I hope it’s safe to say that Spring has finally arrived in the San Juans. We have enjoyed tiny blips of sunshine the past two afternoons, enough to awaken life in miniature around our home. I’ve found these tiny lives going about business on the “highway” around the top of our above ground pool, crumbled mounds of dirt in hard-packed soil where little mining bees have excavated their way to the surface from a long winter sleep, and a suite of species of flies (our best early spring pollinators) sipping at the miniature chickweed flowers that opened overnight. I’ve also seen my first tiny “sugar” ant in the house, most definitely a harbinger of spring!
In these days where we are likely weary of the many assaults on our souls – from reading that we are at the precipice of mass species extinction to the news reports of fires and other natural disasters (intensifying from climate change), and the horror of what we face watching our nation torn apart and not really knowing what the fateful consequences of unchecked power will be, I hope you will do as I am trying to do…take each day moment by moment, and find some beauty wherever you can. Remember the dandelion that blooms in the crack in the concrete. If you’re reading this, go outside and B-R-E-A-T-H-E.
Yesterday I saw the first Yellow Rumped Warbler of the season. The Violet Green Tree Swallows are going to show up any day now. Go soak yourself in nature while we still have nature around us.
Golden Dung Fly (Scathophaga stercoraria)Face Fly (Genus Musca) on Drago’s backCluster Fly (Pollenia sp)Cluster Fly (Pollenia sp)Seven Spotted Lady Bug (Coccinella septempunctata)Seven Spotted Lady Bug (Coccinella septempunctata)Blowfly (Calliphora sp)Face Fly (Genus Musca and I believe Musca autumnalis)Cluster Fly (Pollenia sp)Fungus Gnat (Family Mycetophilidae )Vinegar Fly (Genus Scaptomyza) Fungus Gnat (Family Mycetophilidae )Pea/Bean Weevil (Genus Bruchidius)Pea/Bean Weevil (Genus Bruchidius)Fungus Gnat (Mycetophilidae)Fungus gnat (Mycetophilidae)Fungus Gnat (Mycetophilidae)Darkling Beetle (Tenebrionidae)Dark Winged Fungus Gnat (Sciaridae family)Nut Leaf Weevil (Strophosoma melanogrammum)Slender Springtail (Orchesella cincta)Nut Leaf Weevil (Strophosoma melanogrammum)Harvestman (Phalangioidea)Narrow Barklouse (Genus Graphopsocus)This is either a Diapriidae Wasp (some use Mycetophilidae fungus gnats as hosts for development) or Braconidae (maybe Aphidiine) Mining Bee (Andrena sp)Mining Bee (Andrena sp.)Mining Bee (Andrena sp.)Mining Bee (Andrena sp.)Mining Bee (Andrena sp.)Mining Bee (Andrena sp.)Mining Bee excavationMining Bee excavationCarpet moth (Larentiinae) hoping to escape last night’s deluge
I’ll leave you to shadow dance with this happy little Cereal fly on my blue garden chair….💙
I found this gorgeous BENEFICIAL Green Ostomid beetle yesterday on the floor of our barn in the sand. Moved him over to some alder logs we have stacked as wildlife habitat and discovered he appeared to be quite thirsty. Yes, I did actually bring him some more water to drink from our outdoor above ground “pond.” More in the video description. Also want to add that if you have Alders on your property – please don’t grind them up or burn them. They are extremely important resources for many species of wildlife. They hold water even as dead trees, and they are full of insects that feed many birds (and other insects and spiders).
Watch and you’ll see this incredibly amazing association. This is Culex territans, the Northern Frog Biting Mosquito. Culex territans is found in a wide variety of habitats, but is most commonly associated with freshwater marshes, bogs, and ponds or streams with emergent vegetation.
