Bugs on Flowers

Hey, you know what's super hard, and also involves looking at really creepy close-ups? Identifying a spider.  I knew this was a crab spider, so I had a place to start, and I'm fairly confident its in the genus Misumessus, possibly a female green beauty?  Right or wrong, this is a lovely spider I found on a Canada anenome.  (I have a much higher tolerance of creepy crawly critters than most people, but still... I rarely describe spiders in terms like lovely or beautiful, but honestly?  Look at her... she's just striking.)  Note: Canada anenomes are still blooming, but past peak. 

The insect was sort of incidental to this picture, for me.  I was actually aiming to photograph the coreopsis, which have just started blooming.  I just love them, love their frilly petals but mostly I love their color.  It's by absolute favorite shade -- those who know me will recognize it as the color of my car, my office walls, several of my running shirts, and close to the color of my spring/fall jacket that I wear for like 6 months a year.  And these flowers have such a pure color.  Some petals look like the color is watercolored onto white petals (indeed, some flowers, if you rip a petal, you will see white under the color).  But these, these look like a pool of pure color, you could dive into it... 

I have no idea what this guy is.  Some sort of orthoptera, I guess.  A young one, maybe.  Anyhow, he was hanging out on an impatient at my parents' house yesterday, and I thought he was cute.  

Still Warm...

Today we took an after-school walk, and for a good 10 minutes there was a cloud of gnats surrounding us.  That certainly didn't seem wintry.  Just saying. 

These aspen catkins have been peeking out for a while, but they definitely got bigger and fuzzier over the weekend.

And the vernal witch hazel is flowering, its tiny but bright orange petals uncurling from their buds. 

Unseasonable

November 1 and it was in the mid 70s today. I saw butterflies and grasshoppers and bees and dragonflies... here's one:

Another Plant Muncher

Goldenrod cutworm, I believe this is... There were tons of them munching up the leaves of goldenrod in the garden.

Back in the Swing (For Now)

Between last week and this week, some things I've missed photographing:

• mayapples blooming
• wasps making nests everywhere
• assuming last frost was last week -- 5/14 was in the 30's -- SUPER COLD -- we planted all the vegetables in the garden this weekend.  I did hear Tom Skilling say on the radio this morning that he thinks the warmth is here to stay.  Now if he could take the thunderstorms out of the forecast for my last camping trip, that'd be good. 
• pretty much all trees have leaves now, including ashes and oaks, our late leafer-outers
• I saw a really beautiful wood duck yesterday, just floating along by the boardwalk at Rollins Savannah

And here are some observations from the actual May 23:

Spittlebug spittle is quite common now.

Cream False Indigo blooming:


Daisies:

Weather Moves Back, Spring Moves Forward

Yesterday's emergence: midges, all over the school walls.  Thanks to Chris for the ID.  

I promised we'd get crabapple blossoms today, and here they are!  Though these are early adopters, most are still bursting at the seems, but closed.  Maybe they're waiting for the mercury to top 50. 

And look!  Golden Alexander is blooming.  Color in the prairies!

Chill in the Air

This photo from this morning shows two important things... first, notice the frost.  We've had frosts before (as noted) but this weekend was the first real deep freeze, where things on my deck (which is protected and therefore often escapes the ravages of a patchy frost) were good and truly frozen.  This morning's was quite lovely; as the sun rose, everything sparkled and glittered in the side-ways light.  It looked rather wintry, though.  (I will note... by lunch time, it was in the 50s, and I saw both grasshoppers and a yellow butterfly... so it didn't kill everything!)

The other thing to note in the above photo is that its of a recently burned area.  The fall controlled burn season started late last week (that was the first time I saw anyone burning, at least).  Despite the frost, walking through this area smelled like a fire. 

This pretty tree is a Callery pear.  Though they aren't native, they don't have any invasive qualities and I think they're really nice looking in landscaping... especially this time of year.  Some cultivars are deeper red, some are more like this one, with red-orange-yellow mixed together.  But they all seem to hold onto their leaves quite long, coming to peak color in November after most everything else is way past.  Every autumn I admire them.  (It is sad, though, that nothing seems to eat their blueberry-sized pears.  They're really cute but I guess not too tasty!)

