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Saturday, May 10, 2008

Green Hour Challenge #10: Picnic

I drove 3 girls (including Alexandra) to the crime science field trip on Thursday. Afterwards, we had a picnic back "at school." I decided to use this for challenge #10.

Here's Alexandra being silly on the picnic blanket.

This was a very tiny, almost transparent light-green insect. I wish I could have photographed him better.

At one point, it looked like it was snowing! I searched around and found that this tree was shedding these little white petals. I'm not sure what it is.
We'd noticed these blackberry vines before and I found ONE ripe blackberry!

Very neat, tiny spider. This one looks really neat enlarged. And, I think he might be holding something, but I'm not sure. I love his hairy legs!
Alexandra actually found this leaf-footed bug about a week ago, but thought I'd go ahead and post it. She watched him for about 10 minutes and was surprised when he flew! He was about 1.75 inches long!

And, on Saturday I found this HUGE moth (about 4 inches wide) on a bush near my driveway. I looked him up on What's That Bug? and found he is an Imperial Moth. The females have more yellow, so I believe this is a male. They also go through 5 instars, like the luna moth, so I'm curious if this is typical of moths. I read on this site that the caterpillar can grow as big as a hot dog. Wow!!! I've also enjoyed looking at this site of moth photographers. Near the bottom of the page, it shows that both Luna Moths (which I posted about here) and the Imperial Moth are giant silkmoths, which are some of the largest resident moths of North America.

5 comments:

  1. Great photos! I love that smile of Alexandra's. So cute!

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  2. I agree! Cute smile on Alexandra!
    That spider is so cool. He's got a great camouflage going on. Doesn't he? And his legs are really neat.
    And that moth is so huge, he might have scared me. Man! Texas has some interesting critters.

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  3. Awesome nature study! I love the bug photos, it's amazing how many different types of bugs you get where you live, ones that we don't have.

    Such a cute picture of your daughter too!

    Melissa
    www.homeschoolblogger.com/melissal89

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  4. Great photos of the insects you saw this week! Very cool close-ups.

    Nothing like a little picnic to bring out the sillies in our kids huh?

    Thanks for sharing your nature study and your field trip.

    Barb-Harmony Art Mom

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  5. Anonymous4:29 PM

    Looks like that spider definitely has a meal in his "arms" there. Very cool! I also love the moth picture.
    ~Becky

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