Top Photo: Yellow-bellied slider returning from early morning egg laying near Butterfly House. It’s aquatic turtle nesting season. Our sliders, musk, painted, and snapping turtles all come ashore during this season to dig nests and lay eggs. They may travel quite a distance from water to do this, from Hideaway Woods to Earth Moves and all points in between. If you happen to see one of these turtles digging a nest, or hiking across one of our paths, give itRead more
Posts filed in: Summer
New Arrivals in Wetlands
Top Photo: Paddling out in the wetlands (new wetlands structure coming). If you’ve been out in Explore the Wild lately you may have noticed several new arrivals in and around the Wetlands, a floating walkway, geese, ducks, and a snake. First, the walkway. A new floating walkway across at least part of our wetlands has arrived in sections and is now in the process of being bolted together in Explore the Wild. If you stroll through the area, you mostRead more
Herons
Top Photo: Great blue heron. Great blue herons (GBHs) are by far the most often observed heron in our wetlands. They, along with green herons, nest locally. Though green herons tend to move either to the coast or to the south after mid October, great blue herons may be seen at any time of the year. A thick layer of ice on the pond is the only deterrent to a great blue heron showing up. Frogs, fish, in fact, anyRead more
Garden Watch
Top Photo: Goldenrod in bloom at Wander Away. Visiting a garden at this time of year can be very rewarding. Goldenrod likes to wait until September or later to bloom, and like boneset mentioned in the previous post, has tiny blossoms which attract big crowds. Butterflies, bees and wasps are too busy sucking up nectar to pay much attention to naturalists who stare at them while they refuel. If you’re patient, and you’re taking pictures, you may end up withRead more
Fall
Top Photo: A female monarch butterfly sips nectar from sunflower. Fall is here. It’s September and fall is all around us. Birds and butterflies are migrating, late season flowers are blooming, seeds are nearly ready to cut loose into the wind, and fruit is on the vine. It’s even a bit cooler outside than it’s been the past few weeks. Here’s a group of photos of what’s going on outside, in case you missed it because of the heat. AnRead more
A Pair of Wasps?
Top Photo: A mating pair of insects The pair drifted down to the ground from a nearby shrub. Superficially, they looked like wasps, paper wasps. But I could see right away there was something different about them which wasn’t quite wasp-like. But as it so often happens when you’re trying to capture a fleeting moment on camera, the eye stays on the viewfinder, positive IDs can wait till later. The two were locked into mating and appeared to be tryingRead more
Robber Flies
Top Photo: Giant robber fly Some call them assassin flies. I first learned of them as robber flies. Whatever you call them, they’re predatory flies which perch out in the open, often near areas with heavy insect traffic in order to wait in ambush to snatch other insects out of the air. Visit a flowering group of Tithonia, milkweed, Joe Pye weed, or other rich nectar source with insects busily flying from flower to flower and you might see oneRead more
Needle Ant
Top Photo: Asian needle ant (Brachyponera chinensis). Depending upon who you reference, there are somewhere around 10,000 to 12,000 known species of ant in the world. New species are still being discovered. There’s an estimated total of some 20,000 species including what has yet to be described. The number 1,000 is most often returned in searches for North American species. And it seems 192 species is the most recently calculated number for North Carolina. I have no idea how manyRead more
Lacewing
Top Photo: Green lacewing egg on leatherleaf viburnum. While standing next to a leatherleaf viburnum near the Sandbox in Gateway Park, I took a close look at the leaves of the shrub, you never know what you’ll find, getting up close to vegetation. To my surprise I spotted two green lacewing eggs. There was one egg on two separate leaves several inches apart. I’ve seen lacewing eggs before, but perhaps only once here at the museum. Most descriptions of lacewingsRead more