Brooklyn
-
Short-horned Long-horn
Genus Melissodes, a long-horned bee. The females don’t have the really long horns (actually they are antennae). Note the hairy legs thick with pollen.A solitary bee. There are more than a dozen species in New York. Sunflowers are one of their main food sources.
-
Wasps
It is the season of wasps. Seen on a walk through Prospect Park this week:The very elegant Isodontia elegans, one of the grass-carrying wasps, and evidently a species without a common name. The grass they clip and carry is used to line their nests, which are made in pre-existing cavities. They eat pollen themselves and…
-
Hymenoptera
Last weekend, I visited the Flatbush Gardener’s garden. The highlight was the mountain mint, alive with pollinators. I mean, jumping with pollinators: several species of bees, wasps, flies, and butterflies going at it. Here are a couple of the highlights: Great Golden Digger Wasp, Sphex ichneumoneus.One of the grass-carrying wasps of genus Isodontia. Cuckoo bee,…
-
Tachinid
Most flies get very little respect. Perhaps it’s their hairy rumps? Or maybe it’s that their larvae are parasitic on caterpillars? But Tachinidae flies are also pollinators, and so the plants approve.
-
Two Gulls
Ring-Billed Gull (Larus delawarensis), one of the three species of gull found here in the city year around.Laughing gull (Leucophaeus atricilla), a summer visitor to the city. Named for their call, which sounds a bit like crazy-laughter. (The name “Black-headed gull” was taken.) These birds will soon lose their breeding plumage, which includes the black…
-
Blue Dasher
The Blue Dasher dragonfly (Pachydiplax longipennis) is common around our ponds and lakes, especially if there’s lots of vegetation in the water. The males have a chalky blue abdomen, with black tip. The females have no blue at all. But they do have tell-tale paired yellow streaks along their abdomen.Dragonflies of this species will often…
-
Two-Spotted in Brooklyn
One more species of lady beetle spotted in Brooklyn Bridge Park, on the catalpa trees, whose big leaves are sticky with aphid honeydew. This is the Two-Spotted lady beetle (Adalia bipunctata). There were several of them, so there must have been a recent pupation. This species is native to North American and Europe, making it…
-
Dog Days
Yesterday, I heard two cicadas whining at the northern end of the Promenade. These were my first of the year. Today I heard one in the back of the apartment, way back, beyond the Back 40 Inches. On a walk through the neighborhood, I spotted a couple of the huge cicada killer wasps (Sphecius speciosus)…
-
Interior
Underneath the bathroom faucet: a small, pale spider.
-
Fledgling
Northern Mockingbird in Brooklyn Bridge Park about an hour ago. This may be the very bird noted by a fellow BBP scout.
Backyard and Beyond 