Horrible things that live in my yard, Part 58

[phosfate]

1. Caterpillars that look like tiny steel-belt radial tires. Lots of them.

2. Large but flightless baby robin. If robins ever stage Of Mice and Men, this one will play Lenny. Its mother is convinced that I mean it harm, and keeps faking injury in order to distract me from her tasty, tasty child. She's like Tommy Lee Jones in Men in Black: "Eat me! EAT ME!" I have explained repeatedly that I don't want to eat her, or her lummoxy offspring. When I go inside, she switches her attention to the blue jay, who only wants to sit on a bit of fence and probably wonders what exactly he did to offend.

3. Rabbits. They are not in fact horrible, but they are everywhere.

Comments

[ginnytonnick.livejournal.com]

Are they butterfly catapillers or moth ones? We've been getting catapillers, but they're really fat and gree with a yellow stripe down the side.

[annlarimer.livejournal.com]

I...have no way of telling. Do you slice them open and see whether it's a butterfly or moth inside? 'Cause that seems kind of harsh.

[ginnytonnick.livejournal.com]

ew.

No, but you could look at pictures of catapillers to figure out what it is. Looked up mine, and it's a Spinx moth, and it's probably here to eat my tomato plants. :(

How many times do I have to replant those, before I'm allowed to eat them in peace?

[annlarimer.livejournal.com]

Hm. Mom was good at tomatos, but I got nothing. Except that if you put a finger on a tomato worm's little horn, it's like touching a joy buzzer.

[finabair.livejournal.com]

Do the radial tires have horns on them? Are they furry or hairy at all? Any colors other than black, such as red or yellow?

[finabair.livejournal.com]

There are many pictures here: http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/insects/cateast/families.htm

And there's this one, which appears to be a variation on one that's often lots greener: http://www.silkmoths.bizland.com/phgall4l.jpg

Anything look familiar?

[annlarimer.livejournal.com]

Maybe a Poplar Tentmaker, but all the other photos Mr Google came up with look a lot greener. Also, they weren't in any kind of tenty tree thing, but in a clump of dead leaves in a fence corner.

All those pictures have made me a little nauseous.

[nitasee.livejournal.com]

Don't trust the rabbits. They're plotting something.

[teenygozer.livejournal.com]

Jays are actually kinda mean. She was undoubtedly afraid it was gonna kill her baby, and it might try, as a blue jay will raid other birds' nests and eat young birds and eggs.

[ymfaery]

3. As long as they're not everywhere in pieces, they're not horrible.

[cocoajava.livejournal.com]

Rabbits are fine, unless it's BUNNY #6.