Top Photo: Tiny fruit of early spring pawpaw. A few weeks ago we saw the blooming of the pawpaw flowers. Pollination has occurred and we now have fruit growing from the stalks. Green anoles have awakened to the spring. The big males are displaying their rosy dew lap. Fringe tree blossoms have come and gone. Swamp rose has acquired galls initiated by tiny wasps, spiny rose gall wasps (Diplolepis bicolor). The wasps lay eggs in the plant stem which stimulatesRead more
Posts filed in: Insects
Springtime Happenings
Top Photo: Eastern towhee sings, “Drink your Te-e-e-e-e-e.” The towhee above is a local breeder and resides here year round. The tree swallows below have just returned from their wintering areas along the gulf coast and Central America and have claimed the nest box for their own (it was built specifically for them). The hermit thrush pictured here spends the winter with us but will be departing for points north within the next few weeks, if not days. Early seasonRead more
Tents and Forktails
Top Photo: Tent caterpillar “tent.” Tent caterpillars are actively building “tents” in our cherry trees. They construct the silken, protective predator barrier in the crotch of the tree. Traveling out of the tent to feed on the fresh young leaves of the cherry they retreat back into the tent while resting, enlarging the tent as they grow. Fragile fork tails are tiny, delicate little damselflies. Early each spring they crawl out of their larval freshwater homes, find a grass stemRead more
Redbud, Swallows, and Elm
Top Photo: Redbud lights up the spring forest. It’s when the redbud trees bloom that you realize just how many of the small trees there actually are in and along the forest edge. It blooms well before many other flowering trees, even before it sends out its own leaves. The tree’s leguminous magenta flowers brighten up the spring, and are so much more pleasing than the white, and stinky, Bradford pear blossoms. The pears are planted everywhere you look alongRead more
Insects(?) On Ice
Top Photo: Yellow-rumped warbler forages on frozen pond ice. I was standing on the boardwalk looking down at an ice star a dozen feet or more below me. Something else caught my eye. A handful of small birds were hopping along on the ice of the pond pecking at some unseen, to my eyes, objects on the ice. The birds were warblers, yellow-rumped warblers (butter-butts), a species that can take the winter cold far more readily than most other warbler species.Read more
Meadowhawks, Mistletoe and a Hawk (bird)
Top Photo: Autumn meadowhawk (male). Autumn meadowhawks, formally known as yellow-legged meadowhawks, are late season dragonflies. I’ve seen them here at the museum as late as December and certainly in October and November. The former name of yellow-legged meadowhawk was changed to autumn meadowhawk about 20 years ago to indicate the species behavior or seasonality rather than the color to its legs, which are not particularly yellow. Other look-a-like meadowhawks in the genus Sympetrum have black legs. The meadowhawk shownRead more
Aphids on Oaks
Top Photo: Myzocallis aphids on scarlet oak leaf. There are more than 1300 species of aphid in North America. It seems like every plant species or variety has its own specialized aphid, sucking the juices from the plant and often causing serious damage in the process. Other times the damage is minimal and the plant is relatively unharmed. Such is the case with the aphids shown here (Myzocallis). I found and photographed several small groups of this Myzocallis aphid onRead more
Acorns and Oaks
Top Photo: Acorns are falling. Three years ago I noted here in this blog that “Some of our white oaks are producing a bumper crop of acorns this fall.” It’s happening again. But it seems there are more than just some of our white oaks producing acorns by the bushel. They all seem to be producing fruit in numbers. At one point it sounded as though it was raining as the acorns were steadily dropping to the ground. There areRead more