I made a few new friends this week.

First came the toad below. He was so oblivious to me that I almost stepped on him at first. Even when I got down to his level to take this picture from a few inches away, he didn’t react to my presence except for an occasional blink. We’ve seen many toads in our backyard before, but they’re usually black, green, or grey, and never as garish as this orange one.

I believe this to be an Eastern American Toad, though maybe there’s someone out there who knows better.

Then came the turtle below, so covered in mud that I couldn’t make out enough of its markings to take a stab at its species. He eyed me suspiciously, and perhaps even glared, if turtles can be said to glare.

But the most interesting new visitor was this moth known as an Eight-Spotted Forester, aka an alypia octomaculata fabricius, if I am to trust the various identification guides I checked. He landed on me, and would not leave. He kept thrusting his proboscis at me, which rather than piercing my skin as would have occurred had it been a mosquito, merely bent comically.

Whenever I’d decide I’d had enough, and either shake or blow him off, he would just land on another part of exposed skin—a hand, an arm, the back of my neck—and keep on trying to do whatever it was it thought it was trying to do. I have no idea whether the thing was trying to sting me or mate with me.

As for the snakes, well, there’ll be no pictures of those, as I look at them not through the lens of my camera, but rather down the barrel of my shotgun.