Fieldnotes
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Same Oak, Different Gall
Looking a bit like mushrooms, these galls on the leaves of this white oak in Green-Wood are the results of yet another Cynipidae gall wasp, Phylloteras poculum. Mine was the third iNaturalist report of this species. I tracked the species down on bugguide.net. Bugguide.net doesn’t have an image of the actual (tiny) wasp. So this…
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Galls of It All
So it seems we still aren’t quite sure how galls are created. Something irritates a plant; the plant responds by creating a unique growth. The hundreds of species of tiny gall wasps are the best known gall-forcers, but other insects (aphids, mites, others) and some microbial forms do it, too. But let’s stick with the…
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How Now, Cowbird?
A late season chick. But what species?Here comes a parent… oh-oh. Chipping Sparrow.And Brown-headed Cowbird. Brown-headed Cowbirds are brood parasites. They lay their eggs in the nests of other species. The hatchling may kill off the hosts’ own offspring. I’ve never seen this in action. BHC’s lay their eggs “in 220 species of birds. Recent…
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Butterfly Madness Continued
Red-banded Hairstreak. This generally has a more southeastern range from the Carolinas down. They obviously can get further north, and presumably, as our temperature gets more southern, we’ll see them more often. Pearl Crescent. Another specimen with very frazzled wings.Common Sootywing.Eastern Tailed-blue.A rather more worn Eastern Tailed-blue. Female, I think. Small, rapid fliers, flashing blue…
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Butterfly Madness
Eastern Tiger Swallowtail. The hugeness of these is really telling when they’re at eye-level. Wingspan can reach 4.5″.Monarch.Black Swallowtails.Sulphurs courting.American Lady. Oops! This is a Painted Lady. I’m so used to seeing American Ladies, I didn’t even look closely at this photo. Thanks to Ken for pointing out the mis-identification.Common Buckeye pair.Red Admiral, very beat…
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RSP
Red-spotted Purple. Limenitis arthemis “in part” because the White Admiral of further north is considered the same species. They intergrade in-between ranges, and perhaps the ones seen locally are a little mixed? The formal binomial for the RSP is Limenitis arthemis astyanax (Fabricius)*.This beauty is rarely seen here. Its larval stage caterpillar is a bird-poop…
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All Summer Long
An unfamiliar bird sound called this one to my attention this week. It’s a fledgling American Robin. Still very much undercooked, the bird was clamoring for food.It may never have seen one of my kind before.I obviously can’t be eaten… or can I be?Yes, it can fly with those wings.A couple of days later, some…
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Fireflies!
Fireflies retreat during the day, tucking themselves out of the way. The common Photinus seems to prefer the underside of leaves. Not sure which species this is, but it’s a tree-hugger. There were fourteen of them on this part of an old oak’s trunk. Fireflies are another family of insects that are in decline. The…
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Snoutless
Here’s what an American Snout, Libytheana carinenta, looks like normally. This one was spotted in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, near some particularly veteran hackberry trees. They lay their eggs on hackberries.Here’s another Snout spotted at Transmitter Park along the East River recently.It’s missing its “snout.” Actually, this appendage is not really a snout at all. These…
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Cicada Weather
These Neotibicen annual cicadas are more often heard than seen. When I do come across them, they’re usually dead. While their exoskeleton exuviae can be found gripping tree trunks under ten feet from the ground, the adults are usually way up in the tree, hidden by all that foliage. (You’d hide too, if giant wasps…
Backyard and Beyond 