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September 18, 2008 - Beware the worm that 'bites'September 18, 2008 • The Suffolk Times rm tsaroara was in the vegetable gar- den photographing our 10- foot -high tomatoes when she stopped and called to me, all excited. It wasn't the 10 -foot- high tomato. plants she was excited about but a warning she remembered her mother had given her a long time ago about picking tomatoes. "Look out for the nasty tomato worms! They can bite," and Barbara had just found one of those "nasty" tomato worms. Sure enough, when I got to where she was I could see her treasure. It's one of nature's best examples of cam - ouflage. When FOCUS you look at it you can understand O N how a predator could pass it by. NATURE What her mother by Paul said was pretty Stoutenburgh close to correct. It doesn't bite but can sting you if you happen to pass your arm or hand over the horn at the end of its body. Its true name is the tomato hornworm caterpillar. Tomato hornworms are found throughout our area. They are the caterpillars of the colorful five - spotted hawk moth, or sphinx moth, we see buzzing around our flower bed in the evening. Because the moths are big and hover like a hummingbird in front of a blossom when feeding, they are sometimes called hummingbird moths. It-wasn't long after our meeting with the tomato hornworm that the tele- phone rang. Someone had reported an osprey stuck in the mud. Now there's a good one! At first it sounded like a joke — "an osprey stuck in the mud "! But no, it was Audubon calling for help. They were looking for someone who could "check it out," an4 seeing we'd been on missions like this before we were the logical ones to call. Usually my son would take care of these rescues, but he was on Block Island. We suggested to Audubon that even though it was a holiday it would IN `bites 4, r season fishing has been good for this osprey, perched on our windmill enjoying its evening meal of a huge bunker. You can tell the bunker by it! )d tail. be good to get hold of John Brush, wh< lives in the area. We knew he'd be able to take care of it. What had happened, we think, is that the young osprey had tried his wings out a little too soon and fluttered out of the nest. Without enough power to fly, it had landed in the mud at the edge of the creek. With a little searching we found the couple who had reported the disaster to Audubon. They were deli ghtful and were ea er to help. As a matter of fact, they had gone out in their canoe to try to give the bird a hand, but it simply moved farther along into the muddy creek and sat there. They were con- cerned the osprey wouldn't be able to get itself out as the tide rose. When Audubon got hold of John, he and his dad headed out to rescue this sorry- looking osprey. When they got to the bird it appeared to be OK, just a bit muddy, so they put it on a nearby dock, where it would be able to dry off While we didn't get close enough to get a picture of the osprey in the mud, we have to show you how good fishing is in the osprey world this tim of year. The photo with this article shows an osprey enjoying his evening meal of a large bunker. These large fish have been on his menu for the last week or two. You can tell it is a bunker by the forked tail. The next day we were up early and as usual opened the curtains of our big picture window. Below right in front of us is our little garden pond that houses our two big goldfish. Each morning they look forward to my feeding them, but this morning, besides the goldfish, there were two frogs sitting at the edge of the pond, presumably slurping in mosquitoes. They have been with us for a while and we presume they are bullfrogs. Bullfrogs are the largest of all our frogs. They can grow to a huge size; some weigh up to 81/2 pounds. They will eat almost anything they can get into their mouths: mice, small birds, insects, snakes, anything that comes before them. We don't know where these two frogs came from. When I cleaned the little pond out in early spring there were no frogs in it. The only things that made it through the winter were the two big goldfish that we had become quite fond of, particularly at feeding time. Now each morning we not only look forward to seeing if our two big goldfish have made it through the night but also whether our two new additions, Mutt and Jeff, have made it as well. Might they leave one night as secretly as they arrived? We'll just have to wait and see. P.S. It had been our theory early on that the frogs arrived at our pond on rainy nights. Could that be? Well, we have to tell you, last night in the rain from Hanna one left as quietly as it had arrived, so there might just be some truth that they travel about on Suffolk Times photos by Barbara Stoutenburgr Above: The tomato hornworm caterpillar can be found on your tomato and other plants. They don't always look just like this particular one, since a braconid wasp has laid its eggs in this caterpillar. When Mature, the wasp's larvae work their way to the outside of the worm, leaving attached the white cocoons from which the wasps will hatch. Left: The bullfrog is the largest of all our frogs. These frogs can grow huge, weighing up to 8 1/2 pounds. They will eat almost anything they can get into their mouth.