Hathaway Park is a small park on Shell Creek.  It has two entrances on Washington Loop Road off US-17 in Punta Gorda FL.  With the recent heat, and rain, I haven’t had a lot of bird or animal activity to shoot.  They seem to like sitting in the shade and moving around only in the cool of the morning and evening.  But, the bugs and wildflowers were abundant today.  The park has two entrances.  One enters the boat ramp and bridle trail area which has ample parking for trailers.  The other does not have trailer parking spaces.  It does have the Canoe/Kayak launch area which leads to Shell Creek.    The left picture shows the view of the boat ramp looking down Shell Creek from the Canoe/Kayak/Nature trail area and the one on the right shows the view from the Kayak launch point.  Once launched, you would go right around the foliage shown on the right and you would enter Shell Creek near the boat ramp.  But, I wasn’t on the water, I took the nature path to see what was to be found.  The rains had refreshed and invigorated everything.  Wildflowers were abundant as were insects.  If you recall the old fable of the ants and grasshopper you might find this picture amusing.  The grasshopper is an Eastern Lubber – Romalea guttata and the ant is uhhhhhhh, an ant.

The spider on the right is an Orchard Orbweaver – Leucauge venusta which is sometimes called a Venusta orchard spider.

But the most interesting sight today was a group of leafhoppers which were emerging from their nymphal stage in the saw palmetto.  it was possible to see them in several stages.