TGIF

Oh, what a difference a day makes!  I described yesterday as cold, damp and windy -- those were the objective terms... I left out unpleasant, etc.  Today, however, was perfectly lovely.  Though I woke up to ice on the porch (tried to take a photo, too dark), it has warmed nicely and turned into a brisk fall day... it's sunny, lightly breezy, and altogether pleasant!  Here is a picture of the prairie with the woods in the background.  Though past prime in the color department, they were still looking remarkably pretty.  

Today's wildlife sightings were increased over yesterday, too... I did see a woolly bear yesterday, but that was it for the creepy crawlies.  Today, in addition to woolly bears, I saw dragonflies, grasshoppers, bees, and butterflies (a sulfur and a monarch, though there's not much left for them to eat.  The monarch landed on a dandelion in a lawn.)

I also noticed, walking along, a great many deer tracks on the trail.  I was just thinking in my head how there were really a lot today when this young buck charged across the ag field, saw me, stopped abruptly and stared at me for a minute, then took off leaping again, tail lifted in warning.  

Among the birds I saw, the red-tailed hawks were most notable.  They were soaring and circling, and calling out to each other like eagles in an old western (which, of course, used recordings of red-tails dubbed over footage of eagles).

Updates

After days of wind and chill, cloud and drizzle, today is a beautiful, sunny (and, I should add, windless) fall day.

Today is one of those days when, as you walk , swarms of grasshoppers jump out of the way, a constant wave of motion preceding you by a foot or two... 

Also still around: dragonflies (though green darners aren't so common anymore, mostly the red ones), butterflies (not monarchs, but sulphurs and whites), bees and wasps.

In the bird world, there are grebes on the lake (above, tiny) and goldfinches are officially brown, not gold.  This happened a few days ago but today I was watching a few eat seeds.  (No photo, though, they don't sit still!)

The prairie is looking autumnal, with lovely colors in the grasses.  The only flowers left in full bloom out there are the asters... New England a vibrant purple, and also the little weedy white ones. 

Bluestem shows its true colors... red.  (This is little bluestem.  Big bluestem is purpler, but neither is blue!

 In the tree world, sugar maples are turning... I'd estimate about 30% of them have gone orange.  The rest are still thinking about it.  Red maples look like this:

Good Camo

If it weren't for the leg, you'd probably not even see the katydid in the photo!  Talk about good camouflage... The wing veins even look like leaf veins.  

(This insect was actually found by a colleague on the ceiling of the building... where it did NOT blend in nearly as well.  We performed a rescue mission, as it was way up high, and were able to set it free with no harm done.  YEA!  I have no idea how it got inside in the first place.)

Seasonal Symphony

I probably should just learn how to record and insert a sound clip... but instead I will try to describe the dog day sounds of the prairie.  It's amazingly noisy out there.  There are constant buzzings and and dronings, chirps and whirrs and chitters and trills.  They come from every direction, and sound like they are both far away and incredible close.  (Though I can NEVER find a cicada or a cricket when one seems to be singing right near me, it's crazy.  The other day, I came across a co-worker who appeared to be staring into the branches of a tree.  Knowing that someone staring at tree branches is most likely looking at something I will find interesting, I asked what he was looking at... the answer?  Nothing -- he wanted to find the cicada that seemed so close but was completely elusive  At any rate...)  Some of the calls seem like a constant backdrop.  Others crescendo and decrescendo.  Still others pulse like waves.  Mwow, mwow, mwow... There's my attempt at an onomatopoetic description.  There's an incredible diversity of voices out there!

Of course, it's not really voices or singing (except for the few birds that do chime in).  The insects that create our late summer prairie symphony -- cicadas, crickets, grasshoppers and katydids, at least -- are in the percussion section.  Their sounds are created by stridulation, or rubbing body parts together.  Many species have ridged or bumpy wings just for that purpose.  The wing membranes also amplify the sounds, and they do a darn good job at it!  Those are loud noises for little critters.

Enjoy the sounds of the season!

More Bugs, Baby!

Monarch Caterpillars -- one of several I saw!

It occurs to me that most people don't define their days as "good bug days," or of they do, the mean a day in which they saw no bugs.  But I define a good bug day as a day when the interesting arthropods keep happening.  Of course, I don't take pictures of most of them.  And in this case, I'm not even posting most of the good bug pictures I did take.  I mean, how many do people really want to see?  But I'll just say... it's a good bug time of year!

