First off was this handsome fellow, who is working on a nice cocoon on the side of our wren house:
A bit of Googling (this is a useful site, but not complete; we found it here) reveals the little dude to be a black swallowtail, Papilio polyxenes. We're well within the Eastern black swallowtail's large native range. He was probably attracted by our pesticide-free and insanely fluffy fennel; they're also called parsley worms, since they feed on plants in the carrot family (including parsley, fennel, and dill). While we'd like some wrens to live in the wren house one day, we're only too happy for him to camp out here while it's going spare, so we'll leave him be and see if he continues to spin.
More after the jump, but warning for those squeamish about reptiles:
Woodburn has at least two black rat snakes on the property. In mid-March, one of them slunk away as we were digging and came back when we stopped; they can also occasionally be seen sunning themselves on the brick path around the house's new front porch. We call them Herbert. The other day, a Herbert left us a cool gift at the stepping stone outside the Moorhead Cabin:
I love how you can see every detail of the scales. We didn't keep it -- reptiles occasionally carry Salmonella, and we were too lazy to hike back across the property and wash our hands -- but it was cool nonetheless.
Then, up on the porch, was this little guy:
Between Lizards of Virginia and Discover Life, he has proven to be a juvenile Southeastern Five-Lined Skink, Plestiodon inexpectatus or Eumeces inexpectatus. He'll discourage chewing insects, so we hope he'll stick around.
Finally, over on the woodpile, we found this:
I don't know if it had been abandoned and fallen, or if someone found it empty and set it on the chopping stump for others to see, but it was a great way to conclude a day of cool finds.
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