Mating Bugs

Warm mornings are popular times to photograph mating bugs. I happened upon three when I was really looking for other things.

These  Japanese Beetles were on a blazing star next to the milkweed were the tussock moth caterpillars were my primary subjects. The Japanese beetle is an invasive species – and damages a lot of plants. The green and bronze iridescence of the adult forms do a have a beauty all their own….if only we had some predators to keep them in check.

The milkweed bugs seems to be everywhere – even on plants other than milkweeds. These two were mating but there were others just enjoying the flowers. They are seed eaters and the huge numbers of earlier instars will be seen on developing milkweed seed pods soon.

Red milkweed beetles are interesting to watch because their antennae are so long and – when they are not mating – they tend to move around the plant a lot. They vary in color from orange to red.

The most interesting thing about them is that each eye is bisected by an antenna!

Lizard on the Front Porch

I see lizards more frequently when I travel (to Hawaii, to Texas, to Arizona) than I do at home. So I was pleasantly surprised to see one on my front porch a few days ago. It was in the later afternoon on a warm day – not overwhelming hot.

It appears to be an American five-lined skink, one of the most common lizards in Maryland – although its tail does not look particularly blue. It stuck around long enough for me to take a few pictures through the long narrow window beside the front door.

It another good indicator of the overall health of the habitat around the immediate vicinity of my house!

Baby Hands

Have you ever noticed - baby hands have dimples rather than knuckles! Their hands have a very different distribution of fat than they will as they get older. This picture was taken in the last ‘80s when my daughter was a few months old. The chubbiness of babies overall feeds their growth spurts so I wonder if the knuckles start to show more than the dimples by the time they are walking around – and usually take on their childhood slimness.

Now that we have digital photography where experimentation is ‘free’ – the idea of taking a series of baby hand pictures weekly or month would be a good project to try….next time I am around a baby on a daily basis.

Chipmunks around our House

There are more chipmunks around our house this year than I can remember. I think their base is under our deck but they make their way all around the house and up onto the deck as well. They used to come up to get seed when we put it in a bowl but now that we have stopped putting out seed for the summer, they still come to sample the plants in the pots. They enjoy themselves, even if there is a cat on the screen deck watching them! They don’t scamper away until we open a door to walk out to the deck ourselves.

They are equally confident in the front garden. I photographed one standing very still under the hose reel. As long as I didn’t move…neither did he.

I don’t mind having the chipmunks around. They are small and I enjoy watching them….and remembering the description I heard in a lecture years ago that they have ‘Oreo markings’ on each side.

Gleanings of the Week Ending August 6, 2016

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Kathleen Clemons Instagram – Instructor for some of my favorite Creative Live classes….sharing photos taken with her iPhone. Beautiful images…mostly flowers.

Milkweed Meadow posts from What’s That Bug? – A cluster of milkweed plants is a great place to look if you want to find insects. This series of blog posts is focused on typical insects you’ll find.

How to Prevent Mosquito Bites – I am paying more attention to articles like this since Florida is reporting more Zika cases…and I’m planning a trip to Florida this fall.

Did We Used to Have Two Sleeps Rather Than One? Should We Again? – Maybe we were not meant to sleep all the way through the night!

The New Green Grid: Utilities Deploy ‘Virtual Power Plants’ – Sprawling networks of independent batteries, solar panels, and energy efficient buildings tied together and remotely controlled by software and data systems….a trend boosted by California’s natural gas shortfall that will become the norm?

Third Severe Flash Flood Hits Maryland/Delaware – The Ellicott City flash flood on the evening of 7/30 (just a week ago) was close to home…lots of destruction of the history main street.

Mystery Mechanisms – Many drugs appear to work…but we don’t know exactly how they work. This post discusses lithium, acetaminophen, and modafinil.

Why do we get bags under our eyes? – No stunning revelations in this article – but interesting that there are multiple reasons that people get them.

Awesome Video Compares the Size of Different Plants and Stars in the Universe – The video is a sequel to Star Size (and distances) which is also included in the post.

Earth’s ‘Annual Physical’ Lists Symptoms of a Hotter World – State of the Climate in 2015 from NOAA (and internationally peer reviewed). The indicators of a warming planet that are: greenhouse gases highest on record, global surface temperature highest on record, sea surface temperatures highest on record, global upper ocean heat content highest on record, global sea level highest on record, extremes were observed in the water cycle and precipitation. The post includes links to download the report – chapter by chapter.

