Finally wonderful, Pt 2

Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis). The bloodroots are almost two weeks late this year, due to cold weather.



I haven't tackled moss identification yet. This is a common one here.



Cutleaf Toothwort (Cardamine concatenata). Most of them are still not open yet.



First damselfly of the season. They are frustratingly difficult to identify.



Hepatica (Hepatica nobilis). You know it's a late spring, when the hepatica aren't open til after mid-March. I've found them blooming in January and February, most years.



The beavers are out in force and at it again.

Yesterday was decidedly not wonderful (got colder, rained all day). And snow flurries this morning! I think the wonderful is due to return tomorrow, though.

Long weekend

'Tis the season for baby toads.


Everywhere a nest, nest.


Woodpecker playground.


Top of the previous tree, now on the ground.


Somewhere behind these leaves, many warblers were cheerfully singing.
(Kentucky, Blue-winged, Common Yellowthroat, Northern Parula, Louisiana Waterthrush.)


Happy with "just clover".


Black Knot & the Cherry Tree.

Monkey cigars

Several Catalpas grow here. They're a native tree, but these were planted by previous owners, to attract the catalpa worms that are such good fish bait.



One of its country names is Monkey Cigar Tree. Ever since I learned that, the long pods always bring to mind those old smoking monkey toys.



Inside the pods are several seeds, all fringed on the ends.



Looks like twins. (They all do.)

I posted about Catalpas, aka Catabas or Catawbas, and their worms before. They grow naturally by streams, so they don't mind getting their feet wet - the trees in the flood photo last week (on the right) were catalpas.

I thought I'd read that repeated defoliation by the worms didn't harm the trees. Usually, not every tree is defoliated every year. But one that seemed the worms' favorite is now dead. Could just be coincidence though; I don't know how to perform tree autopsies.



The spring we first moved here, I found a hornworm on the porch, and mistook it for a catalpa worm. Oh, so gently did I carry him over to a branch, thinking I was helping him find his true home. I want to slap my head now, remembering that piece of idiocy! It's ok though — confusion to our enemies, and all that.

I wondered if people actually ever lit up the pods, which don't seem very smokable to me. No firm evidence, but I thought it was hilarious that the search turned up an article by my blog friend Ron as the top item. Small world!

Spider poetry

One morning we awoke to find that spiders had woven diamonds during our sleep.

Bee fly

Major bee-fly, a.k.a. Greater bee-fly, Bombylius major.

Bee flies are what they sound like: flies that resemble bees. This one is the one we see most here, though there are several similar species in the family Bombyliidae.

See photos of several of them at Giff Beaton's site. (You know there are a lot of members in the family when there's a World Catalog of them.)

They hover about like small cute bumblebees, and they don't seem to mind drawing attention to themselves, the way they'll hover in the same position for quite a while. I've also seen them dart back and forth between two positions a foot or so apart -- if it were a bird, you'd say it was a mating dance, though I would assume that flies don't do that.

According to this site, "Its larvae are brood parasites and are found in bees' nests. Adults feed on nectar, using their long proboscises whilst hovering beside a flower." The whilst there should give you a clue that this fly is also found in England.

BugGuide has a species account here with more details, and some nice shots of them hovering.

I haven't found any one article detailing information about this bee-fly, but there are lots of links highlighting certain aspects of their behavior:

Drawing up sand or sawdust to coat eggs (here).

Comparing them, as generalist pollinators, to more species-specific pollinators (here).

Wingbeats in B flat? (here)

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Friday Ark is here.

Ironweed gathering

Pipevine Swallowtail, Battus philenor

I stopped to take a picture of this butterfly flittering over New York Ironweed (Vernonia noveboracensis).



Then I started noticing just how many other bugs were enjoying the only non-wilted plant within eyesight.


Female Eastern Amberwing, Perithemis tenera



I could swear she was smiling at me.


Ailanthus Webworm Moth, Atteva punctella.

Ready for Halloween.



