Greetings, BugFans, Dragonfly July is drawing to an end. The BugLady’s younger daughter and her friends have been taking to our northern woods and lakes this summer (where the cool bugs are), and she’s sent tantalizing pictures of her encounters…. Read More
Greetings, BugFans, Another day, another darner. The BugLady’s reward at the end of five hours in 80+ degree heat on the Butterfly and Dragonfly Count was a Fawn Darner. It flew across a shaded trail, looking decidedly orange as it… Read More
The BugLady has been checking the Wisconsin Odonata Survey website religiously to see if the dragonfly season has commenced, and she is pleased to announce that it has! Keep the site in mind on your spring and summer ramblings and share your sightings. Observers started reporting Common Green Darners on April 26, and the first Variegated Meadowhawk was logged on April 30. The BugLady is more than ready.
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.
The poet Muriel Rukeyser once wrote, “The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.” The BugLady sees lots of tableaux unfolding as she ambles across the landscape. Because she was taught, at an impressionable age, by a professor who said “Don’t just tell them what it is, tell them ‘what about it,’” she tries to read the stories and understand the “what-about-its”
They’re big, they’re beautiful, and they’re back! The BugLady has been out on the trail and has been enjoying the first butterflies and dragonflies of the season. Anyway, this episode started out nine years ago as “Spring Dragonflies,” continued six years later as “Three Spring Dragonflies plus One,” and reappears today as “Three Spring Dragonflies plus Two.”
As always, we pause to celebrate (while humming seasonal songs and drinking eggy, adult beverages), the Twelve Bugs of Christmas (plus one) – a baker’s dozen of bugs, many of whom have already starred in their own BOTWs but who posed nicely for the BugLady this year.
It should come as no surprise to seasoned BugFans to hear that the BugLady and her camera spend a fair amount of time in the warmer months cruising for dragonflies and damselflies. One of her haunts is Forest Beach Migratory Preserve, a reclaimed golf course in Ozaukee County. Fall is an exciting time to be at Forest Beach, because the big guys – the darners and saddlebags – rule.
OK – it’s September, but the bug season isn’t over yet. Outside of wetlands, if there’s anything better than a walk on the prairie, surrounded by Big Bluestem grass, with big Common Green Darners and Black Saddlebags dragonflies overhead, the BugLady hasn’t found it yet. Here is another batch of summer images, mostly from prairies.
The BugLady is still on hiatus but plans to get back in the saddle soon. She spent a magic day at the river recently, where the bushes were sparkling with Ebony Jewelwings. This is a slightly modified version of an episode from 2011 – some new words, all new pictures.