I show a lot of insect foraging (and incidental pollination) here, but there are other tasks at hand. Scavenging ants. Bumble at entrance to nest. Sumac leaflets cut to line nests of leaf-cutter bees. Too fast for me and my camera, but a leaf-cutter bee carrying a circle of leaf slipped into one of the…

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The Gold-marked Thread-waisted Wasp/Eremnophila aureonotata has a particularly long example of a “wasp waist.” This is also called the petiole, a word also used in botany for the stalk that attaches the leaf blade to the stem. Some definitions place the wasp petiole between the thorax and the abdomen, but anatomically it’s actually considered the…

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Chickweed Geometer Moth/Haematopis grataria Lucerne Moth/Nomophila nearctica Common Tan Wave/Pleuroprucha insulsaria (tentative ID) Wedgling Moth/Galgula partita Green Cloverworm Moth/Hypena scabra Dogbane Saucrobotys Moth Saucrobotys futilalis larvae on Hemp Dogbane/Apocynum cannabinum Caenurgina genus (tentative) Snowy Urola Moth/Urola nivalis Ironweed Clearwing Moth/Carmenta bassiformis (tentative ID)

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If there’s one really annoying thing about insects, it’s that most of them are too small. The details of individuality get lost. But since the Eastern Cicada-killer Wasp/Sphecius speciosus is one of our biggest wasps, it’s easier to see pattern variations on them. That’s five individuals above. The other day I saw one sort of…

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Taracticus octopunctatus with bee prey. Spicebush Swallowtail/Papilio troilus Black Swallowtails/Papilio polyxenes Common Green June Beetle/Cotinis nitida. Four-toothed Mason Wasp/Monobia quadridens Great Black Digger Wasp/Sphex pensylvanicus Common Eastern Physocephala/Physocephala tibialis Blue Jay/Cyanocitta cristata

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Seems like every Mourning Dove in Green-Wood is hanging out here. A walk-through results in multiple startle-flushes. This new meadow in Green-Wood is disliked by some it because some of the plants obscure the old headstones. (This is one of the old “public lots,” with older, smaller memorials.) As is usually the case, the complainers…

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