2014-7-14

Island Camp, WA

Watching a worm (inchworm?) climb a silk-like thread up to a branch high above me. It started near ground level; a few minutes later, it's almost reached the branch from which the gossamer-thin thread seems to be hanging.

Now he's reached it. The branch is about nine feet above ground.

He climbs on the branch, and now seems to be resting on it, not moving, his body in a slight curve.

Now he starts crawling, inching, up the branch; arching his body, moving his head forward, arching his body, bringing his tail up next to his head. He can do this while hanging upside down from the branch, arching downwards.

As the branch becomes vertical, he arches to one side. He reaches some moss on the branch and disappears from my sight.

I see a couple threads, like the one he was climbing, above the patch of moss. They are suspended between the main branch and an offshoot, twig, a couple inches away. Is this the nest? Is this where he fell from?

He has antennae, and what almost look like limbs on his long body, sort of proto-arms and legs protruding from close to his head, and near the tail.

He seems to be hanging out near the bottom of the first patch of moss. I saw him moving; now he's stopped again.

I caught a glimpse of the thread he climbed, or another? glistening briefly in the sunshine.

Now I see he's climbed up higher than the moss patch, and beyond the threads leading to the other twig.

He arches his way up the branch, past the fork where the twig shoots off.

He stops and sticks straight out from the branch; waving back and forth, as if looking around, getting his bearings.

He seems to be heading for the tree trunk, arching his way along the underside of the branch.