Then there was this bee. Or fly. Or bee-fly. He was lovely but I got trapped in a bee/fly-mire when trying to identify him.



Same with this skipper.

There were at least 3 or 4 other insects too small or too fast to capture. Even tinier bees. Ants. A white moth.

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Please feel free to suggest IDs if you know them!

Snake doctors

Dragonflies are tough. I can't make this one exactly fit any of the pictures on BugGuide or Giff Beaton's site. I think it's one of the Libellula species but I'm not even sure of that.

Possibly a Slaty Skimmer (Libellula incesta). (!)
Or Bar-winged Skimmer (Libellula axilena).
Or Great Blue Skimmer (Libellula vibrans).
Or I'm just fixated on Skimmers and it's not actually one of those. None of them look quite right.



I think this one is a female Common Whitetail (Plathemis lydia).

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WikiThings I learned while trying to ID these dragonflies (sometimes called Snake Doctors here in the south):

The fossil record shows a Permian-period dragonfly with a whopping wingspan of almost 30 inches (76 cm).

The largest modern-day dragonfly has a wingspan of 7.5 inches (19 cm), and the smallest reaches only .75 inch (20 mm).

They are the world's fastest insects.

They have nearly a 360° range of vision.

Libellula was also the name of some prototype aircraft with odd wing designs.

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If anyone knows what the first one is, please leave a comment or email me.

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Update:
Nuthatch has given me a positive ID: female Slaty Skimmer. And a new word: pruinose! (Having a whitish, waxy, powdery covering or bloom on the surface.) Thanks Nuthatch.

Wooly Pine Scale

Snow? No. (It's Alabama in July.)

A heron's been sitting overhead? No. (Above us only sky.)

The strange white goop on this small Loblolly Pine (Pinus taeda) turned out to be Woolly Pine Scale (Pseudophilippia quaintancii).

According to ACES (Alabama Cooperative Extension System), small periodic infestations are not harmful to unstressed trees.

Of course due to a late spring freeze and the recent early summer drought, pretty much everything in north Alabama is stressed.

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Pine Needle Scale (Chionaspis pinifoliae) is another scale insect that looks like white gunk on pine needles.

Recent visitors

Red phase American Toad, Bufo americanus, in the garden.


Please stay and eat some bugs.


A nice webpage that includes info on how to differentiate similar species by cranial ridge patterns.


Cool red dragonfly: Carolina Saddlebags, Tramea carolina. Thanks again Giff Beaton.


A turtle I haven't identified yet. But now I see why they call it a turtleneck.


She was in a hurry to get somewhere.


Unwelcome visitor. One of the neighbor's cows, again. Tremendous painintherearus.

What else has been going on

Some of these¹



have been doing some of this,



while nearby, this² was found:



Toothwort³ mania began in earnest.



We had visitors⁴.



This



gave way to this⁵.



There was also this⁶, which is not the same.



And neither is this⁷.



Some excavation⁸ was going on.



But was apparently not satisfactory.



Ahhh it's almost trillium time⁹.



Tiny snails were observed, and also something else¹⁰ that I'm still pondering.



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¹Virginia Bluebells, Mertensia virginica
²See this earlier post if you're curious about the redrock fossils.
³Dentaria spp. Or is it all Cardamine now? I get confused.
⁴Canada Geese, Branta canadensis. I would say, "I know that you knew that already, I'm just trying to be consistent," but since there was a woman on a game show last night who did not know that the northern neighbor of the US is CANADA, for crying out loud, I'm not taking any chances.
⁵Hepatica or Liverleaf
⁶Rue Anemone, Thalictrum thalictroides
⁷Jacob's Ladder (Polemonium reptans) with Spring Beauty (Claytonia virginica) flower
⁸I'm guessing Pileated Woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus), but I'm not sure.
⁹Trailing Trillium, Trillium decumbens
¹⁰Little groups of tiny, tiny rocks are held together and to the larger rock surface like glue. Is something alive in there?