Fritillaries and Leopards

At LHF this last week we caught sight of this pretty butterfly. In attempting to identify it I’ve narrowed it down to a Fritillary. I think it is an Aphrodite Fritillary or perhaps a Great Spangled Fritillary. I only managed to snap two quick pictures before it flew off and the one is too blurry to make out a lot of details. In either case it was neat to see a “new to us” butterfly.

Then this weekend we found this fellow while picking our pears. It took us a bit to catch him! He jumps quite far and we always try to stress our finds as little as possible so we employ a shoo and catch method rather than a pounce upon method. The picture is a bit odd but the frog kept jumping out of my hands. Jr. was the photo man for this one and he kept chuckling. So I think between the two of us we did an okay job getting a picture at all!! Grandpa told us this was a Leopard Frog!

And just for fun. Here is my recent photo capture of the illusive helmet-headed sand children. They are very rare during winter but come out often Summer through Fall!