More than an Oak

I noticed a strange looking structure on the trunk of an oak at Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens. It is easy to imagine that it is the head of monster coming out of the tree with orange eyes!

It is probably a crown gall caused by a bacterium (Agrobacterium tumefaciens) which enters the tree through a wound; in this case it could have been a branch that broke. The bacterium transfers a portion of its genetic material into the oak tree cells causing the unusual growth and some substances that the tree does not normally produce – but that the bacterium utilizes! The gall can impede nutrient flow in the tree -particularly if it girds the tree.

In this case, the gall itself appears to be hosting some shelf fungus – the bright orange structures. The tree looked robust overall and the only place where shelf fungi were growing was on the gall. So maybe the shelf-fungi are doing their normal decomposer role on the gall only! I’ll look for the tree again summer when we go to see the lotuses at Kenilworth.

Nature Photography with Mt. Pleasant Summer Camp

The day after I volunteered at Belmont – I was at the other Howard County Conservancy location - Mt. Pleasant – for the same activity. The situation was easier because I had more assistants and the day was not quite as hot. It was harder because there were 15+ more campers (3 groups instead of 2). I started out with a short loop hike before the first group – just to check out what might be interesting topics. I focused on a stand of milkweed after I noticed a smallish Monarch caterpillar. It was the only one I saw on any of the plants but one is better than none!

There were very active red milkweed beetles – mating and foraging.

There were aphids too.

I took fewer pictures with the campers since the groups all had 15 children. The two youngest groups needed a lot of attention. With the oldest group – ages 9-12 – more of the campers had some experience with cameras and were more independent taking pictures so I took some pictures of my own. My favorites were of ripening blackberries,

Horse nettle (with thorns visible…and obviously a plant that is buzz pollinated),

Milkweed bugs on butterfly week (the orange of the bugs matches the flowers quite well!),

Spice bush swallowtails on cone flowers,

Tiger swallowtails on cone flowers (the ones with blue are females, without blue are males),

And my favorite image – a black eyed susan flower just opening amid a lot of greenery.

Photography with Belmont Manor and Historic Park Summer Camp

Last week I volunteered to lead a nature photography activity the Howard Country Conservancy’s Summer Nature Camps at Belmont Manor and Historic Park. The day was hot, humid and there was an air quality alert as well. I got there early and took a walk along the path I planned to take with the first group…and that is when I took most of the pictures for the day. I noticed the Norway maple’s ripening samaras (invasive tree that was planted as part of the landscaping around The Cottage),

The wineberries (good to eat but watch out for the thorns),

Thistle seeds ready to blow away with the next strong breeze,

Caterpillars making their tent in the morning sun,

And chicory (from afar it looks like it is mostly stem but the small blue flowers are lovely at close range).

Later in the morning when I was hiking with the 6 to 8 years old campers, I managed to capture a picture of ripening Jack-in-the-Pulpit seeds and

The forest canopy reflected in a mud puddle. It was getting hotter all the time and our hike lasted less than 45 minutes.

With the older group (9-12 years old) we headed to the formal gardens. It was after lunch and me tried to stick to the shade as much as possible. It worked for a little while. We took a lot of pictures at the water lily pond. Many of the children were as patient as I was to get a picture of a dragonfly on a water lily bud.

I liked the margins of the lily pads – the green, the black water, the glint of the sun…and tiny piece of brown debris.

We misted everyone with water we’d brought to make spider webs more visible and managed to stay out as long as the morning group even though the temperature was hotter than in the morning. Everyone welcomed the cool of the nature center building when we got back!

Microphotography from the 1970s

I found some microphotos from the 1970s when I was scanning some old slides and prints. The first set is algae from my last year of high school. It was a new school and the microscopes were new too. My boyfriend (a year later he became my husband) was the one with the camera and he had an adaptor to attach the camera to the microscope. The color images did not turn out as well as I wanted – the lamp was not bright enough or the film was not fast enough to make the background as white as it looked to the eye and the greens did not stand out. Still you can see the spirals of the spirogyra. I had collected samples from streams near where I lived; in one case the filamentous algae were growing on a rusting sewing machine that someone had dumped in the water (the algae had picked up the rusty color too).

The black and white image was actually better although some of the filaments look battered.

Several years later, I was taking a mycology class and had slides from various kinds of cultures fungus spore structures. We evidently didn’t bother with color slides although I wish now that we had since the dye used was a very nice blue.

