Damselfly

 

Angry Insects

The DH spotted this on his way to get the paper. This formation went for six feet. Zillions of ants look to be having a gigantic, panicky fire drill, or some sort of evacuation procedure. "Everybody out! Mill around!!" But more likely it was something like a big pesticide application driving them out from underground.


This little guy has HAD it with me chasing him all over the table with the macro on, and he's turned to fight, belligerently putting up his two wee front legs like a boxer. Cracked me up.

Moth Heart (No, Not The Playwright With A Lisp...)

Still slacking off here.

Coming soon: gruesome life-and-death struggles in the suburban backyard paradise.

Until then, this one's for Clytie!

Time For Another Insect Closeup

Look what I found on the tomato plants this evening! A tomato hornworm, parasitized by the cocoons of brachinid wasps. I've read about these, but this is the first time I've seen one in real life. He's a goner now; a luckier hornworm would have eaten all the tomatoes and tomato leaves he could hold, then metamorphosed into a sphinx moth. You can see from these photos that the tops of the little white cocoons are mostly all open, so I guess the wasps have emerged already, and all the excitement's over.

Key West (Butterflies and Bird Edition)

A surprise hit with the teenagers: The Key West Butterfly and Nature Conservatory. Myself, I never pass up one of these places. I was thrilled that everybody else liked it, too. This one had a lot going on in the nursery, where pupae and chrysali and whatnot were hanging and hatching and drying their wings in plain view. Not to mention, button quail chicks = so cute. But it was hard to take photos of that because of the glass and the lighting. (It's always some excuse with me, isn't it?) So no chrysalis photos, sorry.

Lunchtime. Overripe banana, anyone?

This very fancy finch fit right in. A few varieties of finches and Chinese Button Quail live in the huge aviary as well.

Recently hatched, wings now fully inflated and dried, this one was later brought outside to join the big boys.

Blue morphos, from South America, win my vote for Most Disneyfied Look, as they often fly in groups of three or more, following each other in an erratic, cartoon-y line through the air, right past your nose. At rest, they usually fold their wings to display the dull brown pattern of the underside. This one below, who's more than a little ragged, was quite lethargic, too tired maybe to fold up, so we were able to get a good look at its metallic blue coloring. So that's my recommendation: take the kids, even if they're old, jaded teenagers. I'll bet they like it.

Now THAT'S Exfoliation

There are two praying-mantises around this year, I think. And from the looks of this molted skin, one of them just got a little bigger!

Recent Acquisitions

The Dee's Nursery in Oceanside holds a local-legendary 4th of July Sale annually, when everything-but-everything sells for 50% off list. It's mobbed, even at the 5:30 (a.m.!) opening.

I didn't go this year, and only went to the nursery this morning, more than a week later, to get some stakes for the tall stuff that was falling over. I was happily surprised to find that the half-price sale goes on for "a week or so," according to the cashier, and there were still a number of healthy, not-yet-potbound bargains. I scooped up a white dicentra (alba, a cultivar that blooms after the classic pink variety is done):

another coral bells called Plum Pudding for its purple leaves:

a clump of fescue 'Elijah Blue'

and two clematis plants: the dark-purple 'jackmanii' and a white sweet-autumn variety. They're not in bloom right now. But we half-price gardeners are patient. Oh, and I got another fern, a marginal shield fern:

...so named not for a dearth of the characteristics shared by shield ferns, but for the fact its sporia develop on the margins of its leaves.

Oh, and in an update on the habits of fireflies, I had occasion to observe this one for quite a few hours over the course of planting this afternoon, and my anecdotal scientific conclusion is that yes, they do in fact do nothing, and eat nothing, all day!

Shine On

Yesterday, DH observed as how there seemed to be an extra bucketload of fireflies this year (not his exact phrasing,) and it's true. Many of them spend the daylight hours hanging around the screenhouse. As larvae, they made themselves useful eating snails and slugs and earthworms - wait a minute, earthworms? - but in their adult form, apparently, they don't do anything - at least not while any researchers are watching. Entomologists "think" some firefly species eat other insects, some "may" feed on plant nectar, and some species "probably" don't eat at all once they reach adult form. How interesting to find out such a common insect remains so mysterious to science. (Oh sure, there are 600 billion species of beetles, I know, we can't know everything about all of them, but this is a lightning bug we're talkin' about! 800 million backyard scientists have studied them at close range, over decades of time! How can so little be known??)
Anyway. It seems like there are a lot of them this year. It's pretty.
(Slap!)
Sure wish mosquitos would light up so I could avoid them.

The Rest Of The Vacation Slides

Okay! No more twee stories about insensate objects; let's just breeze through a few last photos from our weekend in Niagara. Leaving out pictures of the people we were with (they're shy,) wineries that pretty much look like wineries anywhere else, and more pictures of Big Water, here's what we're left with: We visited the butterfly conservatory in Niagara Park's botanical garden:

Did I mention that Olivia came with us? She had a blast:

And look! everywhere we go: baby birds!

The Niagara River is a major nesting area, especially for gulls, and we were there in the middle of chicky-time! Above is a common herring gull and chick. There were hundreds of thousands of gulls around the falls and in the islets on the Niagara River.

In the Dufferin Island nature area we saw red-winged blackbirds, including one who opened a can of Hitchcockian whoop-ass on Ken for trying to take her picture. (She must have had a nest nearby.) There is no photograph of her for that reason.

Flowers were more cooperative:

A wooden walkway crossing part of the river had wide spaces between its slats, and you could look through them and see thousands of little fish in the turquoise water.

And finally:

This! The misty, shady area around the "Cave of the Winds" at the base of Bridal Veil Falls encourages some mighty fine tree fungus.

