The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning
Ed Nisley's Blog: Shop notes, electronics, firmware, machinery, 3D printing, laser cuttery, and curiosities. Contents: 100% human thinking, 0% AI slop.
Other creatures in our world
Even though cicadas are completely harmless, Mary was quite startled to discover one crawling up the back of her garden pants:
It seems the cicada mistook her for a tree.
They’re handsome creatures:
They’re very conspicuous on fabric:
I teleported it to a maple tree, where it was better camouflaged:
When last seen, it was headed upward at a pretty good pace. We wished it well on its adventures …
Mary found this gadget gnawing holes in a bean:
The lump on the right is frass, not a mini-me tagging along behind.
We had no clue what it might be when it grew up, but Google Lens suggested a Striped Hairstreak Butterfly caterpillar and, later that day (and for the first time ever!), we saw an adult Hairstreak fluttering on a goldenrod in the corner of the garden.
As with all caterpillars, you’d never imagine the adult butterfly. It seems they move their hind wings to make predators aim at the south end of a northbound butterfly …
A Praying Mantis has once again taken up watching over the Butterfly Bush:
I made a slight noise that prompted an immediate weapons lock:
We’ve watched her stalk and capture a bumblebee, as well as chow down on one of the myriad moths feeding on the bush at night.
As always, if I were smaller, I’d be worried …
The toad population has apparently been spending more time near the Mighty Wappinger Creek, rather than around the house, during this very dry summer, so this small toad at the garage door came as a surprise:
A few days later, Mary spotted a larger toad tucked into the spice garden:
Small tree frogs sound off in the darkness around the house, but we’ve never seen any of them.
We wish them great success in their future bug hunts!
These Praying Mantis nymphs may have emerged from the ootheca I rescued from the grass trimming operation earlier this year:
The closest one was about 60 mm long, with plenty of growing ahead in the next few months:
A few days later, I spotted a smaller one, maybe 40 mm from eyes to cerci, hiding much deeper in the decorative grass clump. Given their overall ferocity, it was likely hiding from its larger sibs.
They have also been stilting their way across the window glass and screens in search of better hunting grounds. My affixing their oothecae to another bush may have disoriented them at first, but they definitely know where their next meal comes from!
Perhaps as a bonus, a Katydid appeared inside the garage, stuck to the side of a trash can that Came With The House™ long ago:
I deported it outside, in hopes of increasing the world’s net happiness.
The stickers covering the can say “WPDH: A Decade of Rock ‘n’ Roll”, suggesting they date back to 1986, ten years after (Wikipedia tells me) WPDH switched from country to rock. Neither genre did much for me, so I never noticed.
Perhaps this is a relative of the tiny turtle I teleported two years ago in the same section of the Dutchess Rail Trail:
Such fancy patterns!
I’m pretty sure box turtles don’t grow fast enough for this to be the same one …
A pair of wrens, having found the new entrance reducer entirely satisfactory, set up housekeeping in the front bird box and raised their nestlings.
Somehow, they manage to fly directly into the hole without stopping:
Outbound trips require a security check:
And away!
After those nestlings fledged, they began building a nest in one of the garden bird boxes a few hundred feet away. In short order, we’ll be awash in wrens!
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 