Of course, all was film during that time period. There was a time lag between taking pictures and finding out if they were any good and it was relatively expensive. I’m glad we made the effort and managed the expenses. But it also increases my appreciation of digital photography!

Gleanings of the Week Ending July 30, 2016

We finally got some rain after a dry spell and I’m enjoying the flowers on my deck this morning.

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Human intelligence measured in the brain – A study that used resting-state MRI analysis on 1000s of people around the world…areas of the brain which are associated with learning and development show high levels of variability (i.e. they change their neural connections with other parts of the brain more frequently, over a matter of minutes of seconds). Further studies using the new technology may rapidly improve our understanding and diagnosis of debilitating human mental disorders such as schizophrenia and depression.

Common Foot Problems (and what to do about them) – Most of my foot problems went away when I stopped wearing high heels!

Postcards provide link to Edwardian social media – A different perspective of the early 20^th century. There is a searchable archive that is available here; I enjoyed doing searches with some family names and locations. The two most common topics that people wrote about were the weather and health!

Amazing spider silk continues to surprise scientists – Phonomic crystals – that’s new vocabulary for me this week. Evidently research on spider silk has shown the potential of new materials (to synthesize) to dampen sound or provide insulation.

Hundreds of years later, teeth tell the story of people who didn't get enough sunshine – Dentin layers formed during a time when a person did not get enough Vitamin D to fully mineralize the structures that form dentin (and bone) provide a window into that aspect of nutritional health long after the person dies…longer lasting that the bones. Dentin layers are also a better indicator because they are not constantly remodeled during life as bones are.

The key to conservation is not what you think – A thoughtful piece about the lack of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the environmental community.

NASA’s Kepler confirms 100+ exoplanets during its K2 mission – Lots of validated exoplanets to pick from for further study by NASA’s upcoming missions: Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite and James Webb Space Telescope!

The mystery of why you can’t remember being a baby – A summary of research on the topic….and we still don’t really know the answer.

How the body disposes of red blood cells, recycles iron – It happens in the liver, not in the spleen as previously thought…and requires bone-marrow-derived immune cells as the recycling cells.

Orangutan Imitates Human Speech – 500 vowel-like sounds…more vocal fold control that we previously thought could be exhibited by a non-human ape.

More Dragonflies (at Kenilworth Gardens)

I posted some dragonfly pictures from Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens earlier in the month but then we made more visits to the place and I got some even better pictures by zooming in even more (and using a monopod to stabilize the camera). It is easier to see wing damage (lower left wing) and how the wings attach to the insect.

Their heads and legs have more bristles than I expected…and there is a ‘face.’

The eyes bulge out – dominating the head. The wings have an intricate pattern of supports for the wing membrane and the wings are not exactly flat.

The different kinds of dragonflies have a different pattern of wing structures.

The opening in the mid-back where the wings are attached looks so alien - or not the smoothed structure of other things like fly (butterflies, birds, or airplanes).

Enjoy the slide show below of more dragonflies!

Zooming – July 2016

Instead of making collages from clips of images – I’m doing Zooming past the 30x my camera will do with its lens. It will do up to 120x although it is essentially in-camera cropping because it is utilizing the resolution of the sensor rather than the lens. At 120x the images sometimes begin to look like an impressionist painting with a softer focus – but they can also show a lot more detail than the eye can see. It is easier to get good results with a monopod (I dislike the bulk of a tripod although I might try it more frequently. I picked 8 of my favorite zoomed images from the past few weeks.

I like to be well back from insects so that my camera does not influence their behavior. I once had a praying mantis jump on my camera! So using the zoom to capture the milkweed tussock moth caterpillars was my preference. They are about only about a half inch long.

Reaching back into the overgrowth along a path if often not a good idea: too many plants with thorns (like these wine berries) and poison ivy. Standing back and using the zoom to get the picture is the way to go!

I didn’t want to chance getting the web these caterpillars were creating on the front of my camera by getting close…and zooming worked very well.

I’m sure this bug would have flown away if I’d tries to get close. I also like that the background is still there but out of focus. The flower is chicory; it was about the same diameter as a quarter.

Aphids! The white ones are an earlier stage than the yellow ones. They do move around so zooming rather than getting close is my preference.

This seed stalk of a pokeweed was back in the waste high brush – glad I didn’t have to push my way thought it to get this image. I liked the pink and green. Later the seeds will be a deep purple.

This tiger swallowtail is enjoying a nectar snack! He would have flown away had I been close at all.

