bugs plus

Not much on the milkweed now, only a few monarch caterpillars- I did see a bright, new-looking monarch butterfly cross the yard the other day so hope some of them made their transformation.

More swallowtail caterpillars- this one eating carrot foliage

Three on the rue today, this one showing its horns-

Fuzzy woolly bear caterpillar on joe pye weed leaf

Alligator-looking aphid eater on one of my newly-sprouting milkweed cuttings- a ladybug nymph!

Evidence of a beneficial- trimming the boxwood out front a few days ago I found this tiny mud-dauber nest on a sprig. Wasp.

In the pest department- my tokyo bekana continue to get eaten up in the garden, even though I'm catching crickets and slugs in my yeast traps.

Hand-picking, also found a large brown cutworm, and these larvae. I see them every year but still not sure what they are. My fishes don't like the taste of these (whereas they eagerly eat earthworms, mosquitoes and cabbage loopers!)

Best garden helper- whom I found as I was leaning in to photograph the ranks of fungi that's eating up my old cherry stump

I didn't see him on the stump, only the motion as he leaped away into the turtlehead patch-

it's the leopard frog!

I was out there to photograph those jack-o-lantern mushrooms that made an appearance again- but I missed their brightest glory. Day I stepped out with the camera they were starting to shrivel and turn dark. Next day, they melted into an ugly brown, blackened mess that stank like a dead animal- I figured that out when I kept looking for rabbit or bird remains from the smell, and saw flies around the fungi puddle. Threw a pile of pulled weeds over it, that masked it enough to ignore.