System Overload! So much life!
You know all Late Fall/Winter/Early Spring… it’s birds, birds, snow, tree bark, more birds, maybe an icicle…but now…it’s system overload! Love it! Not that I don’t photograph birds but right now there is life everywhere you look, from small, to downright minuscule to larger than life! OK, no elephants here, thankfully, I might not have much of garden;)
The bugs…we have a soap opera running called “All Around the Milkweed Bush”…On today’s episode we have a lovely Fork-tailed Bush Katydid (Scudderia furcata) putting in an appearance. Love the shadows! Light is amazing…Not to be outdone, although very small, milkweed leaf for scale, the Red-banded Leafhopper is a regular. Behind the milkweed, the Catnip bush is very popular watering spot for Leafcutter, Mortar, and Resin Bees. The Two-spotted Bumble Bees (Bombus bimaculatus) are the bouncers;) Over by the False Sunflowers, the Goldenrod Crab Spider (Misumena vatia) takes her security detail very very seriously…The fly (Deer?) did not heed the warning of the Goldenrod Crab Spider! …and what else would you expect to find on Milkweed other than a gang of Milkweed Tussock Moth caterpillars! (Euchaetes egle) Good morning, Long Lake!
The Butterflies want their soap opera, how about “Lives of the Fluttery and Beautiful”? Ha! Is fluttery a word?
It’s a good thing the Goldenrod Crab Spider was still digesting its bumblebee or this Great Spangled Fritillary (Argynnis cybele) may have been on the menu:)
I check this Goldenrod Crab Spider every morning and every afternoon…sitting on, what I have learned is “her” flower! I have been told she looks like she is about to lay eggs given her round appearance! She has quite the appetite!
You never know what you’re going to find when you turn over a flower?! OK, I saw the long white legs and went to investigate…a Goldenrod Crab Spider (Misumena vatia) holding a bumblebee of some sort by the neck, if they have necks?!
Yes, I’m that strange person wandering around the yard, camera in hand, sometimes a kneeling cushion, just because, peering under flowers, turning leaves over and generally being a nuisance to all that moves;) It is a soap opera out there!
System overload is right! Sometimes it is just a tiny spec, and you kneel down to look closer and it’s wowza! Never seen that before! It had red eyes!
This time of year can be hazardous wandering out the road…it seems to me that whenever I take the camera, which is always, and forget the plastic trash bag I use for unintentional rain showers, I get full on squalls! That is when my hat comes in handy! Really? Is it Murphy’s law? Ha!
I headed back out after the squall to check on the fungi population along the road. Not bugs, plants! Woohoo!
Is the yellow one with babies not the prettiest mushroom ever?! Golden Coincap-Cyptotrama chrysopepla. New to me!..and Earthballs? Really, OK, they are round and close to the earth. Naming mushrooms could be fun. A friend shared that a colleague once named rude-looking mushrooms after people he didn’t like! Ha! Please!!!! Can I name some;) Hahahaha!
The hard to miss bright orange one: Lobster Mushroom (Hypomyces lactifluorum)…but does it taste like lobster;) ha!
The lobster mushroom, is a parasitic ascomycete fungus that grows on certain species of mushrooms, turning them a reddish orange color that resembles the outer shell of a cooked lobster. The fungus is edible…apparently they have a seafood-like flavor and a firm, dense texture. I’ll pass today;) Maybe another, looks like someone had already been chewing on it;) Then I see this:
I don’t need garden gnomes, I have dragonflies! I will bug you just a little bit more… This week’s dragonflies Part 1:
Part 2: The Blue Dashers have quite a few parasitic mites right now!
..and the Pennants and the Skimmers…..Love these guys!
We must have had a hatch of Meadowhaws. They range in size from a tiny 2″ to bigger. Flying, perching, warming up in the morning…eating…I had one of the dozens of deer flies buzzing about my head when I heard a whoosh of wings and presto! Go Team Dragonfly! A Meadowhawk had nabbed it! Thank you!
The biting bugs are bad right now, but food for so many others. I don’t mind donating a bit of blood to keep the ecosystem running but when I feel like they are small vampires, it can get bad! Stay tuned for juvenile hummingbirds and other feathered and furred things;) I’ll leave you with this beautiful little Wood frog who was about the size of my baby fingernail. I would never have seen him if the cats hadn’t made it jump as they walked through the grass! Saludos amigos!
