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Still Under the Lilac
Joining the wasps under the lilac were three species of sap-happy butterfly. A couple of Red Admirals quietly suckled. But it was the Polygonia genus butterflies that were really stealing the show. This is a Comma (P. comma). More views of Commas. Here we have both a Comma, lower left, and a Question Mark. These…
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Under the Lilac Bush
Past blooming, this Syringa (lilac) is a bit of a mess, esthetically-speaking: shrubby, mildewy, gnarly, clumpy with old fruit. But is it ever jumping as habitat! (Huge lesson here: a garden is rarely habitat.) For one thing, the shrubbery was full of wasps. There was a mud-daubber. A White-faced Hornet. A couple of European Paper…
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More Wasps
This Cicada-killer Wasp was emerging from her nest. She had just deposited a paralyzed cicada inside and, presumably since this is what they do, laid an egg on the cicada. I tried to get a photo of her carrying her progeny-to-be’s food inside, but she was too fast for me. I waited for about fifteen…
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More Cicadas
I’ve seen and photographed more adult cicadas this year than I ever have before. The spent larval husks are easy to find, just look on tree trunks… and leaves. This quartet, plus another that fell by the wayside, were on a single horse chestnut. Of course, most trees I look at don’t have any of…
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Some Books
Francis Hallé’s Atlas of Poetic Botany is delightful. It’s a botanist’s record of encounters with remarkable life forms, tropical plants that walk, listen, mimic (like a chameleon, yes), among other things. I hadn’t known that rubber trees were native to the New World. However, they can’t be grown plantation-style in the Amazon because if they’re…
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More Butterflies
Common Sootywing. A small black skipper, the only example seen on this day in Green-Wood, where all these butterflies but one were seen. Rather better pictures than our last encounter, when there was also only one to be seen. The way the fall of light accents the scaly edges of this particularly brightly-spotted individual is…
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A Bigger Cowbird
I don’t know if this is one of the Brown-headed Cowbird chicks I saw in the last couple of weeks. If not, it would be the third one I’ve sighted this summer. I’d never seen one before this summer. As in the other cases, I heard this youngster calling for food before seeing it or…
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Swallowtails
Mating Black Swallowtails. Papilio polyxenes. When I first saw this, I though it might be a hanging dead butterfly, all torn up from the vicissitudes. Always double-check the anomalies!Interestingly, this pair attracted another male, if not more than one over the ten to fifteen minutes I was there. (Black Swallowtails are all over.)The second male…
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Raptor Wednesday
There is no mistaking a mature Red-tailed Hawk, at least in this part of the country. And there is no mistaking the sounds of song birds upset by the presence of such a hulking predator. Four Northern Mockingbirds were fidgeting in this tree around the hawk. On a nearby obelisk — cemeteries! — a Chipping…
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Spiders
Of all the creepy-crawlies, spiders might be the hardest to photograph. They’re small and the slightest breeze moves their webs. Autofocus pretty much refuses to recognize them. Manual focus is tricky, too. This preposterous creature is in fact a Spined Micrathena. The spiny adomen may deter predators; the un-spider-like shape may do something similar. To…
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Backyard and Beyond 