A Little More Land

Last weekend, I got to hike around Cooper’s Rock State Forest. It’s a pretty amazing park, with a wide variety of terrain, from sprawling vistas, to rapids, to strange small canyons and fallen rocks. Check out this Flickr set for images taken at the park.
I came across an insect I had not seen before (at [...]

Here are two beautiful caterpillars I photographed in my backyard recently. I believe they were attracted to the large amount of Virginia Creeper growing on one side of the yard.

Eight-spotted Forester Caterpillar (Alypia octomaculata)

Common Buckeye Caterpillar (Junonia coenia)

A beautiful specimen of a female Common Whitetail dragonfly (Plathemis lydia), taken yesterday at Sandy Point State Park:

More detailed, original image here. The females can be distinguished by having three black patches on their wings, while the males only have one, larger patch. This page shows many examples of the different sexes.
The mature males of [...]