NOT a friend!!

This is the Black Widow we found last night while watering our plants on the porch. My son was pouring the water in and as it hit the web- the BW went crazy!!! She was in a frenzie! The boys watched her running all over her web trying to attack whatever had caused the disturbance and it was really something to see! I'd never seen one trying to attack yet. (And we've seen many, many Black Widows since being in Texas!) I went and grabbed my camera, took about two shots of her and she went nuts again after seeing my shadow. That was enough observation for us!

Eeeewwww!!!

OK!! This was fascinating- but kind of gross at the same time!!!
This is a mass of web worms we found on our neighbor's Pecan tree.
We hadn't even noticed them- we were actually looking at the webs high in the branches of
the tree and checking the destruction of the leaves- when one my littles
said he had a discovery! This group of worms was near the bottom of the
tree and the caterpillars were then climbing and making their way
all over the tree!!!

Our Butterfly!!

Our Swallowtail emerged after 2 weeks in the chrysalis. The boys were so happy to it and it was truly a very beautiful butterfly. We took a few minutes to sketch it in our Nature Notebooks and then it was time to let it go. They are so good about wanting to "free" any creatures we have.

release

My boys gathered our back yard neighbors around to release our Swallowtail butterfly. It was so large and beautiful!! They all said their "goodbyes" and after holding the lid open for about a minute, the butterfly finally took off as they all cheered her on. What a wonderful experience and a beautiful sight!

Tree Frog!

We found this little green tree frog right outside our door in a potted tree!! He was so cool! The boys loved watching him and after a few hours we released him. I'm glad the boys are so observant!! They make the most incredible finds- lots of them in our back yard!