"Bug" Faces

   

Just Because... 

Buggin' Out

Clusters of milkweed bugs -- most young but of varying sizes, with a few adults scattered in  -- clamber all over each other and the pods of the milkweed plants that host them.  Very cool. 

Water lilies are in full bloom!

I will tell you one of my favorite phenology-teaching stories... Several years ago, we were doing a phenology/Native American curricular activity with 1st grade students... pretty young.  The basic idea was that we studied the native calendars, how they named the months after phenological occurences (Snow crust moon, Strawberry moon, etc.), and then the kids created their own calendar based on the phenology here.  We did this activity in late winter, but we wanted a full year calendar, so we had each child do his/her birthmonth.  A lot of the summer ones were ended up being "hot moon" or "sunny moon"... it's not like they could go outside and look at what was happening in August, and they were pretty young.  Asking them to remember what was happening outside on their birthday... well, as I said.  A lot of "hot" and "sunny."  But then I had this one student who drew a water lily and explained that in August around his birthday he always saw them on the pond.  I remember being so impressed by that!  (There were several other examples of really excellent memories/observations -- I don't want to imply that this was the only one.  But it's the one I will always remember!)

Daily Discoveries

Rough blazing star is the last of the Liatris to bloom

Red Osier Dogwood has very striking berries at this time of the year.  

This fellow's short adult life is over, but you can hear his cicada brethren singing, their droning song accompanying the late summer heat.

Stiff goldenrod -- many people's choice for most desirable Solidago...

My Seasonal Update

I haven't been motivated to blog lately... but that doesn't mean I haven't been making notes about the appearance (or lack thereof) of spring... and sometimes composing poetic paragraphs in my head that never make it onto paper (keyboard).  Finally, however, I feel the need to have a record of data that I can look back on.  

Winter may have started weak this year, but it ended strong.  There was a weak in early March when the ground was covered with a foot of snow -- we had 2 largish late-winter snowfalls -- and everyone was walking around talking about how last year on this day it was 80 degrees.  None of that in 2013.  Spring is arriving reluctantly.  I can only hope that means when it comes, it will park itself firmly, not let winter creep back in!

Yesterday was ice off... the latest ice off in the past 7 years at least.  Here's the data I've kept, indicating that we're over a month past last year's date, weeks later than average... and indeed, it's the only April ice off date I've seen!

2006 -- Mar 10

2007 -- Mar 18

2008 -- Mar 31

2009 -- Mar 9

2010 -- Mar 18

2011 -- Mar 18

2012 -- Feb 22!

2013 -- April 4!

Meanwhile, plants are similarly slow compared to last year.  In 2012, spring ephemerals flowered in March -- we had violets and Pasqueflower, bloodroot and others... This year... not a lot.  Crocuses are in full bloom, daffodil and tulip leaves are out with frost-burned tips, but they're not that tall yet.  There's no green haze across the water as willows get that springy green... even the catkins have been slow to swell.  (Vernal witch hazel is in bloom, and silver maples have flowered... that's about it that I've noticed, plant-wise.)  Redwing black birds are about the only thing that kept to the normal spring schedule this year.

Yesterday, I saw a cluster of ants surrounding something on the sidewalk, and last weekend when we went for a walk, some gnatty things were flying around my head, so I guess the insect workld is starting to come back to life, too. 

OK, back to work!  

Creepy Crawlies of Devil's Lake

During five days spent at Devil's Lake and the surrounding areas, I encountered many fascinating arthropods. Happily for the reader, many of them moved way too quickly for me to capture with my camera, so you are spared the details of clubtails and saddlebags and bluets and many varieties of odonata. With lepidoptera, my camera and I did a little bit better. The swallowtails pictured above must have found some sort of desirable mineral deposits, because they clustered at the water's edge, and allowed me to get close enough to see the wing scales that give their order their name. Eventually, our proximity did alarm them, and a cloud of yellow butterflies fluttered in every direction around us, which nearly made me laugh out loud...

I also captured on film this pearl crescent and, from very far away, this luna moth.

