Jeff took this photo in our driveway.

I could have featured this creature in November.

Want to know the answer? Click on the photo!

Yes, I know it’s hard to see. Click here to see it larger. This is one of my all time favorite birds, the brown creeper. Talk about camouflage! It looks like bark. It walks on bark. Sometimes it nests on bark that has slightly pulled away from the tree. I photographed this one December 2009, here in Indiana.

I see this on the tree trunk outside my window. The animal’s name rhymes with whirl. One of its more specific common names is the traffic light color that indicates “stop.” It often sits and chews open pine cones, so it’s sometimes called “piney.” Got it? I’ll say more next month.

The orange thingy on the head of this black swallowtail caterpillar has a wonderful name: osmeterium. It’s a sense organ that comes out when a caterpillar is threatened. It may also spread smelly pheremones. Okay, so I just like the word osmeterium. We grow bronzen fennel and parsley to feed these creatures. Mostly they show up on the fennel.

This honeybee swarm was in a Michigan park in May. There seem to be bees coming and going from a tree hole, lower left.  Sometimes a beekeeper will collect a feral swarm such as this.  Honeybees were brought by people to North America. The bumblebees were here first, as discussed in my book, The Bumblebee Queen.

August is for the Cayman Blue Iguana, currently being helped by a captive breeding conservation program based at the botanical garden on Grand Cayman. This free-ranging one was crossing the path. Attended an informative tour of the captive breeding facilities.

We rescued this wood duck chick that got separated from its mother.  The mother duck and the rest of the chicks made it to the creek. But this one was trapped in an empty swimming pool. It was fluffy and rambunctious. It liked to snuggle in my pocket and would only quiet down when it was leaning against me. Took it to a licensed rehabilitator and it is doing fine.

Chick, burr! When I hear that sound I know that the neighborhood Scarlet Tanager has stopped in for a visit. The red of this bird is so different from that of a cardinal. I always gasp when I see it. Its color seems to glow.