My first Common Buckeye/Junonia coenia butterfly of the year, spotted yesterday. I didn’t see a single one of these last year. I wondered if this was because of the removal from Green-Wood of the butterfly-crack Buddleja plants at Valley Water. Butterfly Bush is very appealing to adult butterflies, but as a non-indigenous species it does…

See more

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.

See more

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…

See more

Same bird, I think, on two separate days.

See more

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…

See more

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

See more

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.

See more

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:

See more

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…

See more

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….)

See more