Velcro Feet

Oh dear! My heels! They've been getting more and more exposure to the earth and sun lately, without socks, and have started getting velcro-y. I notice it when I pull my polyester gym pants off at the end of the day - they hook and scrape on my heels making it sound and feel as if I'm undoing a velcro closing. (shiver ... maybe it's not too discreet or genteel to talk about these bodily things that we all try to hide, but I say "let's get real"!)

Dragonfly and Columbine

I was starting off on a short walk around the block, when I noticed this dragonfly attached to my wild columbine. It was so intent on what it was doing that I was able to get up really close for these photos. It was fascinating to see this level of concentration and focus.

It had disappeared by the time I returned from my walk.

Spying on Muskrats

 

I was very excited to have the opportunity of watching our resident muskrat bring vegetation to its nest in our cove from a close vantage point. I have a glider bench reasonably close to the water's edge, and the pair have been swimming back and forth from there, diving right under the twigs and branches collected previously by a beaver.

I was intrigued to see that it also gathered floating milfoil fragments that were near the nest, and took them inside, too. I had previously only watched it harvest grass from my shoreline.

That brown 'log' is a muskrat with milfoil in front of its mouth

A few days prior, I had got really close by standing behind a tree where they harvest the grass. It had no idea I was there, but my pics of it were obscured by moving grass tufts.

 The dark brown blob with coarse hair and tail laying on the leaves is a muskrat

And the latest activity they've been up to, is swimming up to a stand of pickerelweed, and then diving down and gnawing one off (you can see the selected plant quivering at the surface as they work). They then resurface and swim back to their nest with it, one stalk at a time.

Sitting Quietly

There's always something new to discover, I've found, when you sit down quietly and spend time BEING. I was able to notice a small, mostly white caterpillar in the grass today, and though it seemed intent to keep moving, I was able to take a few photos. It wasn't in my field guide (😒), but Google lens was able to help narrow it down. It's a caterpillar of the Canadian owlet moth (Calyptra canadensis), which feeds exclusively on meadow rues, which I have in my NATIVE yard (Yay, me, I have loads of those!).