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.  

Just... WOW!

OK, argiope spiders are pretty awesome whenever you see them... the photo may not convey that the body of this bright yellow spider is about an inch, probably larger -- that's not counting the legs.  And the colors and patterns are just lovely.  The markings reflect UV light and help attract prey to the orb webs.  I've seen them with some interesting things in their web, even thrown the occasional grasshopper in to see what happens.  But this one had something I've never seen:

A big old blue darner dragonfly caught in its web.  (Yeah, I was a little saddened by that, but... it's the circle of life, people.  Let's all sing along...)  Anyhow, here they are together:

Nearby, we saw a pair.  This photo illustrates another interesting argiope phenomena.  The smaller spider in the foreground is the male.  The big one is the female.  As Chris aptly put it, the males will only hang around the females if they're really... we'll say "interested in mating," since this is a family-friendly blog.  Because she must be scary, if you're that size.  The male makes a parallel web by the female's; he vibrates her web to alert her of his presence.  After mating, she makes a brown, papery egg sac containing between 300 and 1400 eggs, and places it usually off to the side of the web.  The female will actually watch her eggs as long as she can, but she will die at the first hard frost.  The spiderlings (or whatever) hatch in the fall.   However, they don't come out of the protective egg sac until spring.  

Pretty cool, no? 

Web Sites

It was one of those beautiful, misty mornings when every spider web was covered in dew and illuminated by the faint morning light through the fog.  On display were every size and shape of web... so spectacular.  It is both awe-inspiring and a little bit scary to realize just how many spiders there must be out there, as almost every prairie plant, not to mention mailbox, fence, and power line, was adorned with a web.  

My Magical Morning

Saturday evening, rain came through at the head of a cool front.  It brought near-perfect weather for Sunday and today, with my sunrise run taking place in actual coolth.  Those conditions created a magical morning.

I entered the Savanna through a mowed trail that comes off of a residential area, so I came not into an area crowded with signs and wide trails, but rather right into the quiet savanna itself.  It was a heavenly pastorale, with the reaching crowns of oak trees growing not from meadows, but directly from clouds.  Their swirls formed gently-rolling white hills.  You could almost hear the Beethoven playing.  And it was pretty neat to run through thick clouds.

Looking closer at the prairie through which I passed, every leaf tip and flower petal, every seed head and stem was heavy with pregnant dew drops, the pre-evaporated fog.  When the sun's horizontal rays shone through them, they sparkled with such intensity I almost had to proceed with my eyes closed.  When, mercifully, I passed through the long shadows of hedgerows and tree groves, I saw that dewdrops weren't the only adornment of the plants.  Spiders had fastened webs to nearly every available specimen, a testament to how many invisible creatures share the space with us.  Made visible by the water, there were large droopy orbs that bridged two plants together.  There were tiny perfect circles -- in one single Queen Anne's Lace plant, I counted four individual webs, each the size of quarters, nestled into Vs in the plant's stem.  There were low-down messy webs, the type that make you think of that you-tube video about spiders on drugs.  (Funny, irreverent, recommended.) Everywhere I looked, silken strands connected pieces of the prairie.

I had to stop and take in the wetland area.  It is a pool dotted with snags -- probably trees that weren't adapted to the wet conditions that came on suddenly when drain tiles were removed.  This morning, they, too, arose out of mist.  Skeleton tombstones in a graveyard of trees, like a scene from a horror movie.  A heron perched on a branch, his neck curled and shoulders hunched... a grey, grumpy old man admonishing the passers-by with his glare.  And to remind me that I wasn't about to hear the sound of chainsaws or banjos,  a wood duck glided through the water, diminutive and graceful.

In some ways, I think it's a shame that I wasn't carrying my camera, haven't been into picture-taking much at all lately.  But in other ways, I'm glad.  I'd have taken a picture and been done with it.  This way, I spent miles working out wording, trying to determine how I'd describe the indescribable.  Although I've forgotten some of my well-worded phrases by the time I've finally gotten to the typing, I think it's still a good mental exercise, probably better than taking a picture.  And if I've failed to capture the moment?  Well, it was my moment, anyhow... I have the pictures in my head.  

Now...
In other bird phenology news... I noticed several goldfinches today that are looking slightly less... gold.  Some still seem bright, but others? Not so much.  Is it really time for winter plumage already?

My Kinda Creepy Moment

So this morning, I'm out using an insect sweep net to show a class of kindergarteners some cool bug critters.  We found a lot -- I was worried after yesterday's cold, but it's a lot warmer today and the arthropod world seems as active as ever.  So I empty a net onto a white cloth and there are some little beetles crawling around and ants and I want to sort of clear the debris so we can really take stock of what critters we have.  I reach for a round ball that I thought was some sort of seed head, and pick it up... and it's really mushy.  Because it's a ginormous spider, curled into a ball out of fear.  (A defense mechanism, it should be noted, that almost worked!)  I had to work on NOT screaming "EEK!" like a cartoon person who discovers a mouse.

