I need to carry my camera more often when I'm outside. Last night, when I was out I had a 'hummingbird' come fluttering within a few feet of me and was oddly tolerant of my presence. On a closer look I saw the antennae and realized it was a Hummingbird Moth. And every snake I've seen has bolted before I could get my phone out. Its always awesome for me to see these kind of pictures from others. Thanks for sharing.

This post was edited by Leekle2ManE on Sun, Aug 18, 13 at 10:27

Love the giant spider!

And what is the orange/yellow flower that the swallowtails like so much?

That orange plant is a pagoda plant. Butterflies absolutely love it.

I tend to take the camera out with me anytime I'm in the garden since I never know when I'll want to take a picture. That particular snake has been hanging around for a while now and has had numerous enconters with both dad and I and seems to have figured out we're not going to hurt it.

I like seeing the big golden orb spiders in the garden as long as they don't build their webs across the walkways.

That's the pagoda clerodendrum paniculatum.

I love your pics. I have quite a few orb weavers in our garden. There are huge ones on one of the arbors every year and they always make egg sacs there. Whenever I water stuff around it, they run down to the bottom of their web to get any bugs that come up from the plants (I'm guessing).

We get lots of Hummingbird/Hawk moths all over the brugmansia flowers. They are pretty neat aside from the fact they eat my brugs and tomato plants lol.

Hey. That's a Si Robertson 'Hey'. I don't suppose pics of a dozen mosquitoes feasting on my boney legs would be considered Garden Visitors, eh?

Thanks for the ID. I may have to go looking.

I thought I was going to see deer, rabbits, birds...I have to keep reminding myself I'm living in Florida!

Loved the butterflies.

Jane

Rabbits and birds are definitely possible. I see them from time to time here, it's just, as I stated earlier, I never have a camera with me.

This post was edited by Leekle2ManE on Mon, Aug 19, 13 at 6:30

Jane_ny, maybe it depends on where u live in fl on what kinds of critters show up. We r in a rural residential area surrounded by woods and part of our acreage is woods so we do see deer, rabbits, possums, raccoon, armadillos, lots of birds including large owls, eagles, and hawks. I even surprised a bobcat once who was sitting outside of our guinea pen one evening when i went to lock them in their coop. We lived outside Yellowstone Park for a few years so I am quite familiar with bobcats. I don't know who was more surprised, me or him. We both kinda just froze, then he bolted towards the woods lol. I haven't seen him back but there are a lot of brave red foxes that even are seen in morning and evening hours here.

I live about a mile from the Withlacotchee state forest and we get all kinds of animal visitor but most of the seem to come around after dark and we don't get to see them. Just recently I found deer tracks in the side yard and something, most likely racoons, was messing around in the kiddy pool where I keep some extra bog plants. In the past we've seen deer, red and grey fox, coyote, black bear, hawks, barred owls, racoons, possum, armadillo, gopher toroise (had one in the yard this weekend), swallotailed kite, pileated woodpecker, and lots of smaller birds.
Here's some of the things I've seen in the past.

Ok, I am blind?? Where is the critter in the first picture? :o)

It's a red moth with purple edged wings and a white spot in the middle of the wing.

Edit: Make that a rust colored moth. Now that I'm seeing it at home and not on my phone, red just doesn't quite fit.

This post was edited by Leekle2ManE on Mon, Aug 19, 13 at 10:06

Ok, I see it now, I guess. I thought it was just another dead leaf. Thanks for pointing it out. :o)