Leaf Beetle

Doing a bit of housecleaning on the laptop, organizing some photo files. On April 25th I had been taking pictures of some hepaticas, and spotted this beautiful little beetle with deep dark green markings. I looked it up in my insect book, looks like it is some kind of leaf beetle.

Lousewort

Lousewort, or wood betony. Looks like a fern crossed with an orchid. I don't see many of these around.

While I was taking pictures of the lousewort I looked over and spotted this treefrog curled up and snoozing on the sarsaparilla.

Hummingbird nest

I kept checking the clump of maple trees where a hummingbird has nested the past 3 summers in a row, and this afternoon I was delighted to see yet another nest, although this one is in a higher branch. Better for her, more difficult for me to see and photograph the action when the youngsters are growing.

Lilacs

One of the lovliest sights of spring: lilacs in bloom. And along with it a host of insects feeding on the nectar. I actually had a calm sunny afternoon and a few minutes' free time to spend photographing a tiger swallowtail and a few clearwing moths.

Snowshoe hare

These are from May 6th. One of our resident snowshoe hares showed up still sporting a bit of its white winter coat. Looked like it was wearing white stockings. It doesn't seem to have much fear of us, we can get within 10 feet of it before it hops off, and then only for a short distance. Of course, it doesn't take much distance to attract my German shepherd's attention. Last night I had the Beastie out for his walk, and BunBun decided to hop around the corner of a building right under his nose. Beastie exploded into the chase. Having one hundred pounds of dog hit the end of a leash at a full run tends to pop even the biggest and heaviest of us off our feet. Fortunately I've learned to brace for impact, knees and elbows flexed, bringing Beastie to a full stop. I'm glad there's not many around to watch this performance, it must be highly amusing to bystanders.

(Reminder to self: sprinkle a bit of pepper around the hostas before bunny finds them and enjoys a salad.)

Hickory buds

One of my favourite things to see and photograph in spring is the opening shagbark hickory buds. The small buds suddenly explode to the size of a tulip, then start to expand and open up, revealing enlarging leaf bracts.

Black Rat Snake

This morning, while prowling about with the camera, I came across my first black rat snake of the season, basking on the drive beside our garage. I reached down and gave it a little tweak of the tail and it responded by curling up into the classic curled aggressive/defensive position. It wanted nothing more than to be left alone in the warm sunshine, but Dad had the tractor out and about and I didn't want it sitting in the road, so I took several pictures and then carried it off to the side and shooed it out of harm's way. It wasn't until looking at the downloaded pictures that I realized there was something odd about this snake: it has no tongue.

UPDATE: I've been informed that snakes can retract their tongues all the way back. It just looks wierd, I can't recall having an encounter with a snake that didn't, at some point, flicker the tongue at me. I took 46 shots, not one of them shows the tongue.