Nature encounters

Most of these were seen in Texas. The spider was in Iowa the day before I found out about my cousin's death. It was a fun little encounter we had in our neighborhood while we were looking for monarch butterflies. The cool thing was how huge these spiders (quarter size) were and there were about 4 or five in the same area of tall grass. It had been a rainy day and was drizzling that evening when a friend showed us these cool spiders at a park in our neighborhood.

In Texas we also saw another roadrunner. We see those every time we are at aunt Heidi's.


My favorite thing to do at my sister's house is bird watch and see what nature encounters we can experience. We saw lots of Black Widows, as usual, as we turned over the rain gutter catchers on the ground. My favorite thing for us to do on our last visit was to watch all the humming birds at the back porch feeders. We could see the feeders from inside the house as well. I made this short video of them, while I was sitting on the back porch watching the birds and Camden was in the sprinkler. At the end of the video Camden asked me to scratch his back. He is so adorable! Darn those mosquitoes. It was so relaxing to watch those hummingbirds. They could empty a feeder in about 7 hours or so. My brother in law refilled the feeders several times while we there for two days.

Please tell me about any cool nature encounters you've had lately. I am always trying to think of new adventures here in Iowa to experience, or elsewhere.

Peace to all.

~Heather

P.S. Also, in the photos: Passion Flower with a bumblebee inside, Gulf Fritterly Butterflies mating on a Passion Flower vine, pink hibiscus milkweed flower (Thanks for the correction, Sis). These were all taken in my sister's yard.