Culex territans prefers feeding on cold blooded animals (amphibians and reptiles), but feeds most frequently on Anurans (frogs and toads). Here you see the mosquito feeding on a Pacific Tree Frog (Pseudacris regilla). The MOST interesting thing about this species is that females find their amphibian hosts via phonotaxis. This means they find their host via acoustics. They utilize the frog vocalizations to locate these animals for bloodmeals (Bartlett-Healy et al., 2008b). Mosquitoes can hear! 🦟🦻🏻
Bartlett-Healy,K. Wayne Crans, Randy Gaugler. 2008. Phonotaxis to Amphibian Vocalizations in Culex territans (Diptera: Culicidae), Annals of the Entomological Society of America. 101 (1) 95–103. https://doi.org/10.1603/0013-8746(2008)101[95:PTAVIC]2.0.CO;2
Hoover Pantoja-Sánchez, Brian C. Leavell, Bianca Rendon, W. A. Priyanka P. de-Silva, Richa Singh, Jian Zhou, Gil Menda, Ronald R. Hoy, Ronald N. Miles, Neil D. Sanscrainte, Ximena E. Bernal; Tiny spies: mosquito antennae are sensitive sensors for eavesdropping on frog calls. J Exp Biol 15 December 2023; 226 (24): jeb245359. doi: https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.245359
This is one of my favorite garden residents (Eudioctria sackeni), or the Sacken Longhorn Robber. I remember the first time I saw one of these, I thought, “Wow, it’s an Ombre Fly!” If you didn’t know, “ombre” means the blending of one particular color hue to another, often from light tints to dark. The coloration in this particular fly is distinctly “ombre,” though it varies in individuals within the species.
Eudioctria flies are in the family group, Asilidae or Robber flies. They are voracious predators of small insects that can be pests of gardens and orchards. Here, you see this one enjoying a small dipteran (fly) of some variety, perched on the leaf of one of my mint plants. The mint is a popular scouting platform. On any given day in the summer, I’ll see 4 or 5 of these flies in a six foot strip of mint which has become quite abundant in the yard over the past few years. The mint seems to be quite attractive to pollinators, and it also provides shelter for other bugs and critters. Our little tree frogs love to sit in the mint too.
Today was a day of bird encounters. I saw our poor little cowbird that can’t fly because he’s been injured (likely by our neighbor’s marauding outdoor cat). He’s survived three nights so far even though he seems to have a wing injury and I haven’t figured out yet if I can capture him to check. He’s had his little mate following him around.
Cowbird male
I know it’s a cowbird and cowbirds are brood parasites, but they are actually quite beautiful little birds and I feel sympathy for wildlife that are impacted by our human “pets.” It isn’t fair and we should do much better to keep our pets under control. I don’t know what my response would be if I see this cat attacking our Tanager or one of the Grosbeaks. It is doing what cats do and the problem isn’t the cat, but the owner who evidently doesn’t care and is probably too lazy to clean a litter box and play with the cat and keep it inside. Ok. So, I vented. Sigh…
I was going out to take a walk in nature to unwind when I heard a sad little thunk on our window. We have Acopian Bird Savers https://www.birdsavers.com/make-your-own/ on the largest window, but not the smaller one. That’s gonna change. I’m going to put them on ALL our windows.
Well, I looked out and saw a tiny little nuthatch on the ground, on its back, mouth open, but it was breathing. I ran out to pick it up and when I scooped that little creature into my hand, its feet wrapped around my finger so tightly that I felt hopeful. It was a newly fledged nuthatch. I sat with it quietly in the shade under the suet feeder, my hand stretched out onto my knee into a little cup shape.
The bird closed its eyes and slept a bit. I talked to it very very softly. An adult nuthatch landed on the feeder above, eyeing me cautiously. I believe it was the parent. I spoke to the adult too, trying to convey my earnest intent not to harm her child. The little one blinked and looked about. Then it closed its eyes and slept a bit again. The parent flew over to the fruitless cherry tree to another feeder, then off, I expect to feed another hungry mouth.
After a good 15 minutes, the little nuthatch was much more alert. It kept eyeing the suet feeder and the adult bird that returned again and again. I rose slowly from sitting, carefully supporting the little one – still gripping my finger. Raising my arm, I chose a small branch just beside the suet feeder and in a breath, the little one hopped off my finger and onto the new perch.
The adult nuthatch flew onto a nearby branch and I saw the fledgling flutter its little wings like baby birds do to get their parents’ attention to be fed. In another breath, it was airborne, flying after the parent. I was so grateful for a happy end to that incident.
My walk down our road was uneventful for the most part. I did see a Clown millipede (Harpahe crossing the wetland area and squatted down to observe its somewhat awkward, but systematic locomotion. It almost looks suspended in motion over the ground. After making sure it was safely out of harm’s way and not in a car path, I continued on.
(Harpahe hayadienana) Clown millipede
My destination was the “soon to open officially” nature preserve. I have walked on this property for about 10 years now. It is an amazing place.
Giant cedars tower overhead through the wetland. Along the seasonal stream, the path I took meanders amidst the primordial assortment of ferns, swamp lanterns, and horsetail. There are creatures there in the forest. If you see them, you will leave feeling a sense of awe.
