Not long before we had planned to go swimming it started to rain. Knowing the YMCA would close the pool we chose to take our children out to play in the rain instead. It is not often that you get a nice, warm summer rain with no thunderclouds overhead. As you can see, Caleb liked the rain!
After the rain passed and we stayed out to explore nature and we met this little guy: 
The children named him Sunflash with Makayla’s urging. Most of the family took turns examining him close up.
Some were even brave enough to hold him without the shovel (not mommy!). This is the first time we’ve met one of these caterpillars.
And nobody squished Sunflash, much to his relief.
We also noticed a matching caterpillar had been caught in a spider’s web and died, so we collected him for our insect collection. Back in the house we looked up this yellow furry friend and discovered he is an American Dagger Moth, native to the Eastern United States. His favorite foods include several trees, one of which is maple. Both our backyard trees are silver maples, so we will keep our eyes open for more when we’re outside. We will also be adding our find to our nature journals tomorrow.
Have you found any buggy visitors this summer? Did you take a picture? My children would love to see any posts about it!
This post has been entered in the Outdoor Hour Blog Carnival for July under Insects. It is hosted by the Handbook of Nature Study blog.
8 comments:
Aw, how cool! We sometimes find little fuzzy caterpillars in our yard. Always neat to see!
This past week there was a grasshopper (or maybe a katydid?) on our wall so my husband put it into a container so our daughter could take it to bug camp at church. Here's the post:
http://thecaulfieldfour.blogspot.com/2011/07/week-in-review-36-bb-is-for-bear-and.html
I forgot to mention in the post that Hannah brought him home alive and we let him go in the yard. :)
Thanks for the comment BJ! I headed over and showed my kids your daughter's bug too - they thought is was cool.
Oh... to see caterpillars again.. I've not seen one in forever it seems. We have an abundance of birds that are quick to snatch up any little bugs (except grasshoppers for some reason...). Such joy on Caleb's face! We had a down pouring the other day and it felt really nice but the kids wouldn't go out in it... lol I liked it!
How fun! It's those little moments that mean so much. :)
What a colorful, interesting caterpillar! I have never seen anything like it. Thank you so much for sharing it with the OHC!
What an amazing caterpillar! I really enjoyed seeing how much your children loved interacting with it.
My kids would have loved to have found this caterpillar. How precious to see your children observing! We found a bug we had never seen before on one of our Summer Nature Trails (posted as part 3). This loved the color and size.
One of our readers mentioned thinking it might be a Milkweed bug and she was right. The kids were excited to figure out what it was, finally.
Sunflash is kinda pretty -- for a caterpillar!
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