Day 239: A Katydid Wasp

 Backyard Nature, Insects, Natural History, Piney Woods Church Road 365 Project, Sense of Place  2 Responses »
Aug 272014
 

I set out on my Piney Woods Church Road walk at nearly midday, and the heat of the day was starting to build.  Most photographers shun the hours around noontime, particularly due to the harsh direct sunlight that is less than ideal for landscapes and macrophotography alike.  It is, though, a great time for pollinators, still hard at work on the lingering Hoary Mountainmint blossoms.  Today I was delighted to note the return of an immense (well, bigger than any insects I have photographed lately) wasp, over an inch in length, with orange-red legs and long, curling antennae.  I had noticed one on the same flowers the previous day, but it darted away before I could even focus the lens.  This time, though it skirted quickly from flower to flower, I was able to take several successful images, my favorite three of which are below.  It turns out that the wasp is a Katydid Wasp, Sphex nudus, which, as the name suggests, preys on katydids.  In the lowermost image, it is joined on the same flowerhead by a Double-Banded Scoliid Wasp, Scolia bicincta.

 

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Day 238: “Come Any Closer, and I’ll Jump!”

 Backyard Nature, Insects, Piney Woods Church Road 365 Project, Sense of Place  No Responses »
Aug 262014
 

Today’s photograph features a Coppery Leafhopper (Coelidia olitoria) being pursued by an overly-enthusiastic (possibly slightly desperate) photographer, on a shrub along Piney Woods Church Road.  A few seconds after this photo, the leafhopper did, in fact, jump.  Another effort to photograph him (her?) ensued, culminating in a second jump — onto the photographer’s lens!  After that, it’s all a blur….

 

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Day 237: Fly Appreciation 101

 Agriculture and Husbandry, Backyard Nature, Insects, Natural History, Piney Woods Church Road 365 Project, Sense of Place  No Responses »
Aug 252014
 

I do not usually like flies, and I have largely avoided photographing them along Piney Woods Church Road. For one who espouses an appreciation for the commonplace, though, flies seem about as everyday as one might imagine.  Still, there are so many unpleasant flies out there:  deer flies, black flies, house flies, to name a few.  For some reason, though, I was able to put aside my distaste long enough to take this close-up of a fly on Hoary Mountainmint today.  Its visit offers a first lesson in fly appreciation.  It turns out that this fly is among the “good guys” of family Tachinidae, also known as Tachinid Flies.  They are predators, feeding on myriad garden pests, including caterpillars, beetles, sawflies, and borers.  Their larval stage is a bit grisly, though.  Host insects consume Tachinid Fly eggs laid on plants, and then the eggs hatch inside the insects and slowly feed on them.  Still, I will try to remember these flies with gratitude the next time I enjoy something fresh from the garden.

 

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Morning Work

 Backyard Nature, Insects, Natural History, Sense of Place  No Responses »
Aug 212014
 

For some reason, I dragged my heels this morning as I set out for Piney Woods Church Road. Maybe the reluctance was a product of the time of day — a busy Thursday schedule compelled me to choose the late morning for my outing.  Maybe it was the building heat, with temperatures rising into the low 90s.  For whatever reason, my enthusiasm was dampened as I started off down the road.  I found some new blossoms I had not photographed before, but mostly nondescript (even by my open-minded standards).  Then I began noticing all the pollinators busily roaming from flower to flower — sweat bees and solitary wasps.  The sweat bees seemed to be focused on pollen collection, while the wasps appeared to be gathering nectar.  I suddenly realized that we all had our work to do — pollinating or photographing, it makes little difference — to keep the world going.  They had their morning work, and I had mine.

