Chile pequins relocated, too

Last week, I happened to notice a huge, healthy chile pequin, growing along a neighbor's fence line. Yesterday, I walked over and looked around for some young ones that we might dig up. Success! I found two. So I emailed Butch and asked if we could have them. Yes, he wrote back.
Awhile ago, James and I walked over there, and he dug them both up.

I grew up with this native hot pepper but never paid much attention to them growing in our yard in Corpus Christi. Now I think they're extra cool and love the bright red fruit they produce in the winter. Birds supposedly eat the peppers, but I didn't see any dine on ours last year.

Here's one newly planted chile pequin....

And there's our second....welcome to our Wildscape, peppers!

Toad relocation

This chubby guy's been hanging out under our air conditioner drain, which is right by our back garage door. Not a safe place, I decided. So I moved him to the sanctuary, where I keep two special "toad" plates filled with water. As you can see, he settled right into his new home. Hope he stays there!

Butterflies!

"Sweetheart, hurry!" James was videoing butterflies in the front yard when he hollered. An eastern tiger swallowtail on the butterfly weed. Awesome! So are the clouds of queens and an occasional monarch that are nectaring on the blue mistflowers. Right now, our Wildscape is just BEAUTIFUL!!

Insect visitors and residents

My one big, fat black swallowtail caterpillar on a new rue plant...

I spotted this unidentified caterpillar on our blue mistflower,
which are being visited now by dozens of queens.

And this dragonfly kindly allowed me to photograph it
while it rested on a dead tomato branch...

Native vines

Carolina snailseed

Purple bindweed

(See the little ant in this image?)

Meet my pigeonberry

Pigeonberry
One of my favorite native plants!

Spider versus mantis

Yesterday, we were telling Patrick goodby when I noticed a beautiful argiope spider above the left garage door. I was oohing at her when James spotted a praying mantis over the other garage door. He joked about the mantis maybe wanting to eat the spider. Well, sure enough, James came back in the house later and exclaimed, "The praying mantis is gonna get the spider!"


So I rushed outside. Yep, the mantis had crawled over toward the spider and was eyeing her VERY hungrily. James went for the camera, and we snapped a few photos before I climbed on a ladder and nicely removed her so the spider would be out of harm's way.

Nice profile shots, eh? She posed as agreeably as she could.

Then we placed her in the salvia coccineas, where she'll find plenty of moths and other insects.

Honestly, I try not to interfere with nature too terribly much. But in this case, I had to intervene. The argiope over the garage is the only one I've seen this season, and I'd like her to hang around long enough to leave an egg sac for next spring.