This is a max zoom photograph of a swallowtail wings. There is a fine line between nature photography and abstract art!

Froghopper (spittlebug)

I’ve seen lots of froghoppers/spittlebugs (or the ‘spit’ from then); it turns out that the ‘spit’ if from the nymph stage of the insect so I had no idea what this pink and yellow bug was that I saw on the underside of a milkweed leaf. The skin it had just shed was underneath the bug…and it was about 1/3-inch long. All I thought initially was that it was a 'pretty bug.'

At first I thought it was a nymph of some kind but then I realized it had wings that just hadn’t dried enough to be fully recognizable. My son-in-law helped me identify it from the picture.

A day later I looked again and I think I found the same bug on the milkweed plant. It had moved from the underside of the leaf to the main stem was very still head down on the plant.

The old skin was still on the underside of the leaf (the yellow insect next to it is an aphid).

I wanted the insect spew tiny water droplets onto the adjacent leaf. Mature froghoppers still suck juices from plants but instead of making ‘spit’ it is tiny water droplets!

Gleanings of the Week Ending July 23, 2016

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Microplastics – a cause for concern – Lots of questions…only a few answers. It seems like there have been a lot of articles on the topic recently.

Biodiversity has fallen below ‘safe’ levels – We don’t actually know what the ‘safe’ limit is…but do we want to actually find out when there is no recovery? This report is pointing out that 58% of the world’s land has lost more than 10% of its biodiversity. 10% biodiversity loss is the value that was deemed ‘safe’ limit within which ecological function is relatively unaffected.

Early preschool bedtimes cut risk of obesity later on – Another good reason for preschoolers to be regularly tucked into bed by 8 PM!

Electricity generated with water, salt and a 3-atoms-thick membrane –

Splattered Watercolor Paintings Capture the Beautiful Vibrancy of Delicate Flowers – I like just about everything botanical…eye candy too.

Jupiter and Juno – What do we already know about Jupiter’s chemistry? – An infographic from Compound Interest – background for understanding what we already know about Jupiter’s chemistry and what we hope to learn about it from Juno.

From the Earth’s Oceans (images) – From The Scientist. These images reminded me of how different live in the oceans really is than what we experience on land.

Photo of the Week (from The Prairie Ecologist) – Actually – several photos…of little things that thrive in the prairie.

How Type 2 Diabetes Affects the Brain – Two recent studies that have increased our understanding of the cognitive effects of diabetes – refining not only the description of effects but also how the structures of the brain are changed by diabetes.

Yeast emerges as hidden third partner in lichen symbiosis – Wow! This is something I’ll include in my talk with hikers about lichen. They are always fascinated that lichen grows on rocks and tree trunks….that it’s a combination of fungus and algae…and now we can add that there is usually a yeast there too that is often the part producing chemicals to defend the other two organisms in the symbiotic relationship (and sometimes it changes the appears of the lichen too)!

Photographs through a Window – July 2016

I stopped putting birdseed in our feeder in early July when one of the squirrels got coordinated enough to dump a little seed from it. It wasn’t happening consistently so the ‘squirrel proof’ was not filing totally but enough that I decided they didn’t need the extra food in the summer months. I still go quite a few birds to photograph through my office window. The parent of the juvenile house finches featured in yesterday’s post must have been the birds I saw most frequently around our deck.

This frazzled looking Carolina Wren might be a fledgling from the nest in an old gas grill.

Nuthatches always look alert when they are in their head-down stance. This one was enjoying the last seed I put in the feeder.

There is a male indigo bunting that I see periodically so it might be nesting nearby. I photographed the bird from my office window

Then went downstairs to get a different perspective through the French door in our breakfast area. The mourning dove provides a nice size contrast.

The juvenile cardinal still had some downy looking feathers on its breast and around its head

But its bill has turned the adult color over the past month.

I am keeping our bird bath full of fresh water so I expect that will be the reason birds will continue to visit our deck for the rest of the summer.

The bird on the right is making motions like a chick begging for food – but the one on the left does not look like they will be obliging!

Birds with Eyebrows/Horns

I was curious about some little birds that showed up near my window this month that seemed to have tufts of feathers that looked like eyebrows or horns. The lighting for the first picture I got was not that good – but did capture what I was seeing.

I did some research and discovered that they were juvenile house finches! They must have just recently fledged because there was usually a parent bird around when these birds with eyebrows came to our deck.

Sometimes the birds went into begging mode – probably hoping for a feeding from a parent…and sometimes they did not seem as adept at flying as the adult birds. They’ll gain flying skill and lose their eyebrows in a short time.

