On my walk I heard a crashing and thrashing in the woods, as if a massive beast was tearing through the undergrowth. Nope. Just an armadillo. They are definitely not quiet beasties, but I guess when you come fully armored, stealth is not an option. I paralleled him on his (her?) morning snack snuffle, then continued on my way.
I did not read carefully when making my grocery order and ended up with a super-sized watermelon rather than a small, reasonable sized watermelon. Oops.
I cut up half, saved a couple slices for the chickens, then ran out of fridge room, so set out the remaining section for the wildlife (in front of the trail cam of course).
The mammals were only mildly interested, but the ants, flies, and butterflies loved it and quickly made a rather grotesque mess of the melon. I suspect the opossum that visited was more interested in the larva than the flesh. The cats just watched the butterflies.
I have seen reference to abundant white deposits on plants in a couple Texas blogs I follow. They seem to be appearing in greater number this summer. One said it was mealy bugs. Another delved a little deeper and with the help of iNaturalist identified them as Citrus Flatid Planthopper larva. (Her blog is here). She had a video of the planthopper moving away from its wooly nest, then going back. So I had to go prod and the ones in our yard to see if there were critters. Yup! Same behavior too, moves away from contact, but then eases back into the cottony camouflage.
It seems that it is the year of the pill bug. Rollie pollies are everywhere. Well, OK, everywhere that is outside and slightly moist and dark. So many more, though, than we’ve witnesses here before. We even found one that had a different colored front and back. I couldn’t find any studies or speculation on why it is two colors, but did find other photos of the same phenomena. Interestingly, the head is not always the lighter color. Sorry the photo is slightly blurry, by the time I zoomed in to check the photo, the land crustacean had scurried off to hide. There were other creatures in the decaying branch to catalog as well; a wolf spider with an eggs sac, several grubs, and a millipede.
How exciting to see a dragonfly nymph at the lake! This one was probably headed for its final molt, since they are aquatic until adulthood. My eagle-eyed eldest spotted this one and watched it for awhile while my youngest pulled in fish.
