July 2011
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Ladybugs
NSFW? Variegated ladybugs, Hippodamia variegata, making more beetles. Photo taken on Bond Street by the Gowanus Canal. Quite a bit of action, so to speak, on these leaves. Note the eggs below, the aphid (?) on the left, and the remains of something by the female beetle’s front right.
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Bristly midrib
Prickly lettuce, Lactuca scariola, a non-native growing cheek by jowl to the Gowanus on First St.
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Dragonfly Exuviae
Dragonflies seen at Brooklyn Bridge Park these days include the twelve-spotted skimmer, blue dasher, painted skimmer, and variegated meadowhawk. These long exuviae, the shed exoskeleton of dragonfly larvae, belong to one of these, or perhaps another, species. In their larval stage, dragonflies are aquatic, and voracious predators. When ready to make the leap to the…
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Brooklyn Bridge Park
Painted skimmer, Libellula semifascianata. (Oh, come now, much more than just semi fascianata!)A ladybug larva demolishing aphids. Perhaps the seven spotted, Coccinella septempunctata. Twice or more as big as the insects below, and a little more lumbering, hence the best shot of the post! This is an Eastern carpenter bee, Xylocopa virginica, working the swamp…
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Diamondback Terrapins
Yesterday, I was walking along around the West Pond at Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge when I came across this diamondback terrapin just beginning to excavate her nest. I was alone, and she might have continued on her single-minded mission, but some other folks walked up and she took to the thickets. (They move faster than…
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JBWR 4th
I couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate Interdependence Day than going out to Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge. A warm, foggy morning developed into a hot sunny afternoon.There are three visible osprey platforms at JBWR. One is right on the highway. This one is the closest to the West Pond path. Two of these…
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Prospect Park in the Rain
Lullwater Bridge, sea of duckweed.Gall on witch-hazel Green heron, Butorides virescens, a park nester, and Black-crowned night heron, Nycticorax nycticorax, in the Lullwater.A young cottontail rabbit, Sylvilagus floridanus. Silver spotted skipper, Epargyreus clarus, in the coneflowers behind the Boathouse. In the same pollinator-friendly area, one of the most handsome of hymenoptera, a Golden Northern bumble…
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An Unusual Wildflower
One of the stranger wildflowers of the eastern forests is Conopholis americana, also known as squawroot, American cancer-root, and bearcorn. It looks like a fungus popping up out of the ground. But it’s a plant, and a good reminder that not all wildflowers are, well, wildflowery. This particular flower doesn’t photosynthesize; it lives by parasitizing…
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Mulberry Overhang
We don’t have many trees or bushes that have differently shaped leaves on the same plant. Sassafras (S. albidum), with its three different leaf-shapes, is one. (The roots of these used to be made into sassafras tea and sodas; a crushed leaf smells like a soda fountain root beer and is immensely refreshing.) The mulberries…
Backyard and Beyond 