(Wooly bear caterpillar. October 2008. Photo © Robin)
The other day Bo at Seeded Earth mentioned the wooly bear caterpillars. I hadn’t yet seen any this month so I went out on a hunt. Lucky me, it was an easy and successful hunt. I found one crawling along the back of the house.
As Bo wrote, legend has it that the wooly bear caterpillar can predict whether or not the upcoming winter will be mild or severe. The wider the middle brown band, the milder the winter.
There’s a great webpage about the wooly bear and its weather forecasting abilities here.
Every year in October, in a town not too far from where I live, they hold the Woolybear Festival. One of these years M and I might make it up there to attend. Just for fun and giggles.
According to the wooly bear pictured above, we’re going to have a mild winter.
I’ll let you know if this particular wooly bear’s prediction is a good one or not. So far, it has been a pretty mild autumn. Only two real frosts and one day of snow. Up until the month of February, when winter has pretty much worn out its welcome, I kind of like the snow so I hope winter isn’t too mild.
P.S. For those interested, I’m NaBloPoMo‘ing over at Life in the Bogs.
Bountiful Healing 
eek! are they really wooly, or prickly to the touch? i hope you get snowy days. winter just doesn’t feel complete without it
I’m wondering if anyone else from different parts of the country have seen any Wooly Bears. The one I found in western Iowa earlier this fall looked much like your forecaster – mostly brown. Wisconsin’s little guy was mostly black. 😦
Wooly bears are fuzzy like a bear, don’t you think, Robin? I always wanted to keeo one in a glass jar and watch it’s metamorphosis into a moth, but was afraid I might not do it right and harm one.
And how fun to go to a Wooly Bear Festival. Somehow I haven’t heard of such a festival in Wisconsin – at it seems like we have a lot of unusual ones. Sounds like a great fall theme, especially for little kid (and big kids-at-heart, too.)
I’m trying to remember where I last saw some of these wooly bears—I think it was in the Pecos Mountains in September. It’s been mild here, too, but unfortunately I didn’t pay attention then to the intensity of browns versus blacks on the catepillars then, so I can’t say whether they accurately predicted what’s happening thus far.
Nice close-up.
Aefiel: What Bo said. They’re fuzzy like a bear. 🙂
Bo: It would be interesting to find out about the wooly bears in different parts of the country. And then see how it plays out this winter.
Ybonesy: Thank you. 🙂 If you see any, let us know what your wooly bears are forecasting this year.
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