chinese praying mantis

A few days ago I found a giant praying mantis that was about 5 inches long. It was brown with a green stripe on its side. I looked it up and I found that it was a Chinese praying mantis.

Fort Ticonderoga & Snake Hunting

8/18/2009
Today I went to Fort Ticonderoga and we saw somebody demonstrate shooting a musket gun and someone else shoot a canon, but with no cannonball. You could see most of Lake George from the top of the fort. When we looked down from one of the cannons we saw about four wild turkeys. My dad took a picture of me sitting in a cannon, just like a ball.

After Fort Ticonderoga, we drove to a trailhead with a lake and a quarry next to it. In the lake we found frogs about the size of a fingernail. They looked like really tiny toads. We saw somebody trying to catch minnows with a net like I did before, and he was catching them with bread which I usually don’t do when I catch them. He was catching them for bait. Originally we were going to a trail when we got to the trail we started walking down the hill and then we turned on the pathway and then there was a sign saying “Warning, Rattlesnakes!” I felt kind of good that I might see a rattlesnake.

A Trip to Lake George

8/15/2009
This morning I went to my friend’s house and looked in a purple bush and found a really big preying mantis. It was brown and had stripes that were black. I could clearly see it when I found it. It had green eyes and we knew it was a male because it had eight segments and females have six segments on their abdomens.

We were going to Lake George by car and we packed fishing rods, nets and hooks for catching fish, frogs, crayfish, spiders and salamanders. When we arrived, I ran right down the hill to the lake and jumped in to go swimming. I found a frog and I realized I forgot my nets in the car and I went to go get them. I caught small frogs and big frogs and crayfish and fish and salamanders and spiders. When I caught one of the frogs I let it go and it came right back into my net. When I came out to catch some fish I found a small leech about an inch long on my ankle and I learned from my mom that they have a substance that makes the blood continue to flow. There were two teeth stuck into my ankle which felt pretty weird. I held it and ripped it off of my ankle. It took about an hour to stop bleeding.

I came outside with my Aunt Jen and we sat down at the pier and saw about two bats. One of them swooped down at the water and were probably drinking some water. I told Jen about the frogs that I saw earlier and we were looking for some when I found one and put it in her hand.

Nighttime Backyard Creatures

A few nights ago me and my friend were out catching fireflies. We caught about fifty in a net. After that we were looking for some bats and we sat down in chairs and watched bats fly overhead. It looked like they were black and they flittered their wings really fast. They didn't fly straight, they flew zig-zaged because there are usually mosquitos everywhere. They come out right as the sun goes down.

We decided to turn on our black light which attracts lots of bugs. We spread out a white sheet on our clothes line and hung the light on top of it. A few minutes later, we came back out. There were lots of bugs on the white sheet next to the light and we took a bug sucker and sucked up the bugs to get better look. (I will describe what a bug sucker is at a different post.) We saw different kinds of bugs such as mosquitos, red and blue hopper bugs and moths.

After that we went inside for some dessert. We got some ice cream, it was my favorite kind, fudge chocolate with chocolate chips.

Buying a Female Leopard Gecko

One day at the end of June, we went to the Reptile Expo with my friend Delia and my brother Sam. When we got inside, one of the first things we saw was big monitor lizard that was 10 years old and was about 4 feet long. After that we saw some geckos that were about 1 inch long and full grown. Some were blue, some were green and some were purple. I'm not sure what their species is. We passed a few poison dart frogs that were in a big terrarium tank. Most animals at the expo are in tupperware with holes cut in the top.

We found Frank's table where it always is on the right side. We were looking for a 1-yr old female leopard gecko. We have a female and a male gecko that don't want to mate. We also got them at Frank's. There were lots of Leopard Geckos. The one we wanted was an Enigma breed which was a little bit orange and grey and white with red spots. I think it was the best one there because it didn't have any extra skin on it's fingers, it didn't have milky eyes, it wasn't sleeping and it was very active and healthy looking. My brother Sam bought a toy lizard at Frank's. It cost a lot of money. Frank told us that if we wanted to breed this gecko we would have to wait about nine months until she is ready to mate. That will be at the end of March.

After that we saw some praying mantises and all their body parts looked like leaves to camouflage. They were about an inch and a half long. Then we saw an egg casing in the same terrarium. We also saw an egg case that hatched with a lot of little babies. We saw some Stick Bugs that were about five inches long and looked like sticks. They were brown and hard to see.

Next to the Stick Bugs, we saw a Leaf-Tailed Chameleon that was brown. We also saw Jackson's Chameleons which change color, but this day they were green because their surroundings were green leaves.

After we bought some crickets and a new shelter for the gecko, we decided to leave. On the way to the car, we saw a whole family of people looking for a lizard that dropped out of a bag. We asked them what they were looking for. They said they were looking for a Tagu Lizard and I helped catch it in a bush. It had climed the branch and I had to climb the tree to get it. I finally got my hands around it but it slipped away again and climbed up even higher. I finally got it and brought it down and put it in the bag. The lizard was scared and hissed at me with it's mough wide open.

A Day at the Vernal Pond

In May I went to the Vernal Pond and I saw some bullfrog egg clutches and spring peepers. I took a clutch home to see if they would turn into frogs. One of the eggs hatched and then another and then lots. My whole aquarium was full with tadpoles. Soon some of them grew back legs and then front legs and then they shrunk their tails. Soon they became frogs and could breath air.

When I was at the Vernal Pond, I saw a snake eating an egg clutch. It opened it's jaws and swallowed the egg clutch and pushed it down in one gulp. After that we saw some salamander eggs in the pond. I knew they were salamander eggs because they in pairs of two and frog eggs are in a big round clutch.

We looked up in the trees and saw two nests. I climbed the tree and noticed that there was two eggs in the nest. The eggs were blue and I think they were robin's eggs.

On the ground we saw footprints that looked like a fox's footprints. And my friend looked it up in a track book and that's how we knew it belonged to a fox.