Top Photo: Rare sight in Black Bear Enclosure. It’s not often you see Gus Bear in the pool below the waterfall. He just doesn’t like to get wet. Mimi, yes, a frequent swimmer. The heat of the past few days has apparently altered Gus’s thinking. Though, the look on his face is not one of total commitment or enjoyment. Cool, but very wet.Read more
Posts filed in: Summer
Spittlebug
Top Photo: Spittle on muscadine grape stem. The white gooey substance on the grape stem, above and below, may at first appear to be spit or saliva, it’s not. The viscous, sticky stuff on the stem is called spittle. It’s created by spittlebug nymphs, insects. After hatching from eggs laid in or on the grape vine, nymphal spittle bugs begin feeding, sucking juices from the plant. This goes through the insect’s body and is forced out of the anus. MixedRead more
Banded Sphinx
Top Photo: Banded sphinx moth caterpillar preparing to chew on wingleaf primrose-willow in wetlands. Last September, I photographed a banded sphinx moth (Eumorpha fasciatus) caterpillar on an end-of-the-season wingleaf primrose-willow (Ludwigia decurrens) in the wetlands. There were only a hand-full of those plants in the wetlands at the time. This year, there are many. The larvae may be green-themed, red, black, or multi-colored. The genus name Eumorpha means “well formed” or “good shape” and the species name fasciatus refers toRead more
Paper Wasp, Caterpillars, and Butterflies
Top Photo: Paper wasp investigates fall webworms’ protective “tent.” Fall webworms (Hyphantria cunea) are already forming their protective webs in some of the trees here at the museum. The webs, or tents, are full of caterpillars who spend their lives inside the web, never venturing out to eat. The webs cover the area in which the caterpillars are feeding. The larvae only come out when its time to pupate in the leaf liter, the soil, or cracks and crevices inRead more
A Moon Moth and a Monarch
Top Photo: Luna moth waits out the day clinging to a conifer. It’s always exciting to see a luna moth, whether its clinging to vegetation or gracefully fluttering though the trees. Though nocturnal, they’re quite often seen during the day. Males can be told from females by much broader, feathery antennae. The female’s antennae are feathery, but much less so. The added material on the male’s antennae assists in picking up the scent of pheromones given off by the females.Read more
YCNH and…
Top Photo: Immature plumaged yellow-crowned night-heron pays visit to wetlands. Night-herons have been observed in our wetlands four, perhaps, five times. All but one of those birds was a yellow-crowned night-heron (YCNH), the other, a black-crowned night-heron (BCNH). Of the YCNHs, one of them arrived in May and spent most of the 2011 summer. The other birds were only seen briefly, for one or a few days each. As you might suspect, night-herons often hunt at night and sleep awayRead more
Summer Odes
Top Photo: Male blue dasher perched and ready to sally forth. In the photo below a pair of blue dashers mate, assuming the “wheel” or “heart” position. This is when sperm is transferred from the male’s accessory genitalia to the tip of the female’s abdomen where her eggs will be fertilized. As I’ve mentioned before on this blog, great blue skimmers are the largest eastern skimmer. They’re a common sight at ponds, lakes, and slow moving rivers and streams. SlatyRead more
Final Nest Box Update 8.1.23
Top Photo: Eastern bluebird eggs. The bluebird nesting season here at the museum is officially over. There’s no activity in any of our six nest boxes. The table below is a total of all the birds fledged since 2012, when I first began monitoring the nest boxes. There were a total of 36 birds fledged this season. The best years for bluebirds were during the 2012, 2013, and 2014 seasons. Chickadees had their best years in 2013, 2018, and 2023,Read more
Nest Box Update 7.25.23
Top Photo: Eastern bluebird eggs. We are now down to zero nest activity. ————————— The Cow Pasture nest which held five house wren nestlings last week has fledged them all. I could hear them in the woods behind the nest box as we checked in on them this morning. The remaining five nest boxes are empty. ——————————— I’m calling the season over. I’ll make one last trip around the nest box trail at the start of next week, but IRead more