Twinflowers on the forest floor
Red legged frogs, salamanders, and newts make their homes in the wetland. They dine on the myriad of invertebrates that live in the stream and mud. On the forest floor, you’ll find Night-stalking tiger beetles (Omus dejeanii) with fierce jaws hunting for prey. If you’re really really lucky, you might see the burgundy metallic carabid beetle (Zacotus matthewsii) that I’ve only seen less than a handful of times in the past decade. Overhead, you’ll hear the family of ravens that have a nearby nest. Always in the same place.
The hawks hunt in a small clearing where the stream attracts other animals that come for a drink. There are other birds hidden too. Flycatchers nesting in rotting snags, Pileated Woodpeckers drilling after carpenter ants. And the owl.
The owl has been there for a long time. You can hear it calling in the night – “Who Cooks for You?” It was wonderful before there were too many houses. Now, it is harder and harder to hear the owl over the din of barking dogs. In the woods though, the owl has a baby.
I heard it calling the other day. Screeching is more like it. I heard the noise before saw them. The mother owl was watching me cautiously from high above. A snake dangled from her mouth. In spite of this, I heard her utter sounds of caution to her child. She flew over to feed it as I quietly backed out of the area. I did not want to disrupt them and when I walk, I try always to remember that I am entering the home of others. I walk quietly and respect their spaces.
Momma owl with snake
Today, when I walked back to the place of the owl, I heard the baby again. It was calling repeatedly, but mom was nowhere to be seen. Again, I backed away quietly, hoping the owl was able to find food for her little one. They must hunt through the day and not only at night in order to rear their offspring.
I thought of the owl as I walked back to the trailhead and then I momentarily became distracted as I reached the site where I’d been poking around in a raccoon carcass on the trail. There are some very cool bugs that you find in carrion. Unfortunately, the remains were not to be found.
Stepping off the trail to look in the underbrush for any sign of the carcass, I heard a flutter overhead. I looked up and she was there. It was the mother owl.
She landed on a branch right in front of me. I was too dumbfounded to move. We stayed like that for what seemed like a very long minute. She gazed at me and I watched her in turn, not daring to blink. There was no threat. I felt like she knew me.
The robins were not happy and began to flail at her, creating a cacophony of rebuke. She ignored them. I slowly brought my phone around and took a video of her. She just looked at me.
Then she looked around, gazing through the forest at things unseen. After about five minutes, she reoriented her body, turning away from me, surveying the surrounding area. With a glance back at me, she flew away.
This encounter is why saving spaces for WILDLIFE is so incredibly important to me. These places should belong to them. When we visit a preserve, remember that. It is their home.
I hope others will reflect on what I’ve shared, and maybe there will be one less person who lets their dog off leash or one less person who throws trash onto the forest floor. Think about the creatures that call these places home. Walk softly and be respectful of their need and struggle to survive in ever-shrinking spaces.
Thank you for reading. Support Conservation. Save Spaces for Nature.
I’m doing a short write up of this fly just to get you thinking a bit. It was observed April 29, 2024 on San Juan Island, WA. While identification to Genus/Species may not be possible until I can actually catch a specimen to be keyed out, it is Family Tachinidae and Tribe Goniini. Hoping to come back with at least a Genus update at some point.
What I want to SHARE is the life history of this tribe of flies. The Goniini flies are parasites of various Lepidoptera, mostly Noctuids, Arctiids, and Lymantriids. Translating this for you a bit, it would be cutworms (if you’re a gardener) , tiger moths, and tussock moths.
How does this play out?
The female Goniini fly lays a “black microtype,” usually ovate and flattened egg, varying in size from very small to medium, on foliage utilized by the feeding host caterpillar. The caterpillar (usually Noctuids) munch the foliage, ingesting the fly egg. The caterpillar will continue feeding and then wander off to complete its life cycle as a pupa. At some point after ingestion by the caterpillar, the fly egg hatches and the fly larva develops inside the body of the pupating moth that is inside its chrysalis.
A myriad of ecological relationships exist in nature that are often unobserved. Many remain undescribed or unknown. Sometimes, they are disrupted by humans who intervene out of ignorance. If you’re one of those folks who squish what you believe are cutworm pupae in your garden bed, you might be smooshing the pest predator developing inside.
