The first caterpillar is in the tussock genus. I’m not really sure which one. But should be easy to find out. The second ones, the ones I think you’re referring to, is a monarch caterpillar. A really tiny one at that. It will get 100 times that size lol.
The next is a walking stick. I think the northern walk stick but maybe a Carolina walking stick but I’m not sure really.
I’ve not identified the last moth yet but hopefully will soon.
I thought that was a walking stick in the next to the last photo. Around here they can get several inches long. I’ve only seen them in my garden a few times. Once I was rushing to clean the garden up for an event. As I rushing past a plant I snatched a bit of what looked like dead foliage form one plant at knee level and came away with only part of a walking stick. Going back I found the rest of it still clinging to the twig. So awful. Such a cool creature to see.
The vets were quite familiar with raccoon bites on dogs. They said they can do some damage. In most cases the dogs take on more than they can handle but my guy had to have been mugged as he has no prey drive at all that I’ve been able to detect. I’ve was sitting in the garden with him one time when a very sick, deranged squirrel walked by us not six feet away. He looked at it, looked at me and basically shined it on. My older dog would never let a chance like that slip by.
Well , being Earth day and all, I made it out with the camera this morning and thought I would share a few pics around the home place. The resident jackrabbit was kind enough to pose for me, Most of the flowers are color variants of Gaillardia pulchella, commonly called firewheels or Indian blankets. The fire wheels are just now starting and will be in full bloom in a week or so.
That’s so cool that you walk your cat! I tried it with mine many years ago and he wasn’t a fan. Probably if I’d done more nature hiking it would have gone better.
Good for you. I have never seen one in the wild. My grandpa tried to plant some in his garden, but they didn’t do so well as I recall. My dad often sang, “Pickin’ up pawpaws, put them in the basket, all the day long.”
My sister had a cat named Jack who used to follow her and her dog on walks. Scrawny little thing but he lived near the southern sierras outside Tehachapi and managed to avoid being carried off by owls, hawk, coyotes or mountain lions.
I have enjoyed taking my nieces and nephews to see a large estate garden near me called Filoli in the spring during tulip season. Something about kids in gardens, especially ones where they are responding to the nature and not the camera I just find touching. In the second one the sleeping baby’s face seems as honest an expression of nature as any tulip.
I’ve missed seeing bobwhite tail quails. Use to seem them all the time as kids with the mom in front darting across the road with four little chicks behind her following. Was so cute and fun.
Spring flowers in our area … I posted some of them as a quiz for the shut in kids of our family in North Carolina, Niger and Michigan.
I don’t know the first one! The rest are Dutchman’s breeches, trout lily, cutleaf toothwort, false rue anemone, trillium, violet. Spring beauty (like the anemone, but purplish) is just starting.
Commonly called “bird of paradise “ but unrelated to the true tropical flower by that name, this is flowering in my yard, originally coming from my parents yard where my dad and I planted it many years ago. It is very similar to its more showy cousin commonly called “Pride of Barbados “ but more cold hardy as Pride of Barbados freeze to the ground each year in our climate. Scientific name. Erythostemon gilliesii
Small world. I’m growing that one too. Like you I find the orange one more showy but it’s also too tender for the bay area. The long red stamen (?) seem so over the top, don’t they? When I got mine it had a different first name - something like Caesalpinia g. The growth habit for me is awkward but the flowers make it worth it. I wish you’d post more plant pictures from your garden.
At one point we’d talked about exchanging some bulbs. My Lachenalia aloides are finished for the year and I’d be happy to send you some. They bloom through the month of February and into March. But the foliage is through now. I need to rework that bed anyhow; I don’t really recall but I suppose the leaves must emerge in January. They’re pretty small, or were when I put them in. You could message me a mailing address if you’d like to try them, though who knows when the post office will be available for sending them with the virus still active. They’d do fine in a pot until you see how they do for you, or put them up front in a bed because they don’t get but about 12 inches tall
The flashiest thing going on in my garden right now is probably the flowering Rat tail cactus, though the flowers atop the Wigandia characasana tree are nice too.
I was thinking of you today as the winter foliage of the “miracle lilies” is almost faded and I can dig the bulbs soon. My garden is nothing like yours, mostly just a few plants here and there, most of the color in native wildflowers.