A Week in Wildlife

Flower longhorn on the oregano which is always loaded with bumblebees. I counted 5 on a single flower this day.

Water striders devouring a beautiful, iridescent bee that had the misfortune to fall into our pond. The striders don't actually walk on water, but instead skate about on the water's film.


Dragonfly by the pond. There have been several around dipping their bums in the water which I assume means their laying eggs.

Millipede on the front step. Bedtime was delayed until I found my camera and took a couple of shots. I was never sure if they stung or not, but apparently they don't. Instead, they'll only curl up in a ball. Think of this though, according to the Virginia Cooporative Extension, "There were several locations in which the numbers of millipedes were so excessive that they swarmed over mulched flower beds and invaded basements and other ground level rooms in houses. At times there can be thousands of millipedes moving across lawn areas and into houses." Can you imagine? That's the stuff nightmares are made of.


The daddy (I think) bluebird peeking at the world.


I give up! I've been looking and looking for this one. I think it's some kind of skipper, but I'm just not sure. Any ideas out there?



A painted lady on lavender flowers.

This guy was floating in the lily pads. I love that you can see his webbed foot floating to the surface.

Some Firsts

Neither of this weekends firsts are positive I'm afraid. First, there was Sunday's discovery of Japanese beetles on the lavender, on the bean plants, on the hydrangea and mating on my camera bag. I have never been one to kill insects. There's even a spider that lives in a basket on my kitchen counter, but Japanese beetles bring out the worst in me. I crushed as many of them as I could, but some escaped.

The 2nd first is deer related; the first time we've had any deer damage in our yard. We had a doe May 30th, we had footprints in one of my herb beds June 12th, but it wasn't until June 14th that they began to dine. Not in the kitchen garden thank goodness! The victims: the green hosta, and the flowers on all of them. It's interesting because there was A Gardener's Diary where a woman said the deer ate her hosta in the following order: the green, the variegated, then the blue. Our deer had all three to choose from in various places of the yard and only devoured the green ones. It will be interesting to see which color goes next.

The last first was the most delicious for us, not the deer! Blackberries!

Insects Galore!

I was weeding my way around the kitchen garden beds when I arrived at my asparagus. One of the plants had lost almost all of its beautiful, ferny leaves and another was on its way with many of them brown and broken. Looking closer I saw fat little gray larvae with black heads on several of the plants. I knew they were bad, probably asparagus beetle larva, and rushed to my computer to confirm and learn how to destroy. This site told me everything I needed to know and showed pictures of the eggs. When I went back outside with my glass of soapy water, I found them on the plants as well. I was carefully inspecting my asparagus, continuing my way through its beds, when I found three black and orange stink bugs. Back inside where I learned from this site that they needed to go as well because they sucked the juice from tender, young plants. Unfortunately, by the time I finished, they had moved on, but I did find six of them mating in pairs on my soon-to-be lavender flowers. Let's just say their moment was ruined.

After all of that excitement, I saw several strange bee-like creatures: hairy, with very long proboscis ,flying around, occassionally landing on the ground for a second or two wriggling their bottoms and then taking off again. They didn't seem to mind me, and frequently landed pretty close. This time, my book, Audobon's Insect Guide, had the answer. It's a Large Bee Fly. I found some pictures on this site although none look exactly like mine. Apparently, they are important pollinators and lay their eggs, which become parasitic larva, in the entry to the homes of solitary bees. When my new camera arrives, that's right new camera I will no longer inflict bad smartphone images on you, I'll try to get some shots. Hopefully, they'll stick around.

Attack of the Cicada Killers! Not!

My family thinks I'm nuts, but I was very happy to have a gigantic bee fly at me when I walked across the deck a couple of weeks ago. I know, now that you've read that you think I'm crazy too, but there's just something about cicada killers.

They're scary looking at more than an inch long, but they rarely use their stingers, more content just to give you a warning fly-by, much like those Maverick enjoyed in Top Gun. Luckily I wasn't drinking coffee. Unafraid of challenge, I have seen them wrestling with cicada's as long, but twice as wide as they are. Plus, and I know this is only my 2nd summer with them, they have already come to mean late summer; the time of year when it's too hot to use the porch anyway so it's okay to share it with some oversized bees. They nest under our porch and their eyes are frequently bigger than their stomachs, or at least the cracks between our decks. Every day we find multiple cicadas stuck like this. They're not dead just paralyzed an intended larval meal. I don't know yet if they ever wake up from their slumber and wonder how they got wedged in our deck. Maybe I'll pay attention this weekend; if I find out I'll let you know.

For some actual, factual information about cicada killers:

http://www.ca.uky.edu/entomology/entfacts/ef004.asp

For some just for fun and funny information:

http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com/2007/07/return-of-cicada-killers.html

Surprises

Tonight my nightly garden walk had nothing to do with deer, instead it was much smaller creatures! Moving a branch of my climbing rose so it draped on the brick wall I discovered this...Looking at all of those spines, the message was clear, DON'T TOUCH! To protect it from birds, I un-draped the rose so it was hidden again.

This proud Mama was in the crawl space. Note the newborns

leaving the egg.

Pulling up some stray liriope in the driveway bed I discovered this guy hunkered down in the mulch. Something about the expression on his face reminds me of the toad from Pan's Labyrinth, a testimony to the special effects folks.

Finally, just when I'd decided it was getting too late to see anything else, this spider was on my front stoop. Simon says those are babies on her back!