I thought writing out my feelings might help a bit with the deep reactiveness I am feeling in response to the terrible news I received yesterday about a very dear friend. The details? My friend is going to be 94 in October. I’ve known her now for almost 20 years. She was my walking buddy in Texas. She LOVES to walk and be out in nature.
A few days ago, my friend was severely injured when two dogs mauled her while she was out on a walk. The details I have received were the dogs were a pitbull and a great dane. They knocked her to the ground, inflicted many bite injuries. She has multiple lacerations, including her scalp. She has a broken nose, suffered a brain bleed, and has what is known as a “crush” break of her leg. To give you a bit of perspective, aside from her advanced age, she weighs only 90 lbs.
People came to her aid. She is hospitalized. If she doesn’t end up with serious infections, she faces a long road of rehabilitation. I am praying for her and I haven’t prayed in a long time.
Let’s talk about the dogs and what I know about them. One was deemed “friendly” and had never been a problem before until in the company of the other dog. Dog behavior isn’t always predictable. Unfortunately many dog owners are clueless about this. The dog owner was cited, but as of today, those dogs are still alive. I was told by the local law enforcement that there is a “process.”
The very sad fact is this is the 2nd dog attack my friend has had in the past 3 years. In January, 2021, my friend was attacked while out walking when a boxer/pit mix got away from its owners and charged her, biting her on her knee. Again, when you are in your 90’s and only weigh 90 lbs, your legs are tiny, skin is thin, and healing is slow.
Backing up a bit to my days of going out walking with my friend. We would walk regularly at a nature preserve in Texas. For us, this was the only nature preserve in a 20-mile radius and unfortunately, it quickly became overused….by dog owners. I had to carry a big stick because of all the off-leash dogs. One sad memory in particular sticks in my head. That was the morning I passed a group of laughing men who were entertained because their off-leash dogs had “tree’d” baby bobcat kittens. I can’t imagine the horror of the bobcats, but I left with lump in my stomach at how I really have come to detest many humans, and irresponsible dog owners.
I do remember complaining to the parks department that managed the nature preserve. When I asked why they even bothered calling it a “nature” preserve, the response was, “we have to meet the recreational needs of our residents.” Never mind, the sheer presence of all those dogs, leashed or unleashed, directly impacted the wildlife. The bobcats left, the coyotes left, the road runners left. It’s now a wasteland of dog feces and not much else. Even the stream is littered with dog waste bags. Why bother to pick it up if you’re just going to leave it to contaminate the streams that used to have fish, turtles, and other aquatic life. Don’t want to pick it up, but fall into the category of kicking the poo off in the weeds? Well, then you are directly contributing to the contamination of a natural area with bacteria, and all sorts of other pathogenic matter. Not to mention, it is just really gross.
I’ve come to the place where I don’t really believe dogs (or cats) should be outside of their owners’ living space. Certainly, they don’t belong at all in nature preserves, wildlife areas, and most definitely not in restaurants or other public places where they may encounter strange sights, noises, smells, or interact with unfamiliar dogs and become defensive or reactive. Non-dog owners have a right to safely visit a playground with their child, walk in a park, nature area, or visit a public event without risking being mauled by someone’s dog.
You may disagree with me and that’s your choice. I’m not completely anti-dog. I know there are some great ones out there and definitely there are responsible dog owners, but there are others like me who just don’t want to swoon over your pup. If you pass me walking in a nature area and you are walking a dog, please respect my space. I am tolerant of leashed dogs that don’t run up and jump on me. My experiences with dogs haven’t been great. In fact, most of mine have been awful. I am sick with worry about my friend. Don’t try to tell me it isn’t the dogs’ fault. Don’t jump to the defense of the dogs. Ultimately the dog owner is the responsible party, but keeping dangerous dogs alive is not the answer. We can’t SAVE all dogs. I hope the dog owner is charged with assault. Owning a dog is a huge responsibility. If you own a large breed dog you can’t control, it is just as dangerous as owning a gun. Dogs are far more unpredictable than wildlife. They have great potential to cause serious injuries to humans, including killing them.
References
J Gilchrist, MD, Div of Unintentional Injury Prevention; K Gotsch, MPH, JL Annest, PhD, G Ryan, PhD, Office of Statistics and Programming, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, CDC. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5226a1.htm
Tuckel PS, Milczarski W. The changing epidemiology of dog bite injuries in the United States, 2005-2018. Inj Epidemiol. 2020 Nov 1;7(1):57. doi: 10.1186/s40621-020-00281-y. PMID: 33129353; PMCID: PMC7603431.
