It was raining caterpillars in Dutchess County this past week. You could hear the frass, the poop, dripping down from the leaves—I found more frass than ticks on the dog—while silk-suspended larvae dangled everywhere. A selection: (Shh, I’m a twig!) (This one had just been jabbed by a parasitic wasp.) (A twofer) All this meat…

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This is the competed Mediterranean Potter Wasp nest I watching being built on May 24th, just before leaving town for a week. I didn’t get to see it completed then. When I got back to NYC this past Thursday, I returned to the scene of the pot-making. The nest, as you see, is now capped.…

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Saturday night, dog-sitting. Take the dog out around 10pm. There’s a loud noise coming from the barely visible pond area down at the beginning of the driveway. First I’ve heard this sound. I record it. I listen to several frog songs online. Ah: Gray Treefrog/Hyla versicolor. The next day I can hear a few more…

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Eastern/Gray Ratsnake Complex (Complex Pantherophis alleghaniensis) And another, rather bigger. But with a rather abbreviated tail.

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Not one, but Two Red-shouldered Hawks soaring over Staatsburg. A Red-tailed Hawk in the woods out back. Picture through the screened window…

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Almost the same place two days later, I looked back while walking the dog just before 6am… (And another sighting 45 minutes before we go to press this morning…)

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Fragile? Well, that’s the common name of Ischnura posita, but they’re tough enough for most NYC habitats. Another Fragile Forktail, recently emerged. Eastern/Ischnura verticalis. Currently upstate, where I spotted an Aurora Damsel/Chromagrion conditum for the first time. More upstaters: Lancet Clubtail/Phanogomphus exilis Azure Bluet/Enallagma aspersum Skinning Bluet/Enallagma geminatum Springtime Darner/Basiaeschna janata A good perch is…

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12:49 12:56 1:20 1:27 1:35 1:39 A paralyzed caterpillar will be stuffed in here with one of the wasps’s eggs. I observed for about a dozen more minutes to see if that would happen while I was there, but I didn’t see her again. (Another iNaturalist user has captured this.) More about this introduced species.

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(With one eye, anyway.) *** I wrote a feature on Black Mask magazine, the birth of the hardboiled detective, and the Klan they fought in fiction.

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Tufted Globetail Sphaerophoria contigua While adults flower flies eat pollen and nectar, their larvae eat aphids. A bit slug like, the larvae. No idea which species this is. This Bare-winged Aphideater Eupeodes perplexus was probably ovipositing right next to dinner… My first sighting of this species, and this was the best overall photo I could get she…

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