I’ve been thrilled to see more finches this year even before these fledged….and now there are apparently even more.

Green Heron at Kenilworth Gardens

Last weekend when we went to Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens, I decided to walk out to the boardwalk rather than stay in the area around the lotus and water lily ponds --- and I found the high point of the visit in the wetlands beside the boardwalk. Not far from the boardwalk, on a partially submerged fallen tree, was a green heron fishing for breakfast.

When I first saw the bird there was another nearby that flew away…but this one stayed long enough for me to move around to get some of the twigs out of my line of sight to the bird.

I zoomed out to get more of the scene. The bird was catching tiny fish – moving so quickly that I didn’t quite capture an image of the fish before it was swallowed.

The bird moved and my line of sight was even better.

The bird is only about as big as a large robin but has much heavier legs and feet...and a longer beak.

And it even posed for a maximum zoomed portrait!

Eastern Painted Turtle at Kenilworth Gardens

On one of our visits to Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens, there was a crowd around one of the ponds looking at – not lotuses or water lilies – but a turtle. I think a child had spotted it first but then everyone around looked too. It was surprising how difficult it was to see it in the pond. It was a rather small one and it was sitting in a puddle of water on a lily pad.

It seems more interested in the bees that were visiting a nearby flower than it was the people at the edge pf the pond.

I took enough pictures to identify it as a young Eastern Painted Turtle when I got home. On other visits we saw other turtles but they were in the water and not very photogenic. Maybe it was the season. We are past the time when the turtles need to sun on logs to get warm!

Deck Garden Challenges – July 2016

Through June and into July, it rained frequently enough for the pots on the deck to not need other attention. The day lilies bloomed profusely earlier in the month with almost no effort on my part. Give them a reasonably deep pot and they do great.

But then the rains stopped. Everything started to wilt and I pulled the house attached to the spigot down below up to the deck to make watering easier. Now that the temperatures are getting into the high 80s or 90s in our area of Maryland, I water every morning while the deck is still in the shade and the temperatures are still in the 70s. I empty and refill the bird bath every morning too (a way to make sure I am not breeding mosquitoes!).

The day lilies are about done for the season. I’m going to use every pot and large container I have around to transplant day lily bulbs from the flower beds where the deer at the flowers before they could bloom. There are both yellow and red day lilies that should bloom on the deck next summer if I manage to dig the right bulbs!

I’m transferring attention to plants that the birds and butterflies will like now or when they go to seed in the fall. I’ve already had gold finches checking the zinnias; the flowers have not quite got to seed yet so this bird was out of luck.

The black eyed susans will be popular for their seeds too. I planted some sunflowers but they don’t even have buds yet.

I haven’t harvested any mint yet this year and I’m not sure that I will. I love the smell of the plants when I am watering.

Insects in our Garden

A few days ago was out working in our garden by 7 AM – pulling weeds and cutting spent flower stalks in our flower beds…but I got sidetracked observing insects. The first I noticed were on the skeleton of a milkweed plant. The milkweed tussock caterpillars had eaten all the leaves leaving only the stem and the larger veins of the leaves. They had started crawling over to the bush next to the stem. It seemed like there were hundreds of caterpillars.

After I finished some work, I went inside to clean up and recover from heat. I started wondering if the caterpillars would find the other milkweed plants that were about 5 feet away from the one they had consumed. I went to check at 9 and they had indeed found another plant! I continued to check periodically throughout the day. The gradually spread to 3 more plants. Sometimes they would appear very active and other times they would be resting underneath a leave that was still whole. When they ate, individuals worked on the leaf from the top and the bottom. It was a mass feeding frenzy.

The next surprise came the following morning. I went outside and found that the caterpillars had been active overnight and seemed to be larger. When I went back to check an hour later – more than half of them were not anywhere on the milkweed and I watched as more of them dropped off the plants. It was time for them to go roaming in the leaf litter!

On one of the checks of the caterpillars, I noticed some insects on a blazing start that was in bloom. They were tiny – about a quarter inch. The yellow and black insect is a syrphid or hoverfly.

There were two other insects on the plant but they stayed down in the flowers so much that it was hard to get a good identification.

Maybe some kind of bee?

The two types of insects did interact a little…did not seem to like the other being nearby.

I was very pleased with the performance of my camera (Canon PowerShot SX710HS) and the monopod’s contribution to stabilizing the camera to get clear images.