Hmmm, I was trying to think of a catchy title. “Louse in the House” made you look, right? Well, indeed one did escape and I can’t find it. Would you like to come over for dinner tonight? I thought I saw it flying around the dining room.
Here’s how it happened. Yesterday afternoon, a bird hit the window. It was a hard strike on a window where we haven’t had many bird collisions. I suppose I’ll have to make more Acopian Bird Blinds to put up. They’ve sure help mitigate the bird strikes. Link to DIY instructions here: https://www.birdsavers.com/make-your-own/
Back to the bird. I went out to see if the poor bird was still alive. It was, but died in my hands soon after I picked it up and carried it into the house to assess for injuries. I took the bird into the bathroom so I could shut out my ever-curious indoor cats, Herman and Nimbus. After realizing I was holding a lifeless body, I set the bird down in the bathtub. Right away, I noticed a fly crawling through the bird’s feathers. Hurriedly, I left the bathroom, grabbed my camera, and went back to examine my specimen more closely.
Hippoboscid Fly (Icosta americana)
As I bent over to look through the feathers, a fly zoomed up and nearly entered my nostril. I backed away, rubbing my nose. Wouldn’t be my first strange experience with a fly. There was that incident with the botfly that could have been a medical ophthalmological emergency. Don’t ask. You truly don’t want to know.
Leaning back over the tub, I started to look through the feathers again, but thought better. I went out of the bathroom again. This time to retrieve a large plastic bag and a collection vial for specimens. The bird went into the clear plastic bag. Now, I could look while containing the flies in the bag if there were others to be found.
I found two more.
These are Louse Flies in the family Hippoboscidae. The ID for this particular species is Icosta americana. Also, my husband identified the bird as a juvenile Brown Headed Cowbird (Molothrus ater). Strangely, this species is known to be chiefly associated with the bird families Accipitridae (birds of prey – hawks), Phasianidae (pheasants), and Strigidae (owls). So, why might it be on a cowbird? The bizarre exception. Maybe the cowbird parents laid their egg in the nest of one of the above? I suppose it will be a mystery.
Hippoboscid louse flies are pretty interesting. First off, don’t they look weird? Trust me when I tell you they are one of the most bizarre families of flies out there. They are obligate ectoparasites that feed on the blood of their host, nothing else. Unlike other fly groups, both male and female flies in this family feed exclusively on blood.
There are more than 200 species of Hippoboscid flies, and each species is particular about what sort of host it feeds on. Some feed on sheep, some on deer, others on bats, but the ones I found feed on birds. In fact, approximately 75% of species of Hippoboscid flies are bird parasites. Of these 75%, some are so picky, they only prefer a particular species of bird.
Another interesting thing about these flies is the fact they vector diseases like Avian Malaria, West Nile virus, and various Trypanosomes among the host species they parasitize. Unlike some other Hippoboscid species which have deciduous wings (wings that are quickly lost when reaching a host), the ones that parasitize birds can fly during their entire adult life. This means if their host dies, like my bird that hit the window, the flies are able to leave the bird’s body and fly off to parasitize another bird host.
While one fly may have attempted to target my nose, these flies are not known to parasitize humans, although incidental bites have been recorded. Some species of female Hippoboscid flies are actually known to only be able to develop their eggs from the blood of their particular host species.
While on a host, Hippoboscid flies move about with ease. They have bodies that are dorso-ventrally flattened, somewhat like an unfed tick body or a squished bug body. In fact, the Hippoboscid flies that parasitize deer are often mistaken for ticks. Because of the flattened body, sometimes these flies are referred to as flat flies. This shape makes it easy for them to glide between fur or feathers, and it also makes it hard for the host to groom them off.
The most remarkable thing about Hippoboscid flies is their reproductive biology. It is known by the term, Adenotrophic viviparity. Adenotrophic viviparity is where eggs hatch inside the female, and the larvae are fed internally until they are mature enough to pupate. In layman lingo, the female fly gives birth to a single live larva just as it is ready to pupate. She has invested all her resources into producing a single offspring.
