Summer Days

It’s the middle of summer now and autumn is looming on the horizon. I’ve been enjoying the fine weather while I can and I hope all of you have been doing the same. Here are some pictures of some local wildlife I’ve come across while spending time outside on some sunny days.

Honey Bees are quick little buggers! They were quite the challenge to photograph. I plan on trying my hand at photographing them again soon, but here are a couple images of those hard working girls for your enjoyment.

One of my favorite amphibians is the toad. I’ve loved them since before I can even remember. There are pictures of me holding toads at the age of two. I love to photograph them, so I was delighted to find this lovely toad hopping across my path. He tolerated having his portrait taken for a while and was returned to the garden to continue his hunt for tasty insects for lunch.

Camouflage… you’re doing it right!

Speaking of insects, my parents have a few large stalks of milkweed growing in the garden. We’re hoping to attracted Monarch Butterflies, but so far we’ve only seen one caterpillar and unfortunately we believe it was killed in a big thunderstorm shortly after taking its picture. We do see plenty of Red Milkweed Beetles though.

Another visitor my parents had to their garden was a groundhog. He was happily residing in a large hole in the floor of the barn, hanging out in the garden, eating fallen apples from the apple tree, and investigating the garage. Unfortunately his landscaping was not to our taste, so my father set a live trap with some apples, and soon enough the groundhog was caught. We drove him far away and set him loose in some nice woods. The funniest thing happened though. He leapt from the trap and then leapt into the woods, but failed to noticed he was leaping over a small hill. He learned that despite the best intentions, ground hogs can’t fly. Here are a couple pictures of our unwanted guest and the leap to freedom.

Adios!
- Julia Grace