Thursday, August 11, 2011

Tenting on the Old. . .Currant Bush

Herein follow the clearest of the faunal pictures from the Independence Day weekend drive up (or rather, down, in this case) Highway 89. I had parked in a pullout and was occupied in keeping a bumblebee in focus atop a sulfur buckwheat bush when I chanced to glance deeper into the plant and saw a caterpillar. A closer inspection of the bush revealed at least two more of the same species, though that took me no closer to identifying the creature. I snapped all the pictures I could, intending to iron out the who's-who questions when I got home.

A couple of pullouts later, however, the main feature was several currant bushes that had been most definitely settled by the same sort of caterpillar; their manner of settling suggested very strongly that they were tent caterpillars, or Malacosoma californicum, if you'd rather.

I'm still rather curious as to why I found a scattered few of the creatures, unhoused, in the sulfur buckwheat bush. They are evidently pretty gregarious.


7 comments:

Amy said...

The fist picture I liked. The other two...not so much. :-)

Molly said...

Too much of a good thing?

Amy said...

WAY too much. ;-)

Amy said...

Oh, Molly. You have another blog award! You can claim it on my site, if you want it. :-)

Molly said...

Not that I'm behind these days or anything. . .I'm sorry it's taken me so long to say: Thanks eversomuch!

Katrina said...

And I has now tagged you in a game of Global Blog Tag, so you're it. You must needs come to my site and see the rules.

I like the big Caterpillar fella. Like Amy, the rest may be too much of a good thing. MUCH too much. :)

Molly said...

Evidently, I haven't grown much past the previous comment of being behind on my correspondence. Indeed, now I think I'm really, *really* behind on my correspondence! Thanks for the tag. I'll check it out!