And that's it! For some moving images of the Big Water, visit my YouTube channel, where there's a clip of the view from our hotel window, as well as a brief moment from the Journey Behind The Falls. Almost like being there! Except you're not wearing a poncho.

Other Denizens Of The 'Burbs

Welcome to Jurassic Park! What with the birds and lizards, we're rockin' a prehistoric vibe here in the backyard habitat. The Italian wall lizards are more numerous and somewhat less skittish than last year. (By "less skittish" I mean it takes them two nanoseconds to disappear, instead of one. See how much closer I got to this one? Thank you, zoom lens.)
And here below, a tiny dancer, who's probably trouble in search of a tender green shoot, but today, I'll live and let live.

(New baby bird photo from today is on my Facebook page.)

The Juniper Bush Is A Mantis Nursery

I'm keeping an eye on this through the winter. Can you see it up there, right in the middle of the juniper bush up top? There are praying-mantis eggs in there. I'm hoping I'll be around when the nymphs hatch in the spring. It seems impossible the thing remains viable through the winter, but there you are. Right out in the open, about a foot from the ground, just an inch and a half from top to bottom. It was covered in snow for days at one point, and it's open to the west wind now. But on it hangs, tenacious as a plastic grocery bag in a tree. Remarkable.

Delicious Pest Control

Looking for ways to discourage ants from excavating an apartment complex throughout the backyard brickwork, I came across numerous claims that ground cinnamon would send them packing. This seemed too good to be true, but easy enough to try, and darn if it hasn't worked like a charm! Didn't cost any more than a can of pesticide; I used about six ounces on 144 square feet of brick, just sprinkling it on and brushing it into the spaces between, as you can see there. I didn't worry about Miss Fi strolling about and lying on it. And, it smelled delicious outside that afternoon. That was almost three months ago. This week there was a small troop of them at work in the garage, carrying off the cat food night after night. I sprinkled a few tablespoons of cinnamon on the outside of the garage, at the point they were coming in, and...that was it, they didn't come back. Poof! So, let me offer up my anecdotal testimony of the efficacy of this particular home remedy.

Pollen, How It Gets Around

By covering butterfly snouts...
...and hitching rides on ladybeetle bums,

and of course, sprinkled on bumblebee backs. Or maybe that's a honeybee, but what do I look like, an entomologist?

Again With The Little Critters!

It feels like the lightning bugs showed up early this year. Not that I'm complaining! They're one of the few bugs I don't mind approaching. They're very patient subjects when seated, as above, but a little harder to capture when aloft and aglow, as below.
Although our backyard wildlife is humble in its variety and lacks exoticism, I am, apparently, easy to fascinate.

Our little lizard colony continues to thrive; can you see that one below, looks like he's laughing at me? I had to hide behind the foliage to take this. Look how cute he is with his mouth open! Actually, he was in the process of swallowing a bug.

And look at this guy, below, why haven't I ever seen one before? Have I just been unobservant all these years?
Leucauge venusta

This beautiful glittery-gold-and-iridescent-green-bodied spider is keeping an immaculate horizontal orb web behind my garage, completely immobilizing my agriculture-recycling bin for the last four days now, but he's so interesting I'm letting him be. How do I know the fancy Latin name for this arachnid? Once again, I found my answer on BugGuide, an active and informed "online community of naturalists." This time, instead of posting a photo of my mystery caterpillar as I did before and waiting for a reply, I used the search box on the main page to bring up photos with the keywords 'green spider', and found a dead match in the thumbnails on the first page of results.

Instant Identification

.. I don't know if these guys are always this good, but...
Thanks to Bugguide.net I know this is the larva of a lady beetle crawling around on my Hibiscus syriacus. I didn't know what to make of this thing at first: it looked like a caterpillar, but only from the waist down, because it also had six distinctive legs, unlike most caterpillars. I looked around at bug identification sites, registered at http://www.bugguide.net/, posted this photo in the late afternoon, and less than an hour later, I had two responses that allowed me to identify it. Thanks you guys!

What Now?

I think I have some kind of bark beetle. Well, not me personally, but the pine tree in back. Its foliage has been yellowing for a few years now, though it gets new growth every year. Then last week I noticed these holes. They could be from insects, or just from woodpeckers or sapsuckers (who would be going after...umm...insects. Shoot.) It will be sad if we lose this one, planted as it was from a wee sapling some thirty-odd years ago by either my brother or my sis. (Two were planted, one survived, we're not sure which.) The holes aren't random, they're kind of in a straight line, ringed around the trunk. A couple of hapless ants are immortalized in the sap droplets. Apart from the holes, I don't see any tunneling along the inner layers, under the bark (which has always, to my memory, peeled a lot, so that might be normal. I don't know what kind of tree it is exactly.) So, I'm hoping it's birds, as maybe that would mean the grubs are gone and the tree can recover. It's putting out new growth at the tips as usual, so for now I will fight the invaders with organic weapons like insults and regular watering.

OK, Last One, I Promise...

...this is not becoming the Dead Insect Blog or anything, but look at what happens to a ladybug when it passes away on a windowsill in the sunshine...it gets all transparent and iridescent.....

More Mysteries of Nature

So what's up here? Is this guy passed out, or has he passed on? Why is he planted face-down in the gravel? I found a big bumble like him last summer on one of the butterfly bushes, nose stuck deep in the florets, looking fast asleep. It stayed like that for a day and a night, while I read all kinds of anecdotal nonsense online about sleeping bees. The next day, it was on the ground below the bush, as dead as a fuzzy striped doornail. This one above, he was gone the next day, probably having provided something a tasty morsel. Sad. But easier to photograph than a live one. Still, it's so early in the season, could he haved died from natural causes already? It's too nice out today to go looking stuff up right now....