Yesterday, Alan and Laura came up to help with the search for Frosted Elfins in daylight. More eyes to look and the company is always great too!
Alan and Laura searching! The greenish clumps are the Yellow Wild Indigo (Baptisia sphaerocarpa).
Laura finds the first Frosted Elfin caterpillar! Yeah Laura!
Quickly, a second is discovered!
Number four!!
On the back side of the leaf of number four, I found where it had been gnawed by someone. I am not sure if the caterpillar was responsible or not.
Some of the cats were pretty well hidden. We ended up finding that you had to sit beside a plant and look very careful.
This was the largest larva I found. It was about 10 millimeters. The sizes ranged from one millimeter to this one. Most were in-between the aforementioned sizes.
Often times, the cats would be at the base of the three leaves. However, I did find a couple climbing on the stems. At number twenty-two, I had photographed each caterpillar. To make more progress, photography stopped. 🙂
Interesting to note, not many of the Baptisia were blooming. It was getting late for Laura and Alan’s long drive home. So when we got to an even forty we decided to quit. Then Laura found another. Then another. Ok Laura and I found seven more right in that small cluster of plants. But is was time to quit. So we stopped at forty-seven! Furthermore, we had only looked in small area of the patch. How wonderful, eh!
It was! And it barely touched the 6 acres we had surveyed before. Maybe a quarter to half acre. The three of us counted for about hour and twenty minutes.
What a great day for cats!
It was! And it barely touched the 6 acres we had surveyed before. Maybe a quarter to half acre. The three of us counted for about hour and twenty minutes.
You found so many cats! Congrats! And thanks for the sea turtle link.
😊
Wow! Fantastic!!
Amazing! Wonderful news!
Exciting day for all. Bet you were all surprised at how many you found. Good job. And love the canoodling turtles.