Monarch Butterfly Status Update

Howdy, BugFans, This is a Good-News-Bad News-Stay-Tuned kind of story.  But first, a little background. Besides being large and lovely, Monarch butterflies, of course, catch our fancy because of the death-defying migrations they undertake twice a year. Migrations – fueled by flowers …

Two-spotted Long-horned Bee

Note: All links are to an external site. Howdy, BugFans, The BugLady keeps getting solicitations from a large, national conservation/environmental organization whose message is “Save the Bees.” Alas, the only bees they picture or mention are honey bees. Heaven knows that honey …

Blue Blow Fly

Howdy BugFans, It’s gotten cold here in God’s Country – abruptly – with overnight lows in the high teens/low twenties, and daytime highs below freezing. The water in the birdbath froze solid for a few nights in a row before the …

Eastern Cicada-killer Wasp

Howdy, BugFans, A while back, BugFan Laurel shared this picture of a wasp that was photographed by her friend, Joel, who gave the BugLady permission to use it. Thanks, Joel.  This is one large wasp. In an article about it on the …

Closed for June 4 – A Potpourri of Invertebrates

Howdy, BugFans, June is waning, and pretty soon the BugLady will have to stop eating chocolates and watching soaps and get up off the couch and start writing. Actually, with a way warmer and wetter June than normal (more than 7” …

Closed for June 3 – More Pollinators

Howdy, BugFans, A pollinator is an animal (not all pollinators are insects) that visits flowers and carries their pollen to other flowers.  Bees, butterflies, moths, flies, beetles, and wasps are all practitioners to some degree. Hummingbirds pollinate a few flowers (like …

Closed for June 2 — Pollinators

Note: All links below are to external sites. Howdy, BugFans, We’re getting a jump on National Pollinator Week (June 17 to 23) with a few articles about pollinators, which, if you like to eat or watch birds or photograph flowers …

Parnassia Miner Bee – a Bee and its Flower

Note: Most links leave to external sites. Howdy, BugFans,  A while back, BugFan Matt asked the BugLady if she had ever photographed a small bee on a Grass-of-Parnassus flower. Grass-of-Parnassus (not really a grass) is one of her favorite flowers (despite …

Sculptured Resin Bee

Note: Most links leave to external sites.  Howdy, BugFans, BugFan Freda found and photographed this awesome bee in her pollinator garden in August. It’s a distinctive bee, and it has an interesting story. The Sculptured resin bee is sometimes called the …

Wildflower Watch – Swamp Milkweed

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 …

UWM Land Acknowledgement: We acknowledge in Milwaukee that we are on traditional Potawatomi, Ho-Chunk and Menominee homeland along the southwest shores of Michigami, North America’s largest system of freshwater lakes, where the Milwaukee, Menominee and Kinnickinnic rivers meet and the people of Wisconsin’s sovereign Anishinaabe, Ho-Chunk, Menominee, Oneida and Mohican nations remain present.   |   To learn more, visit the Electa Quinney Institute website.