At The Buffet

Who says I don't do Vegas-y things? Last night, I crashed the Birdy Happy Hour and tonight, I stepped into the Caterpillar Buffet.  Yes, worms, creepy crawlies...caterpillars. Lots of them, all over the place.

I was huffing and puffing my way from the student parking lot to the CEB (Carlson Education Building) for my (fifth-to-the-last-ever) college class and, as I rounded the corner approaching the door, I came across a whole flock of sparrows and finches hopping around the sidewalk, and all over the plants and landscaping rocks. One of them was gulping an inch long black thingy down its gullet and another was walking backwards on the sidewalk, dragging some sticky black tube along. Mighty curious. I had to hurry into class, but I realized it was some type of worm.

I came back out the same door a little over two hours later, but the sun was so low in the sky that all the birds were now gone. However...Caterpillar City was flourishing!  There were several furry black ones scrunching their way along the sidewalk. I looked around to see where they were going to (or coming from) and I realized that there were several identical bushy plants in the landscaping that were coated with caterpillars!

 

 I put the pen there to give it some scale. 

 

Curl, stretch, curl, stretch--he was moving along quite efficiently.

 

You have to look closely, because in this photo they look more green than black, but along the stem on the lower right side of the photo, you can clearly see two of them.

 

Notice the black fellow with a yellow head in the center of the photograph? Notice the leaves all chewed and full of holes all around him?

 

I made this one bigger so you can more easily see all the caterpillars coating this plant. There were at least 15 that I counted before I took the photo. This plant resembles a weed that I have growing in my yard, but the black fuzzy ones were also on other greenery in the plant area, too.

 

 

I'm guessing that as soon as the sun comes up tomorrow, the birds will be back with gusto. I don't know how long the Caterpillar Buffet will be open, but, just like the eateries on the Famed Las Vegas Strip, this one on campus, in the shadow of the Strip, is packed with tasty treats, and the customers give it Two Thumbs--er--Feathers UP!!