Finally a Swallowtail Caterpillar

Lots of Life in the Fall Garden

Today the students and I were out on our mission to pull out our dead and dying sunflowers, but we were quickly distracted by the amazing critters that were there. We saw three different butterflies but were only able to identify one of them. One was a white butterfly with a bluish tint with a very distinctive edging to the wings. We saw our first buckeye butterfly and were lucky enough to capture it with the camera. We found some large preying mantis' and a very colorful grasshopper. We also saw at least two different types of moths.

A New Year in the Garden

Last week on August 26 I took my new class of 4th graders to work in the garden for the first time. While working we had our eyes out for critters. We saw a fiery grass skipper right off the bat; there were a lot of bees both honeybees and carpenter bees. The kids really enjoyed looking for new critters.

Today, September 2, we made our third trip to the garden. The students were on the hunt for anything that moved. We were rewarded with praying mantis, grasshoppers, a bevy of beetles (yet to be identified), a cabbage white (who refused to have its picture taken), crickets, chrysalis, and several more unidentified beetles.