Wooooosh! We all got blown all over the place by the heavy winds today (gusts up to 35 mph), but the temperature was gorgeous (73°). After work, it was so lovely outside, I stopped over at the WPA Rock Garden for a short walk. Because of the wind, I didn’t expect to see a lot a bug or other critters, but there were quite a few. Lots of dragonflies hugging onto the plants to try to keep from be whacked around by the wind. I was following one big Darner dragonfly around the garden, trying to get a photo of it. He moved too quickly, though, so I wasn’t successful in getting a shot of him — but, he DID lead me to a dead bush that had a newly laid praying mantis egg case on it. Kewl! I also saw a medium-sized Gulf Fritillary caterpillar. It had just shed its old skin and was all shiny: blue and orange stripes with black spines all over it. It was still not fully mature yet, so its colors will change a lot before it forms its chrysalis. These caterpillars only eat passionflower vines, and most of the vines in the garden have been cut down almost to the ground for some reason, so this guy was practically lying in the dirt… I also found a big Carpenter Bee hugging onto the side of a plant. She was just too tired to fly against the gusts… So it was a fairly good photo day afterall.
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