Mt. Finlayson Creepers and Crawlers

Despite the beautiful vistas from Mt. Finlayson, for my hike today my eyes were mostly focused towards the ground. I didn't set out specifically looking for creepy crawly animals, but that's pretty much the extent of what I ended up photographing. Here are some highlights.

These grasshoppers were hopping around everywhere and could be heard calling all over the hillside. I'm going to have to borrow my dad's new field guide before I can make an attempt at identifying the species, but I did see it fly (it has blue wings) which should help with the eventual ID. Look at that amazing camouflage!

I saw three garter snakes (Tamnophis sp.), and the first one I came across was obliging enough to sit still for several photographs. I really like the close-up:

These small, orangey-gray butterflies were very abundant, but quick. They flitted about so much and rarely sat still for more than second or two, presenting a real challenge to this photographer. This is the only halfway-decent shot I got, which was enough for me to come home and identify them as common ringlets (Coenonympha tullia):

Much more cooperative was this larger and slower cabbage white (Pieris rapae), of which I only saw one:

After climbing up through the meadows, I looped back through the woods, where Pacific banana slugs (Ariolimax columbianus) were crawling all over the place in the cool shade: