Belated Bday Cake

Mikro decorated it for me. That's the Clearwater sailing by the Statue of Liberty on our beloved Hudson River.

Nature Nearby: The *I [Saw] It on The Grape Vine* Edition

Today there were even stranger things than the Mailbox Mantid hanging out on our grape vine!

This appears to be a spider making an egg case:



And these weird things, which are new to us, appear to be Grape Tube Gallmaker (Cecidomyia viticola), which you can check out here and here.

Nature Nearby: Mantid Makeover

Just had to post this, because I never knew that mantids change eye color at night! In the daytime, her eyes were bright green. But last night...



So cool!

Nature Nearby: Stickbug Edition.

Last week, we found one of the coolest specimens we have ever encountered: a stick bug in the wild (well, suburbia, anyway!) We had only seen them in museums before this. We brought him indoors, set up a critter keeper, and fed him leaves and spritzed him with water once a day. He went downhill, rapidly. We figured the best thing we could do for him was let him go, so we released him in our yard. It's been several days, and I wondered if he recovered. Went out to check and found him, still near where we released him, but looking much perkier:



I moved him a bit further from the mantis...

Nature Nearby: Odd Delivery

This afternoon, I went out to get the mail. I pulled a couple magazines and letters out of the box and stuck my hand in to be sure I got it all. Felt something vaguely like a pine cone and then YOW! Pain! Pulled my hand out. Looked in, only to see this:



That may be the biggest mantis I have ever seen. Seems to be female and just about ready to pop with eggs. So I sent Mikro to get the camera and relocated her (gave her a stick to grab on, and held a magazine under her) to the grape vine by the side of the house.

September Science

We are going to participate in World Wide Water Monitoring Day on September 18th. Last week we did a practice run.





Mikro also caught, observed and then released a baby snapping turtle.







We are still doing our bug safaris:












































Mikro's new favorite website is: New York Bugs.

And, of course, we are still watching the birds and the rest of the neighborhood critters:

Goodbye, Summer!