 

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Day 233: A Mysterious Mason Wasp

 Backyard Nature, Insects, Native Plants, Piney Woods Church Road 365 Project, Sense of Place  No Responses »
Aug 212014
 

On my morning walk down Piney Woods Church Road today, I encountered this wasp with the most slender waist that I have ever seen, apparently gathering nectar from a Hoary Mountainmint.  I mistook it for a Thin-Waisted Wasp at first, but an expert at BugGuide on Facebook set me to rights.  It is actually a species of mason wasp, Zethus spinipes.  Researching this species further, I was astonished to find that relatively little is known about it.  Supposedly it nests in abandoned burrows of other insects, but this has not been confirmed.  One source, a web page from the Extension Service of the University of Florida, even cited a source on the genus dating back to 1894, though noting that it was likely in error.  If anyone is looking for a biology research project at the MS or PhD level, Zethus spinipes is certainly available.  

 

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Female Eastern Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly Encounters

 Backyard Nature, Insects, Natural History, Sense of Place  No Responses »
Aug 152014
 

Over the past few weeks, I have occasionally observed black (female) Eastern Tiger Swallowtail butterflies (Pterourus glaucus) winging their way along or across Piney Woods Church Road.  Invariably, they seemed bound for somewhere else, across a field or into the woods.  They steadfastly refused to pause long enough to be photographed.  Now, at last, Hoary Mountainmint (Pycnanthemum incanum) is in bloom, attracting varied pollinators, including solitary wasps (mentioned in an earlier post) and butterflies.  The males, and some females, are bright yellow and black.  But some females are a black and blue color variant, instead — like the ones I photographed earlier this afternoon. (I saw two or three different ones, and did not bother to record which one I was photographing at a particular moment).  Considering all the butterflies my backyard butterfly bush has attracted, I have seen precious few along Piney Woods Church Road, probably mostly due to the absence of flowers to pollinate.  For all that the Mountain Mint is rather nondescript (apart from the upper sides of its topmost leaves, which look they have been spray-painted with white), its blossoms have brought new presences to my daily pilgrimage, and I am most grateful.

 

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Day 224: Solitary Wasp Encounters

 Backyard Nature, Insects, Native Plants, Natural History, Piney Woods Church Road 365 Project, Uncategorized  No Responses »
Aug 122014
 

It was another incredibly muggy, rather gray afternoon in the midst of the August dog days, and I languidly and drippingly made my way down Piney Woods Church Road.  I was not expecting drama or excitement, but was hoping not to fall back on another image of a leaf illuminated by the Sun (assuming sufficient sunlight in the first place) or a second day photographing a caterpillar that looks like bird poop. I was delighted to find a black winged insect with a yellow-and-black striped body dashing about, pollinating a nondescript low shrub with clusters of small white flowers along the roadside. (The shrubby plant was later identified as Pycnanthemum incanum, Hoary Mountainmint or White Horsemint.)  I enthusiastically took many photographs, settling on the three below as I fell short of “the perfect photo” of the creature.  Having guessed a few weeks ago that an insect was a wasp only to find out it was, in fact, a hover fly (see “Party Time at the Cleyera” for that story), I naturally assumed it was a hover fly again.  Someone at Facebook’s Bug Guide kindly set me right.  This time, I had a pair of solitary wasps in my sights:  Monobia quadridens, a species of potter’s wasp that feeds on a mixed diet of caterpillars and pollen (top photo); and Scolia bicincta, the Double-Banded Scoliid Wasp (bottom two photos, which feeds on nectar and lays its eggs on immobilized scarab beetle grubs.

 

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Day 223: Keep Calm and Look Like Dung

 Backyard Nature, Insects, Piney Woods Church Road 365 Project, Sense of Place  No Responses »
Aug 112014
 

Keep calm and look like dung.  That appears to be the strategy of the Viceroy Caterpillar (Limenitis archippus), here photographed on a pin cherry leaf along Piney Woods Church Road.  When alarmed by the presence of my camera lens, he (or she) even contorted his/her body in a fascinating bit of caterpillar yoga, presumably so to look even more like bird droppings.  Considering that I found four caterpillars thriving on four different leaves of the same sapling, it appears that the strategy may be paying off.

 

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