A few from the end of summer. I'm finally getting around to posting them!
I went out onto the front verandah in the evening and found these guys right on the door:
Here's a closer view. The hairy stuff is the female's cocoon - this was probably a rather hairy caterpillar, which spins a silk cocoon and sticks its own hair on, then transforms into a pupa inside. The pupa was inside the hairy cocoon, you can see a bit of it, dark and shiny inside. It must have been stuck on the door for a week or so and I never noticed. We don't use that door often!
The female had evidently just crawled out through the hole you can see at the top, and been joined by some rather enthusiastic males. They were fluttering and jostling for a prime position. The female is wingless, basically a sack of eggs, and the males fly around looking for newly hatched females. They were there for hours, but were gone in the morning. This is what I found:
The foamy stuff is... well... foamy stuff. Sort of like that expanding foam insulation. It hardens, and inside it are the eggs. Sorry, no photos of the tiny caterpillars, that's my project for next summer - get the entire life cycle of some lepidopteran or other. The female was noticeably smaller after all that.
Hope you enjoyed the biology lesson, such as it is. I haven't bothered to look up what species or anything. Oh, and these were all taken with my DL (of course) and Tokina 90mm macro - the second definitely with the macro extender, the first definitely without. Not sure about the last one. All with the promaster flash with some kind of sketchy bounce slapped together on the spot. Gotta love those brocolli bands! Comments welcome, naturally.
Julie
Originally posted by roentarre 
Maybe it's all the other Canadians on the forum whining about the weather. 
I'm actually several thousand km from the snow! Today was cooler than it has been, dropping from 14 to 3 celsius over the day, and a little rainy. And the day those photos were taken the high was in the mid 20s and it probably didn't go below 15 overnight. It does get down into the -20s, but not until January or February and usually not for long. But I am enjoying going over my photos from the summer and reliving the warmer, greener season. I'll enjoy it even more in a couple months when it actually does get cold!
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