July 2020
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Vine Wasps Continued
Eumenes potter wasp. Remarkably, even with this striking pattern, can’t get this one down to species. And that’s a wasp curator on iNaturalist talking. Leucospis affinis, a parasite of mason bees. Note that she carries her ovipositor flipped up and across her back. I’ve never seen this before. This is an impressive appendage, which can…
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Vine Wasps
Back to this one block stretch of 7th Avenue, were the yellow trumpet vine is in bloom. The variety of wasps crawling all over the buds sucking up sweet nectar was most impressive: European Paper Wasp (Polistes dominula), all over the place as usual. Remember, orange antennae are unique for this species in the pantheon…
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Raptor Wednesday
Screeching Blue Jays and Northern Mockingbirds pulled me off my route. They were yelling at this young Red-tailed Hawk. The Mockingbirds were clipping the raptor’s back as they dived at it. When the buteo flew, two Mockingbirds followed. It looks like there are Cooper’s Hawk fledglings in Prospect Park again this year. (That’ll make for…
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Seventh and Vine
Trumpet vine (Campsis radicans) is in bloom. Look out! In addition to caveats about the plant growing like Topsy, gardening literature notes that this is a great attractant for hummingbirds. I wonder if this holds true for this yellow-flowered variation? We’re not rich in breeding hummingbirds here in Brooklyn. But we have a few insects.…
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Aigrettes of Wrath
A Great Egret grooming. And loosing its long breeding plumes. People used to kill for these things. Game Warden Guy Bradley, for one, was gunned down by feather-hunters in 1905 in Florida. (The late Peter Matthiesen’s Shadow Country trilogy is a harrowing view of Florida’s psychopathic history.) The plumes, called aigrettes, were used to decorate…
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Spider
A jumping spider amongst the leaflets of a hickory. I thought this big, bold specimen would just sing out its species identification, but no. You got me. Turns out there’s a good bit of variation within some spider species.
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Flying Now
Swift Feather-legged Fly. Common Whitetail female. Red-spotted Admiral. Nessus Moth. Or rather, flying things, since it’s hard to get a good picture of insects in flight. We can try, though. Dusky-winged Hover Fly. Spot-winged Glider — the spot on the hindwing is sometimes even subtler. Cuckoo leafcutter bee. Meanwhile, an Asian Tiger Mosquito attempts to…
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National Moth Week: Polyphemus
A one centimeter-long instar of the Polyphemus Moth on a white oak leaf in Green-Wood. It’ll get bigger…the final instar can be 6cm long (about 2.5″). If this survives all the vicissitudes, it will pupate and return next year as a large moth. Found last winter: I think these are all Polyphemus cocoons. From this…
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Roof Crow
A Fish Crow, identified by its vocalizations, patrolling neighboring roofs. For bugs. Crunchy snacks. I believe the prey here is a Common Green June Beetle. Seemed to already dead up there. Crow was scavenging and found several tidbits. Flashbacks: Two years ago, Laughing Gulls were swarming over a bunch of these same beetles at Bush…
Backyard and Beyond 