolly Bear Caterpillar (isia isabella or pyrrharctia isabella) which will turn into the Isabella Moth.
For now I'll leave this one unnamed.
Thought for today: Everyone needs to make time to be still, to listen, and to look. Quiet introspection is an important part of living.
I always loved those little black and red caterpillars! They used to tickle my skin with thier fuzzy fur.
ReplyDelete