mthew

A Fraternal Potter Wasp/Eumenes fraternus has captured a small caterpillar. She’s in the process of paralyzing it with her stinger. She’ll stuff it into the small mud pot nest she’s made for her young. Last year, I observed the related Mediterranean Potter Wasp/Eumenes mediteraneus, recently introduced to our parts, build her nest.

There are still spaces on my Saturday Bugging Out tour at Green-Wood, and my Sunday Bugging Out for Kids tour on Sunday. The weather looks good. We’ll definitely see some of the above, Bald-faced Hornets, and the fabulous paper they make for their arboreal nests. A number of readers/subscribers/viewers very generously helped finance the purchase…

Same bird, I think, on two separate days.

The National Audubon Society, with assets of half a billion dollars and a President/CEO who makes over 1 million a year*, has joined forces with the likes of the tech-fascist Elon Musk and the Republican-corrupted Supreme Court to destroy what little labor protections there in this country. Audubon has in recent years turned out to…

Through a milkweed leaf, a tell-tale silhouette: And elsewhere a male adult fueling up:

All ages of Large Milkweed Bugs/Oncopeltus fasciatus may be seen congregating on Common Milkweed pods this time of year. To grow, nymphs need to shed the exoskeletons of their former selves. I caught this one just about to shake off the last of the husk or exuvia. An empty shell remains.

An adult Eastern Boxelder Bug/Boisea trivittata. A true bug, of the order Hemiptera: they are suckers, not chewers like beetles. Also, unlike beetles, they have several nymphal stages or instars before they become adult (reproductives). Beetles go from egg to larva to adult. I saw these nymph Boxelder Bugs nearby:

A narrow space between buildings on 36th Street here in Brooklyn. It’s a case study of opportunistic invasive species: Tree-of-heaven/Ailanthus altissima, at the front left; with what I think is Siberian elm/Ulmus pumila below it. Above is Princess Tree/Paulownia tomentosa. In the back and in bloom: Japanese Knotweed/Reynoutria japonica. This is a another look of…

Two males around the same time, in close proximity. This one caught and ate a dragonfly. Earlier, this bird had been on the chapel, where the cross used to be before a lightning bolt blew it up last summer. (The difference the Sun makes….)

Pigeons have been congregating on Common Hackberry branches barely strong enough to hold them. They are plucking off and eating the Nipplegalls created by Pachypsylla celtidismamma psyllids.