September 2, 2010 by kim.

We’ve had our first water-bug / palmetto bug / cockroach in this apartment! Not like it’s something I want to celebrate or anything, but I find it to be somewhat noteworthy. Luckily, Matilda was on the job, having done this sort of thing before back in ‘07.

We were sleeping when I heard kitty making scratching sounds on the carpet next to the bed. She was in a crouched stance, watching something on the floor. In the dark, I could only make out a black oval shape. I was hoping she was playing with her little toy mouse or maybe even a real one, but I had a feeling I knew what it was. A water-bug. A large cockroach, really. Yuuuuck. Water-bug sounds less disgusting, but it’s basically the same. They don’t move as fast as the smaller bugs, but they move fast enough.

Anyway, Matilda had pretty much beat it into submission when I decided to asses the situation by the light of my iPhone. Yep. That was it, all right. Time to wake up Chris to take care of it.

I did my part and got a cup to put over the offending creature until Chris could slip some cardstock under it to pick up the creepy crawly thing. Then, we made it to the toilet for a swift disposal. Done.

Let’s hope that’s the end of that.

Hope, hope, hope …

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October 13, 2009 by kim.

One weekend before we moved to Jersey, Chris and I went to the Montrose Point Bird Sanctuary in Chicago. Beautiful. Gorgeous. Peaceful. I wish I could hang out there every day, all day. I got so swept up taking pictures that I was able to block out the city completely. Chris took a couple of shots of the skyline, but I focused mostly on foliage and insects.

Sign

Prairie

Flower

Trees

Bee

Black wasp

Grasshoppers

Milkweed Tussock Moth caterpillars

Skyline

Simply sublime!

Posted in Nature, Insects, Happy, Observation | No Comments »

September 1, 2009 by kim.

As you know, I’m fascinated by insects. I like looking at pictures of them and watching them in their natural habitat. I’m not fond of them crawling in the house or on me, but I’m interested, just the same.

Imagine my excitement when I thought a saw a cicada! I never get to see them up close, I usually only hear them. Here was one, right before my very eyes! I got my camera ready and tiptoed to get closer. I took a quick shot (for safety) and got even closer, expecting it to fly away.

I didn’t need to worry. It wasn’t there at all.

It was only it’s discarded skin:

When I first glanced at it from that angle, I thought it had impaled itself on a nail or something. Then when I looked closer, I saw what it was. The cicada had merely molted (see an example here)
and left its skin behind:

Here’s a close-up:

Gorgeous!

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August 20, 2009 by kim.

I went to put something in my purse yesterday when I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. I wasn’t sure if I saw what I thought I saw, but I did. I lifted up my purse a bit to investigate and found it crawling with ants.

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeew!

When I squealed, Chris came running to see what I was freaking out about. When he saw it, he had me take the purse outside to the porch. I wasn’t really sure where to set it as ants crawl all over the place on the porch, but it was better than having them crawl around in the house. Chris grabbed the Raid, sprayed the area where the purse was, and then we ate lunch.

Ants are gross, but not gross enough to stop us from enjoying our food.

After lunch, Matilda and I went outside to sit a spell and rid my purse of those pesky ants. I couldn’t figure out what the deal was. We have seen ants here and there in this apartment, and have gone through a couple of cans of bug spray to try and combat them. We even have all of our food sealed and in plastic bags to prevent bugs from getting at it. I had my purse on a tall chair in the dining room and never had a problem like that before, so what happened?

Butter Rum Life Savers. That’s what happened.

I had those life savers in my purse for almost a month with no problems. They were open with just the wrapper folded over. In fact, Chris and I each had one the other day. No ants on our tongues. Nothing.

Then, I see this:

All over my nice new purse. Great.

Only when I started to take everything out did I realize my Life Savers mistake. I dumped the candy out of my purse, saw the ants, screeched once and wrapped it in a plastic bag:

I was just going to throw it away, but I knew I was going to post about this experience. Could I leave everyone hanging, not knowing the extent of the infestation and able to sleep soundly? No. Of course not. I wouldn’t want to disappoint my fans. I decided to brave the insects and open the bag:

Not bad, but it gets worse:

I sprayed some Raid in the bag to kill them before they crawled all over me so that I could show you the candy they were after:

Aren’t you glad I shared this with you?

Sleep tight!

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January 25, 2009 by kim.

I’ve been sitting on my hands for months, trying not to inundate my blog with various pictures of bugs we’ve found in our apartment, but I just couldn’t resist sharing this one with you:

We found this dead little guy on our kitchen windowsill. I think it is in the same category as a silverfish/bristletail/firebrat, but I’m not entirely sure. I started taking pictures of it but it blended in too much with the brown sill, so we moved it to a paper towel. Actually, Chris moved it. I really like to look at bugs, but I’m not that jazzed about touching them.

We worked to get the lighting just right for this all-important photo shoot. Overhead lights, indirect lights, flashlight…we stopped before setting up movie lights. No reason to get carried away. I took some shots and gave the camera over to Chris who was able to capture this magnificent creature in all its glory:

Isn’t he (wasn’t he) beautiful?

Farewell bug!

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July 20, 2008 by kim.

More bugs! Good grief!

