Fieldnotes
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Apis
Worker honey bee, Apis mellifera, at forage. All worker bees are female. Note the grey pollen all over the body, especially on the thorax. This big clump of showy flowers was positively vibrating with both honey and bumble bees. Anybody know these flowers? I’m guessing the mottled pattern inside the flowers looks pretty intense to…
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Spiders
Spiders are one of the mainstays of life in my Brooklyn backyard, which I persist in calling the Back 40 (inches). The following samples, however, were photographed in Massachusetts recently. There are some 3400 spider species in North America north of Mexico. Some are web builders, making the classic orb web; some make sheetwebs. Some…
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Spotted on Governor’s
You can put a lady bug/lady beetle in the freezer for a couple of minutes (no more than 6) to slow it down for photography, but when you’re in the field that’s not much of an option. Especially since I’m not collecting. I found this one on Governor’s Island on Sunday. It was in the…
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My Lady’s Slippers
In a white pine, hemlock, and oak woods in New Hampshire, we searched for lady slipper orchids, Cypripedium acaule. They had been reported there earlier in the week. We didn’t find any there, but based on a tip we found four at a nearby intersection. From the US Forest Service: “In order to survive and…
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Beetle & Bug
A green immigrant leaf weevil, Polydrusus sericeus, as ID’ed by the good people at Bug Guide. I found this one on the grounds of the Stevens-Coolidge Place, in North Andover, MA. A stink bug, Banasa dimiata, found on Nantucket, MA. Not a beetle, it’s a “true bug.” Confused? While “bug” is commonly used for just…
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Night Flyers
A sampling of the children of the night, all pulled to the lights of Bradford, MA during my recent week away from NYC. This last is a giant crane fly of some kind. I only noticed this detail upon examining the image: the two club-like structures beneath the wings. Then I stumbled across what they…
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Out at Jamaica Bay
“You must take the A train” — if you want to see the prickly pear cactus in bloom. Personally, I’d drop everything to go see it. It’s the only cactus in the region, Opuntia humifusa, and it loves the sandy Mid-Atlantic Plain, the outer lands, (of which portions of Brooklyn and Queens are included). Bumble…
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Red Squirrel
This red squirrel, Tamiasciurus hudsonicus, was chasing, or being chased — in a circle it’s hard to tell who’s on first — by a gray squirrel, Sciurus carolinensis, on a big ash tree in Bradford, MA. Meanwhile, a neighborhood cat was patrolling the nearby fence, hoping for a loser. We chased the cat off. I’ve…
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May beetles
There are some 300 species of May beetles, genus Phyllophaga, in the U.S. and Canada east of the Rockies. We also call them “June bugs.” The first three photos are all of the same species, night visitors to Nantucket, MA, last week. They are rather cumbersome fliers. This one still has a bit of wing…
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Maize Field
“This used to be a parking lot/Now it’s all covered in flowers.” — David Byrne. And before it was a parking lot? It was covered in flowers then, too. And if not flowers, then the three sisters: corn, beans, and squash. At Bergen & Smith Streets, the three sisters grow in Brooklyn, thanks to Christina…
Backyard and Beyond 