Red Spotted Purple

I wish I would have gotten a better picture. It seems if I would have taken this shot from the other side, you would see some more color on the top of the wings and if the wings were up you would see the red spots underneath.

He's is right

Yes Todd did identify my butterfly. To be exact it is a female Spicebush Swallowtail. Or at least we think so. This is the top side of the butterfly.

What's in a name

I am currently looking for the species of this butterfly. However, not knowing how to even begin identifying butterflies limits me. I went to a site that you picked from these various categories. I did that. Checked off Virginia as a range. Obviously I didn't type something correct because this butterfly didn't come up in the seventeen possibilities. I will do more research (I believe it is a swallowtail of some form) but I wanted to post this pretty picture anyway.

Taking a ride

Why is it that I tend to be squeamish with every insect but I will let a butterfly sit on various parts of my body and not mind? Here is the one that I carried around while hiking. When it was on the back on my arm, it was tickling me a lot. Why was it tickling me so? The Hackberry Emperor will lap up the salt from your sweat.

They're creepy and they're kooky

Mysterious and spooking,

and altogether ooky...

This praying mantis is in my backyard. I found him while watering my plants. He would have blended in on my dying spiderwort plant if he wouldn't have moved when the water hit him. There was one farther back on the plant also but to get a photograph would have required disturbing them more. This may be the one that was in my house a couple weeks ago that I so ungracefully removed. He started crawling towards my hand and I dropped him: jar and all.

The water strider was in Shenandoah on the Doyles River Loop today. I was quite excited at how well this picture came out.