The kindergarten kids, a lot of them haven't learned fear yet.  It's great, they take crab spiders and hold them in their hands, they let caterpillars crawl all over them, they pet the true bugs and touch the ants and everything.  Older kids, a lot of them won't do that, especially with the spiders.  I assume this is at least in part because they see adults like me react with an "EEK!" when we encounter spiders.  And I actually like bugs pretty well, especially outside of my house, but still.  They "EEK" reaction when I touch it is just some sort of natural response, no matter how fascinated I am two seconds later when I've gotten over it all.

The ball of a spider, who stayed tightly tucked up for at least 10 minutes after I put her in a magnifying box for closer viewing, was an aptly-named Marble orb weaver.  Her mushy abdomen was about the size and shape of a marble. White splotches mottled its tan surface.  When she eventually stretched out to walk around, her legs were zebra-striped, black and white, and somewhat hairy.  And long.  She was really quite lovely, if you can get in the mindset where spiders can be lovely.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to snap a photo of her -- total oversight on my part.  I sent her away with a different class of kids, who released her back into the wild... where she apparently immediately started spinning.  That sort of makes me feel guilty about the web she must have worked hard on previously, only to have me inadvertently destroy it... but it wasn't on purpose, so what can I do?

Argiope

A sure sign that summer's giving up the fight... huge argiope spiders sitting in perfect orb webs, sewn up the middle, all over the prairies. Or in this case, right smack dab in the middle of a window, which is pretty cool for the class inside that can watch any wrapping and snacking that occurs.

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.

It's That Time of Year...

This argiope caught and wrapped up a grasshopper. In the small picture to the left, you can see (to her right and slightly behind her) the male argiope -- tiny and unremarkably colored. That means that mating season is upon us for these spiders, though I don't even want to think about how that works.

In other mating news, boy... did I see some crazy dragonfly stuff today. It was an afternoon for big dragonflies... there were pondhawks and skimmers and darners and saddlebags all over. The female pondhawks were depositing eggs in the water, which was cool. But what I'd never seen before... this couple mating on the wing was being bombarded by another male, I guess trying to break them up. He just banged into the mating pair repeatedly, and they flew really high to get away, and he followed them... it was crazy. A dragonfly fight.

A Funny Thing Happened...

So this week, some of my classes will be looking at galls. I actually started with one class on Friday, and it was pretty neat. We found them, cut them open (which, I know, is committing insecticide, but we just cut open a very small percentage of them) and saw what was inside. Some galls are empty at this time of the year, but others have critters that overwinter in there, and we made some very cool discoveries. Expect some more gall postings this week, assuming I have similar findings with other classes.

Well, I had this oak leaf in my office. I picked it up a few weeks ago because of the shape and the veins, I just liked it and thought I might sketch it at a later time -- never happened. But the leaf happened to have a gall on it. On Friday after my class, I was thinking that it might be a good idea to have a "sample gall," so kids would know what to look for besides just the goldenrod galls, with which they are familiar. I put the oak leaf on my desk so I would remember to bring it to class.

This morning, when I arrived, I noticed right away that the gall had become less round, had flattened a bit. I inspected it, and found that the gall itself had a hole in it -- there was not one when I left on Friday, of this I am certain. And there was a tiny spider near the hole. (Either it emerged from the gall... or it ate whatever did and decided that the gall was good hunting grounds.) There are about 800 types of galls that live on oak trees... 800! Just on oak trees!!!... so it's entirely possible that one of those 800 types is a spider and does come out around now.

See it right there, above the gall in the photo? The actual size of that gall is about 3-4 mm. So I thought that was pretty cool; the gall "hatched" right at my desk. I put the spider and gall in a bug box to show my class today, but then I will release it and let it take its chances in the wild, so as to keep the arachnacide(?) to a minimum.

UPDATE: 2:42 pm. That spider has been safely released. I cut open that type of gall and discovered that the spider did, indeed, come from inside that gall. Cool.

Bugaboo (Running Out of Bug Puns)

As the Veteran has pointed out, frogs seem to be multiplying. I'm not saying we're about to repeat biblical plague number 2, but in the past couple of days we have found 5 leopard frogs in the lawn. This doesn't count all the frogs we've seen in the pond...

Perhaps their numbers are due in part to the large insect populations. Most of today's discoveries have to do with these:

This fellow, which I believe I have identified as an Amish bug, has fascinatingly fat front legs. With his flatness and his yellow/brown coloration, my first and second grade students astutely pointed out that it is camouflaged as an autumn leaf.
This is one of 2 monarchs I saw today.

Also, unpictured, we found:

• a big green cicada, near the end of its life.
• A very fuzzy caterpillar, about 2 inches long, grey and orange, on a sweet white clover plant. I have seen this same species on the same plant in previous years (8/25/06, to be precise. I sketched it then). My caterpillar field guide fails ID it, however, and I didn't get a photo.
• Another argiope spider.