Despite much trying, I was unable to get a picture of a black butterfly, 2-3 inches, with blue in its lower wings, possibly an admiral? We also found a fat-bodied, pink-winged cecropia moth, hanging out under the lights of the campsite bathroom (silly me, I didn't think to bring my camera to the toilet at night. Now I know.) (And of course, we saw a number of sulphurs and skippers and plain moths that didn't get their picture taken.)

By far the most common insect we saw were the larval form... caterpillars were everywhere. Smooshed on the trails because you couldn't avoid them, hitchhiking rides on our shirts because we accidentally walked into them as they hung from silken strands, and slowly munching their way through leaves galore. The tent caterpillars (eastern and forest, respectively) were the most common.

But we did see a lot of these, which I will call inchworms because that's what we called them as kids. I guess it's really a geometer. Whatever. That sounds like a tool for measuring shapes, or something. Inchworm sounds like a charming song, like childhood. Inchworm, inchworm, measuring the marigolds, seems to me you'd stop and see how beautiful they are...

This delicious-looking (think like a bird, dear readers... it's chubby and not at all hairy... yum...) specimen remains unidentified. It was removed from its host plant by a child who was carrying it in her pocket and proudly showing it off to hikers traveling in the other direction, which means my hopes of ID are pretty much shot.

One last larva -- a saw fly chewing up Solomon's seal.

Some other notable insects...

to the left is a fat fuzzy bumble bee snacking on a legume of some sort. To the right is a beetle, which I have absolutely no hope of identifying, but which I initially passed, thinking, "There's a bee on the trail," and then, "wait a minute, that's not a bee..."

This spider was HUGE. Chris described it as the size of a saucer. That may be a slight exaggeration. But only slight.

A centipede crawls around on the wet rocks.

And there ends the bug tour of Sauk County. I should have taken a picture of the deer tick that was on me. It was the smallest darn thing, very creepy.

Up next: Plants.

Everybody's Out...

...enjoying the beautiful weather. Yes, we finally got one of those days -- one of those weekends, better yet -- when you can sit outside, unmoving, and feel warm. When the temperature feels like summer although the colors are still early spring. A day that smells like sunscreen. One of those days when the slog through winter seems worthwhile, because we got to this, and it's marvelous because we waited so long for it.

And everyone is out enjoying it. We saw about 20 turtles, sitting on a log and soaking in the day. As we approached, they one by one plopped into the water, and then re-emerged, the sunbathing too enticing and the people too distracted by the little skull they found:

(About 3 inches long, non-rodent, not a lot of teeth... present or originally, for that matter).

Dragonflies were out, too... happy day!!! I first saw him as a flash, just that, that disappeared into the trees, but I knew that nothing else shimmers the same way in the sunshine. When we stood still and watched the pond, we were able to see several darting past, soaring and diving. They were male green darners and none alighted long enough for a photo op, but that's OK. We've got months of odonata watching ahead of us.

Snakes were out, although the only one I saw disappeared quickly into the grass. Frogs were out, also, calling loudly but there was also a froggy plop, animal unseen, as we approached the water.

The bugs were out, flies and gnats swarming... yesterday I saw my first wasp, and today I saw several more. First mosquito, too, although it is no more.

This tick (left) hitched a ride on my pants but didn't make it to my skin, thankfully. I also took a picture of this velvet mite, a much friendlier little arachnid, because the red dot caught my eye.

Spring ephemerals certainly aren't out in strength yet, but...

this hepatica decided to grace us with a bloom today, and violets are in full force. Others are just leaves yet, spring beauties looking like grass and trout lilies barely distinguishable from soil. But soon, soon... we're behind this year. Hepatica flowered on April 2 last year, and I still haven't seen even the leaves of mayapple or bloodroot poking through the soil (which were also noted on April 2 last year). I hope this isn't because mine are dead! But I feel like every year, I think they've died and every year they do eventually show up. Fingers crossed...

In the garden, carrots are planted now, and almost our entire front yard is covered in cardboard meant to smother the turf grass. We're putting in another native garden. Best, I still had time to sit outside and read lazily before the clouds rolled in and the winds became annoyingly strong a few minutes ago. I think I just heard thunder. Perhaps time to go close all the windows and doors? (I guess that's the beginning of the cold front, as today's 85 degree high is supposed to be followed by the 50's tomorrow.)