Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Oriel


This cute little bug is Oriel. She is quite shiny and has all these beauty marks, symmetrically placed, on her back and legs. It was a bit breezy the day I photographed her and I had to hold the stem of the plant that she was on so that I could get a still picture. Oriel is about 15 inches long. Ha ha. Just joking. She is about 1/4 inch long, so it's easy for her to hide in the flowers and trees.

Friday, July 16, 2010

Vincent


This may be a little bit difficult to figure out what this is, so I'll tell you. It's an outdoor umbrella for deck or patio furniture. And hiding up in the seam of the umbrella is a little bat. I'll call him Vincent. This is not exactly what you want to see when you open up the umbrella on a sunny day. I'm not opposed to bats, in fact, I think they are cute and provide a valuable service by eating lots of bugs each night. However, one that is this close to the house could easily make its way inside just as the door was opened. And I worry a little bit about rabies. Did you see that episode of "The Office" where Meredith was bitten by a bat? Well, then you know what I'm talking about.

Oh, and before you complain that a bat is not a bug, note that the blog is called Bugs Etc. So, Vincent the Bat falls in the "Etc." category.