This afternoon we took what will certainly be our last trip to the Chicago Botanic Gardens of the 2009 (official) summer. Here are some of the photos... Above, a branch dons its fall colors.
Pumpkins ready in the garden. Although we use them for Halloween and Thanksgiving -- and they will store very well until then -- my experience growing pumpkins always has them ready well before that. (And a side note: today I ate the melon that we brought inside to ripen; it did ripen. It was small and not as tasty as my melons were last year, but still delicious.)
It is also apple season, with many varieties ripe for picking.
Cool tiny flowers on a tree.
Acorn cap on the path. Squirrels were eating the nuts overhead and dropping these onto the ground!
Berries on false Solomon's Seal.
Cardinal flower's brilliant red plumage.
Solomon's seal wears its fall colors, with blue berries and leaves turning to yellow, then crispy brown.

This sign, I think, represents some interesting phenological data, and proof that I'm not alone in the world of plant-bloom record keeping.

I love dahlias, I've decided. They come in so many spectacular colors and they last a long time. This one is a lovely deep purple, and the yellow ones had many bees on them.

This crazy spider has a web outside my mom's house. That triangle thing is actually his abdomen!

And this orange fungus was in the neighbor's yard. From the photo you can't tell that it's about 18 inc hes across. People just moved into that house -- for me, that would be a wonderful treat in a new lawn. But I'm certain they don't see it that way. Oh, well.

Summer's Still On!

Every day for the past few weeks, the cool night-time temperatures have caused the early mornings to be dewey, if not completely foggy. Every morning the world is weighed down with water, heavy drops that will burn off by about 10 am. But for a while, its magical -- although it makes for wet walking. The spider webs are among the most beautiful parts; here are two from this morning, taken in front of a friend's house. Above is a crazy web that covered every part of the seed head of a foxglove; and to the right, a perfect orb web.

Gentian has gotten its purple color, making it the last new flower of 2009 (at least in my yard). I do expect the color to deepen some... I find them to be especially interesting because even when the flowers are in full bloom, they look like a bud that is getting ready to open. They never do. But they are insect pollinated, mostly by bees or other large bugs that can force their way into the closed-up petals. Later, these petals will dry up and become a pouch containing a bag-full of little seeds!

A late-summer surprise... Each year I plant cosmos. They are not, honestly, in my normal gardening style, but I cannot resist them. They seem almost whimsical to me, laughing in color and slender leaves. And they seem somehow untamed, despite their non-wild-ness. So this year, as in past, I bought some babies at our school/farm's organic plant sale, and they bloomed earlier but I didn't really mention them here, because I don't really think you can count, as a phenological occurrence, the blooming of a plant that was started in a greenhouse. They could bloom at any time. But we had three hearty ones that self-seeded from last year's dead heads. They emerged and grew taller than anything else in that garden, including the sunflowers. But had no flowers. Until this morning. This opened! (And there are many more buds tinged with pink where that came from.) So, after most of my annuals are past their prime, a little present for the end of summer. Yea!

Seeds on bigleaf aster.

ps -- went raspberry picking today. Made raspberry vanilla jam, which I hope will be very spectacular, since, even at the relatively low price of $3.50 per pint, one recipe used over $17 of berries, (not to mention a whole vanilla pod) and netted 9 1/2-pint jars of jam. I was excited to make it, though; I got the recipe for vanilla raspberry jam from the preserves of English heritage sites I got when I was there. I have never tasted such a jam... intriguing concept...

Misty Water-Covered Spiderwebs

The misty rain this morning covered every spiderweb in the prairies and lawns. It is pretty amazing, really, to see just how many spiderwebs there are out there! Every few steps, another picturesquely dewed web adorns the vegetation. Their patterns, so perfect, remind me of how wondrous nature is... that a spider, who is tiny, can architect this geometric creation with no blueprints and no way to see the final product from afar... that they adapt to whatever shape the plants around them happen to be... that they build them in the exact shape they need to be to catch their prey.

I discovered all the webs this morning with a class of kindergartners, who were quite fascinated by them, and rightly so. This wasn't what we were out there for... but what a teachable moment!

Rollins Romp

Argiope spiders, the large yellow-striped orb weavers, populate the prairie in late summer and early autumn. Their webs wait to ensnare their insect food (this one has a bundle waiting for later consumption... mmm, dinner) and create sticky hazards for would-be off-trail prairie hikers. This is the first argiope I have seen this year.
View from under the oak in Rollins Savannah.
In this one spot, there were at least 50 meadowhawk dragonflies, all hanging out in the late afternoon sun. There were so many that as I took pictures of one, others would actually land on my hand or arm. I have no idea why -- some sort of mating thing, I'd guess. They were at least 100 yards from the nearest body of water. This photo shows three of them -- a blurry one in front center, an in-focus one to the left, and a more distant one behind and to the right.
Katydid (or some sort of orthoptera) on false sunflower. Those are some crazy antenna.
Arrowhead in bloom. The photo below shows the leaf.