This is unique as most fly species cast eggs onto a substrate and the eggs hatch into larvae, feed independently of the parent, pupate, and emerge as adults. With Hippoboscid flies, the female parent retains the single egg inside her uterus, the egg hatches into a larva, and she feeds it with special milk glands until the larva reaches the last stage of larval development or “prepuparium.” Finally, the adult fly “births” her offspring larva enclosed in a shell that quickly hardens into a true pupa. With Hippoboscid species that parasitize birds, the adult fly will leave her pupa in a bird’s nest or roosting site where it can easily find a host when emerges as an adult. For more on the life cycle of Hippoboscidae, you can view one of my YouTube videos here – https://youtu.be/zCD1B2GjCxU
*** In case you’re sitting here scratching your head and I wasn’t clear in the text, ALL of the collective names for Hippoboscid Flies include the following: Flat Fly, Louse Fly, Ked Fly, or just plain ole Ked. And yes, they ARE known to have a painful bite!
References and Further Reading
Coatney, G. R. (1931). On the Biology of the Pigeon Fly, Pseudolynchia maura Bigot (Diptera, Hippoboscidae). Parasitology, 23(04), 525.
Dick, C.W. 2006. Checklist of world Hippoboscidae (Diptera: Hippoboscoidea); Department of Zoology, Field Museum of Natural History: Chicago, IL, USA, pp. 1–7.
Levesque-Beaudin, V. Sinclair, B.J. 2021. Louse fly (Diptera, Hippoboscidae) associations with raptors in southern Canada, with new North American and European records. International Journal for Parasitology: Parasites and Wildlife, 16: 168-174. ISSN 2213-2244. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijppaw.2021.09.007
Maa, T. C. 1969. a Revised Checklist & Concise Host Index of Hippoboscidae (Diptera). Pacific Insects Monog., Honolulu: Bishop Museum, Honolulu, Hawaii. 20: 261–299. http://hbs.bishopmuseum.org/fiji/pdf/maa1969b.pdf
Santolíková,A.;Brzonˇová, J.;Cˇepicˇka,I.;Svobodová,M. 2022. Avian Louse Flies and Their Trypanosomes: New Vectors, New Lineages and Host–Parasite Associations. Microorganisms. 10, 584. https://doi.org/10.3390/ microorganisms10030584
I’m finding it somewhat laborious to sort moths. The part I enjoy most is actually looking at what has visited my light during the night when I get up early in the morning. The aggravation comes with our very SLOW internet speed. Definitely do NOT expect great internet if you’re considering moving to San Juan Island. It’s been awful for the almost-fourteen years I’ve lived here and one time it was out altogether for almost 3 weeks!
I finally finished labeling all of my photos and have them uploaded. If my count is right, I have about 20 different species today, but as I mentioned in my earlier post, I won’t necessarily have all of them identified to species. Some I’ve only been able to ID to tribe or subfamily, others to genus, but a few were easy enough to manage a species ID for. If anyone finds a mistake, kindly point it out and I will make the necessary corrections. There were lots of micro moths this morning and those are tough for me. But they are fascinating. Some look like bird poop. You’d never see them, they are disguised so well in nature.
If you’re interested in participating in National Moth Week, it’s not too late. Check out their website here – https://nationalmothweek.org
Leading up to the Twelfth Annual National Moth Week, July 22-30, 2023 https://nationalmothweek.org, I am getting into moth mode with some early collecting to see what is flying about the forest near our home at night.
My first attempts at this were quite unsatisfying, save for the two awesome beetles that came to visit. The bug station I set up just wasn’t yielding much in the way of moths, at least until I discovered my station had been discovered by some thieving yellow jackets who were picking off my moths right in front of my eyes. Something had to change. I sure didn’t want to lure in these beautiful creatures to become a breakfast buffet.
I got some very helpful advice from a friend named Carl. Carl is an expert moth-er, and he recommended putting some egg cartons in my bug bucket so they would have a place to hide. I tried this last night, adding two egg cartons and some pieces of cardboard. Then, I went to hang my bucket up and turn on the light – EXCEPT, those darn yellow jackets showed up at 9 pm. They must have excellent memory. I suppose they wanted to be first in line at the moth buffet.
I moved my bug bucket and light to another location. It was a success. Here is the assortment of moths I collected last night. All were handled with gentle care and photographed. Afterwards, I moved them to hiding spots in the forest to make them less susceptible to predation.
If you’re interested in participating locally in National Moth Week, please don’t hesitate to reach out for more information. You can find me via email at cynthiabrast@icloud.com or on Facebook at Bugs of the San Juan Islands – a private group, but easy to join by answering a couple of questions and agreeing to follow the group rules to prove you aren’t a spammer and won’t be disruptive. 😉
Bugging You From San Juan Island 