by terranovabay
With very distinctive stripes, a Monarch butterfly larva gorges on milkweed in the final days before forming a chrysalis to begin the metamorphosis into a butterfly. Seen in the butterfly garden at Audubon House at the Oslo Riverfront Conservation Area.
Categories: Nature • Tags: butterfly, caterpillar, Danaus plexippus, Florida, Indian River County, larva, Monarch
by terranovabay
Photos of a Loggerhead Shrike seen at Kennedy Space Center on the day of the BulgariaSat-1 launch. Lanius ludovicianus monitoring the countdown.
Categories: Nature • Tags: BulgariaSat-1, Kennedy Space Center, Lanius ludovicianus, Loggerhead Shrike
by terranovabay
Tropical Checkered Skippers are often seen in the Audubon House landscaping. Pyrgus oileus side view.
Categories: Nature • Tags: Audubon House, Florida, Indian River County, ORCA, Oslo Riverfront Conservation Area, Pyrgus oileus, Tropical Checkered Skipper
by terranovabay
A White Peacock butterfly feeds on dewy flowers in the pollinator garden at Audubon House in the first light of dawn.
Categories: Nature • Tags: Anartia jatrophae, Audubon House, Florida, Indian River County, ORCA, Oslo Riverfront Conservation Area, pollinator garden, White Peacock
by terranovabay
A lone Gulf Fritillary takes nourishment after surviving severe storms that passed over the Audubon House pollinator garden during the late afternoon.
Categories: Nature • Tags: Agraulis vanillae, Audubon House, Florida, Gulf Fritillary, Indian River County, ORCA, Oslo Riverfront Conservation Area, pollinator garden
by terranovabay
Green Orchid Bees swarmed all over the pollinator garden at Audubon House on Sunday morning. Their eerily, long proboscis dipping into the flowers accompanied by the almost silent buzzing of their beating wings. Euglossa dilemma hard at work during Memorial Day weekend.
Categories: Nature • Tags: Audubon House, Euglossa dilemma, Florida, green orchid bee, Indian River County, ORCA, Oslo Riverfront Conservation Area
by terranovabay
Dragonflies in the pollinator garden at Audubon House. As predators they perch on high waiting for their prey to wander by. Amazingly, they spend most of their lives, months to years, underwater in another carnivorous form called a nymph before metamorphosing into the short-lived — a few scant months if they don’t have the misfortune of being eaten themselves — dragonfly. A prehistoric form of the dragonfly had a wingspan up to three feet across!
Categories: Nature • Tags: Audubon House, Dragonfly, Florida, Indian River County, ORCA, Oslo Riverfront Conservation Area, pollinator garden
by terranovabay
A Gulf Fritillary makes the breakfast rounds in the first light of the day in the pollinator garden at Audubon House. In many of these images the wings are backlit by the Sun highlighting their scales, which give a grainy appearance to the wings. The topside appearance of Agraulis vanillae is less complex than the striking underside.
Categories: Nature • Tags: Agraulis vanillae, Audubon House, butterfly, Florida, Gulf Fritillary, Indian River County, ORCA, Oslo Riverfront Conservation Area, pollinator garden
by terranovabay
A Green Anole stalks its insect prey in the thick greenery of the Audubon House garden. This once ubiquitous native of Florida is being pushed out by the prolific breeding of the Cuban Brown Anole that has only starting making its way around the state in the last century or so after hitching a ride here from its Caribbean home. Remembering the Green Anole was everywhere in my childhood growing up in Florida, now they are a rare delight to […]
Categories: Nature • Tags: Anolis carolinensis, Audubon House, Cuban Brown Anole, Florida, Green Anole, Indian River County
by terranovabay
At first it seemed like something entirely different. A much larger, stranger insect than the little beauty that it is. Probably due to the presence of false antennae at the rear of its wings coupled with the constant side-by-side, up-and-down motion of its wings which made the back look like the front of some larger, very active, fearsome bug when, in reality, it was just a little butterfly that has developed a scary masquerade to ward off predators. This is […]
Categories: Nature • Tags: Audubon House, butterfly, Florida, Indian River County, pollinator garden, Satyrium favonius, Southern Oak Hairstreak