This afternoon, we noticed a fly in the house. Then there were two. Then three, four, five, six, seven…EIGHT! Eight flies appeared out of nowhere and were trying to fly out of the closed kitchen window:

Where did they come from? It seemed like they all showed up at once. We thought it would be too much to do a catch and release, so for the time being, we just let them be. I went for my camera because I thought, hey - I could blog about this. When I came back into the room, Matilda was going crazy attacking one of the flies.

I was too stunned to get the video camera setting ready on my camera, but I watched as she meowed at the fly, swatted it, pounced on it, batted it around, and finally ate it.

One down, seven to go.

Chris and I got some paper cups (funny - I just bought them today for the purpose of catch and release) and got ready. We positioned ourselves in the kitchen, and waited for the right moment. First, I caught one and let it outside. Then, Chris got one. Then we both got one at the same time. Double release. Then Chris, then me, and finally Chris.

Rescued: Seven
Eaten: One

Whew - what a day!

Posted in Insects, Annoyance | No Comments »

July 18, 2008 by kim.

Introducing…Dimitri!

Isn’t he the cutest little thing?

We were staying with our friends Ann and Bob in Kansas City this past weekend, and while milling around the breakfast nook, in came this little long-legged fly. At first glance, we thought it was a mosquito. While Chris and I are all about catch and release, mosquitoes are the exception. Not because we want to harm them, but because they surprise us and “accidentally” get slapped.

Anyway, when we all realized that this was no mosquito, we decided to let it go about its business. It stayed around us for a couple of hours, and we were thoroughly entertained by the way it wasn’t afraid of us. When it landed on a candleholder, Bob was able to pick it up for a closer examination and it didn’t even fly away. We decided to name it, and Ann came up with the name ‘Dimitri’.

Here he is on the candleholder:

See how tiny he is?

Here he is on a leaf:

How handsome!

After a while, we noticed that we didn’t see him around anymore. We like to think that he just moved on to a different part of the house to rest his weary wings.

It was a pleasure to know you, Dimitri!

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July 15, 2008 by kim.

We recently discovered the macro setting on our camera. Oh, what fun! Chris first took this picture of dew on some WI grass:

Then, back in our apartment, Chris came by with a teeny tiny bug in a paper towel prior to release, and I took this picture:

Ground beetle?

The next day, while locking the front door to the apartment, I took a picture of this little guy:

Predatory running mite?

Chris took this picture on the windowsill in our dining area:

Unknown

We finally got the idea to put an object nearby and take a picture from farther away to show size:

Aren’t we clever?

Here is yet another picture, taken by Chris:

Millipede

I’m sure we’ll be taking more pictures with this setting. It is so amazing to see these teeny tiny things up close!

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June 3, 2008 by kim.

Last night, I was stretching in the dining room before retiring to bed, when I heard a muffled whimper coming from the bathroom. I looked up to see Chris appear in the doorway, toothbrush in mouth, beckoning me to quickly hurry to where he was standing. I did, and he showed me what had him so distressed:

Whoa!

My first reaction was to run and get the camera. Which I did. Chris took this picture and then we looked around for something to put the spider in so we could remove it from our apartment. We found a small plastic container and scooped the spider inside so that we could transport it outside. We’re all about catch-and-release here.

I’m not completely sure what type of spider it was, but I think it may be a Woodlouse. If anyone out there can identify it, please let me know. From what I read, the venom isn’t dangerous, but the bite can hurt.

That’s comforting.

Sort of.

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January 18, 2008 by kim.

Okay - just one more blog about the Virgin Islands, and then I’ll stop boring you with vacation pictures…until next time…

We saw a lot of different wildlife during our stay. I hope to have a better camera and a quicker hand the next time we travel, as I missed a few things I wanted to take pictures of, and other things didn’t turn out as well as I had hoped. For instance - if I had my wits about me at 1:30am on one of our walks to the bathroom in the dark with only a flashlight to lead the way, I would have brought my camera along to take a picture of the hermit crab we saw and almost stepped on.

Instead, I was able to snap a shot of this land crab:

Funny thing about this crab - we heard it before we saw it. It was early in the morning and we heard rustling around our tent. We thought it was a person, or at the very least a deer (which we did see another time, but only got blurry photos). Chris bravely peeked out of the “window” and saw the crab. I got my camera and went out to take a picture. It quickly sidestepped away, but I was able to get close enough for the photo. I then hightailed it back to the tent because it was giving me quite a dirty look, and that claw didn’t look too inviting.

Here are some other animals we were able to see:

Pearly-eyed Thrasher

Bananaquit

Ground Lizard

House Gecko

Iguana

Frangipani caterpillar

Goat from Miss Lucy’s establishment

There were also chickens roaming Miss Lucy’s establishment, but I missed getting pictures of them. Of course.

That wraps up our trip to the Virgin Islands. Many thanks to Wally and Vernie for flying us out there - we had a wonderful, wonderful time and think about Cinnamon Bay every day!

I’d also like to give recognition to Chris who took a number of pictures this trip - specifically, Annaberg Sugar Plantation and surrounding landscape, the goats, the Miss Lucy sign, the airplane and Santa. Thanks Chris!!

Hope you all enjoyed our vacation as much as we did!

Posted in Vacation, Nature, Insects, Animals | No Comments »