Summer surprises!

We've had some unexpected guests this summer. It's been pretty exciting. We came home about a month ago and discovered this on our porch:

We had to take this shot through the front door because we were afraid to scare him off. He was watching us the whole time, though. Eventually, he did fly up into the tree in our yard.

We went out onto our front porch to watch him and he continued to watch us. We were calling him Hedwig. There were two of them living in our trees for a couple of weeks, but they have now moved on.

Then, thanks to all the rain we've been having this summer, we have a big crop of mushrooms popping up all over our yard. They started out looking like enlarged golf balls all over the yard, but if I could keep the kids from kicking them over, they opened up into HUGE mushrooms.

I think these giant mushrooms are really cool, so I took my camera outside to snap these pictures of them. (Before the kids kick them to smithereens.) But, while I was taking these pictures, I discovered something rather surprising. It seems that the mushrooms might also be the homes to some rather surprising guests. See if you can pick them out in the pictures.

Apparently it is very rare to spot these elusive creatures, so we feel very fortunate to have been able to snap these pictures of them. We are still looking for Gargamel's castle, but are quite certain it's nearby.

La la la la la la. La la la la la. La la la la la la. La la la la la.