I saw a couple of hound's tongue (Cynoglossum officinale) plants and stopped to check for this species. Sure enough, there were at least 7 caterpillars of the confused haploa moth. This is a native species, but the plant on which its caterpillars are so often found, is not. When the caterpillars become disturbed, they thrash their bodies from side to side. The moths are a striking triangular shape with a distinctive brown and white pattern (which varies, hence the common name)!

One of the first treehoppers I see in spring, these tiny, rather obscure creatures are usually attended by ants who will protect them, in return for the 'honeydew' secreted by the treehoppers.

I've been checking all the stands of stinging nettle I come across, for red admiral eggs, as nettle (Urtica dioica)is the larval host plant. While weeding garlic mustard this morning I was happy to find numerous patches of stinging nettle, all sporting dozens and dozens of tiny pale green eggs. Many were laid on top of the leaf, but there a goodly number were laid under the leaf too. Here you can see one on top, one below the edge of a nettle leaf. Some leaves have only single eggs, while others have 5, 6 or more. I noted several red admirals on the nettles as I carried on with the garlic mustard.

Sandy took this photo of one of the green herons at the pond, watching quite a drama unfold. As Sandy tells it, "We saw a painted turtle eating a red-winged blackbird. Very bizarre! I was walking back to the centre after weeding GM and met Dan and Tony on the bridge. Dan was leaning over the pond looking at something, so I stopped to see what they were doing. Dan had noticed a bird in the water moving around. He thought it was drowning, so was looking for a stick or something to fetch it out of the water. When he got closer, he realized the bird was quite dead and that a turtle was moving the bird from underneath. We all watched in astonishment as this turtle finally came up for air and had a look at us."

Sandy took this photo of a very curious (or anxious) groundhog in the Backyard garden. She said he seemed to be watching one of the volunteers. "Not sure what lured him over there, but we saw him running back down and across the road toward his den later."

At the FWG, we don't only spend our time looking for interesting things to photograph! We also work in the garden, work on habitats, and attend meetings. In this case, a workshop to look at creating a monarch butterfly network in Canada (amongst other things), held at the FWG.