While going for a short walk today I came across a wolly caterpillar… rather rare in my area. I took a look… going from head to (tail?) it was tan for the first half, then black for nearly the second half, and a very narrow band of tan at the far tail end. It was a very hair/furry little thing. I don’t have much experience looking at these things… what would you make of it?
Other signs:
-Leaves staying green for longer than normal. Less leaves falling than normal so far.
-Pine needles are turning/falling later than usual.
-Weeds continuing to flower/grow
-Mosquitoes were terrible last week. Worst I can remember for end of September.
-Yellow jackets went away early this year (thank goodness)
-Extremely heavy dews each night
-Considerable lack of acorns this year
PlowMan,
According to your post, the caterpillars say that Maine’s winter will be cold to start, warm late, and then cold at the very end. I kind of think the opposite will happen… we’ll see how the caterpillars do.
LOL – Yeah, that’s the way they are read… I’m not so much a fan of them because everytime I find one they all look the same. I count the brown usually as the “January Thaw”. LOL But you do occasionally find an all black one that just gets you pumped for winter!!!
Did you get a picture?
Daisy x
http://www.claims-world.co.uk/
Now, i’d usually say that you may see a warm winter, but i don’t think this is accurate of a woolly worm, because your area should get hammered just as bad as many other areas this winter. So, yeah that woolly worm wasn’t a good predicter this time around.
That a very interesting observation! though when i see a caterpillar I find them too weird looking, I don’t know if I’m just a tad bit scared or what not but i don”t look at them as up close as you did so i rarely observe all those patterns and I only notice the obvious ones like obvious color patterns on the body. I wish you took a picture for posting I got interested imagining how that looks like!LOL.Good job though, you are a one keen observer!