Bladder Campion

2016 December 24

These were blooming in some profusion alongside our road on June 29, 2016.

bladder-campion-full-height

The leaves aren’t very distinctive,

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Cellar Spider with Eggs and Baby

2016 December 21

Sam and Rosie found this spider in the corner of our bathroom on July 15, 2016. It’s another example of our old friend Pholcus phalangioiedes, the common cellar spider that is found in houses all around the world. She had eggs.

mother-cellar-spider-with-eggs

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Birdsfoot Trefoil

2016 December 17
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These rather bright yellow flowers are very common along road margins and bloom through most of the summer, this particular plant was next to our road on June 29, 2016.

birdsfoot-trefoil-whole-plant

This is Birdsfoot Trefoil, Lotus corniculatus. The flowers grow in a radiating cluster at the tip of the stem, and their odd, asymmetrical blossom shape is pretty similar to other legumes like beans and peas.

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Little caterpillar with reddish-brown spots

2016 December 14

We found this caterpillar on June 20, 2016. It is a relatively small caterpillar – if you compare it to the spacing of my fingerprints, it looks to be less than an inch long.

reddish-brown-cat-facing

I don’t remember exactly how we found it, but it wasn’t on its food plant, so we didn’t know what to feed it well enough to try raising it. Although, even if we did, it might not have worked out – if you look about 2/3 of the way down its body, you can see a dark patch:

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Musk Mallow

2016 December 10
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These big, pinkish-purple flowers were blooming alongside the road on June 29, 2016.

large-purple-pink-5-petals

The blossoms grow in a cluster at the end of the stalk.

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Giant Elm Sawfly

2016 December 7

I found this large insect dying on the side of the road on June 25, 2016. Its body was close to an inch long, and it was so far gone that it did not resist being picked up at all, it would just occasionally move a leg feebly or occasionally turn its head.

giant-sawfly-side

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Fleabane

2016 December 3

Here’s another flower from the Pilgrim River wetland on June 26, 2016.

fleabane-clump

These look superficially like daisies, except that the “ray” florets are more thread-like than petal-like, and there are so many of them that they almost look like hair.

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Scentless Plant Bug

2016 November 30
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Here’s a bug that I mainly photographed to increase my count of November insects – it was crawling on a rubber mat[1] on November 8, 2015.

brown-bug-november-facing

brown-bug-november-side-dorsal

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Tall Meadow Rue

2016 November 26
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These peculiar flowers were blooming beside the Pilgrim River boardwalk on June 26, 2016. They were pretty common, and the plants were quite tall, with some of the flowers being all the way up to eye-height.

meadow-rue-whole-plant

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Dark Brown Geometrid Moth

2016 November 23

This dark brown moth came to our porch light on July 4, 2016.

brown-moth-scallped-wings-dorsal

That pose, with the wings spread out flat and the forewings not overlapping much with the hindwings, is one of the common poses of geometrid moths. So, I searched for moths on Bugguide that had that pose until I found one with those same thin, wavy lines running across them, and the scalloped wing margins. The best match I could find was Johnson’s Euchlaena, Euchlaena johnsonaria[1]. These moths are pretty variable in color, but they do have this exact pattern, and sometimes look exactly like mine, here.

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