During a walk through the woods in the fall, it can be tempting to gaze at the trees and their marvelous array of colors, sparing little attention to the ground below.
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| The woods on a quintessential autumn day. |
However, it is still important to look down every once in a while -- and not just to avoid tripping. Paths through the woods are often shared with animals that are an unfortunate combination of small, slow moving, and easily squished.
Moreover, while the trees in their autumn foliage emanate a certain serenity, finding a fuzzy caterpillar is much more exciting (at least for me)! Finding this caterpillar was particularly exciting, as when I got close to see its face...
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| Facing down the woolly bear. |
...it suddenly whipped around into a ball (reminding me of
another caterpillar's surprising reaction).
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| The banded woolly bear in a defensive posture. |
Though curling up is unlikely to be a good defense against shoes or wheels, the caterpillar's response did make it easy for me to roll it off the road and out of harm's way.
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