Season’s Greetings, BugFans, It’s time to celebrate a dozen (or so) of the beautiful bugs that posed for the BugLady this year (and that have already graced their own episodes). Click on each photo to read more. Great Spangled Fritillary …
Note: All the links leave to external site. Howdy, BugFans, The BugLady is already fantasizing about warm, sunny days in a wetland, photographing Swamp milkweed (and dragonflies), because she loves its color, and she loves being in wetlands, and because …
Note: All links leave to external sites. Greetings, BugFans, When the BugLady saw these two tiny (5mm/¼”), black insects on a flower, her first thought was “ants,” followed immediately by a mental head slap. They were piggyback – worker ants …
Note: All links leave to external sites. Greetings, BugFans, When the BugLady first spotted this fly, she thought it might be one of the odd, stubby, little tachinid flies in the genus Gymnoclytia (or thereabouts). She couldn’t find anything that matched, so …
Note: All links leave to external sites. Howdy, BugFans, As usual, the BugLady’s “Bugs in the News” folder runneth over, so here’s a collection of articles to chew on. Many come from the wonderful Smithsonian Daily Newsletter, which not only …
Note: All links leave to external sites. Howdy BugFans, Instead of slaving over a hot computer, the BugLady has been hanging out on the hawk tower. The Red-tails were blowing past sideways on Tuesday. Here’s a rerun from eight years …
May is American wetlands month, so we’ll end it in the swamp, in the company of Marsh Marigolds, the flowers that turn newly thawed wetlands a riotous yellow from the last days of April through much of May. Skunk cabbage and pussy willows may whisper the arrival of spring, but marsh marigolds crank up the volume. The BugLady should have started this project two weeks ago when the marsh marigold was at its peak, but the truth is that despite the masses of flowers it produces, she seldom sees many insects on it, and the ones she sees are as likely to be resting as dining.
The leaves are starting to fall here in God’s Country, the birds are moving, and as of yesterday it’s officially autumn (Yikes!). But there are still some bugs out there – like wildflowers, some species of insects bloom in the spring, some in the summer, and others in the fall. The imperative to reproduce is strong as the days get shorter; most insects live for about a calendar year, mainly in their immature stages, with a short-but-productive adult stage. Most leave behind eggs or pupae or partly-grown offspring to weather the winter.
When the BugLady was walking in the woods at Riveredge the other day, she found some plate-sized, stocky, very aromatic, gilled mushrooms growing out of the ground. Then, she saw something moving on the rim of an “over-the-hill” fungus.
Thanks to all of you who send links to interesting articles about bugs (there have been a bunch, lately, about the dramatic decline of insect populations). This week we’re going to take a look at a selection of these articles and bugs.
