A very exciting few days here! (Well, for me. I don't know about the rest of you. Those of you who aren't excited about bugs, probably not.)
More moths!
#10 -- Melanolophia signataria Signate Melanolophia
#11 -- Zale lunata Lunate Zale
This is a rather large, very handsome moth, a member (if the internet is correct) of the Owlet Moth Tribe. I love that there is an Owlet Moth Tribe and wish to write stories about them.
#12 -- Protoboarmia porcelaria Porcelain Gray
#13 -- Acleris maculidorsana Stained-back Leafroller
And #14 isn't a moth at all, but the awesome little native plant Chimaphila maculata, or "Spotted Wintergreen." My photos don't look like much, but it's a dark, waxy green leaf with a thick white midrib and red stems. I found it on a dry embankment by the driveway, where it passes through pine trees. Unfortunately for my ambitions, it transplants very poorly--it's a symbiote with soil fungus, and if the fungus isn't present or is disrupted too badly, it won't take. It's as common as it gets in the Piedmont in the Carolinas, but rare and occasionally endangered everywhere else. I am enormously honored to have some in the yard.
Meanwhile, in the garden things are coming up, usually several feet from where I thought they were planted, and the goldfinches have turned that mangy yellow color that they get before they manage to molt all the way to gold.