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April 6, 2025 – A Wet Spring Day

Posted on April 6, 2025 by "BUGGING" YOU FROM San Juan Island One comment

Last night, I did manage to get my moth light working again and set things up to see what I might find this morning. While I didn’t really want to get out of bed at 7:30, keeping a routine is important to me. I find it tremendously helpful in managing the ups and downs of one’s mental perspective. You’ll have to bear with me a bit though. I will get to the moths, but have to vent about something that upset me. One of my three cats was chattering at the sliding door when I walked towards the kitchen. I looked out to see what he was watching, and there was a little bird on the ground, obviously suffering from some unfortunate injury (most likely from our neighbor’s free roaming cat). That made me feel sad and angry and it wasn’t the best start to my day.

Don’t get me wrong. I love cats, but I don’t agree that it is OK to allow your feline friend to maim and kill wildlife. I do take my kitties outside with me into our fenced area for supervised recess, but I DO NOT ever leave my cats out alone and certainly do not allow the killing of wildlife. Not even bugs. Drago the lizard may get away with bug murder on occasion, but his impact is quite minor compared to the magnitude of damage done by free roaming cats when it comes to decimating wildlife.

We need to get people to change and become more responsible pet owners. If you disagree with me on this, I might add that I also saw someone’s cat was literally ripped apart on their front porch by two unleashed huskies in Friday Harbor yesterday. That also makes me sad and angry. I blame the cat owner AND the dog owner. It was senseless and preventable.

I think humans need a license to own a pet. We also need ANIMAL CONTROL in San Juan County. There is none and these huskies have been loose and killed cats before. However, if the cat owner was allowing the cat to roam outside unsupervised and unprotected, that’s another layer to the incident. What if someone had left their baby in a stroller long enough to run inside for keys, a purse, etc.? No one should own a husky as a pet. They are notorious for getting loose and killing things. But humans are not all that smart are they?

I did go out to check on the bird. It sort of looked like a finch, or maybe even a female cowbird (except it was too small to be a cowbird). Let’s just say the head looked like a female cowbird’s, but the body was more finch like in size.

It can hop. I put a bit of seed out on the ground and left it alone. It would just stress the bird for me to try and capture it. Maybe it will recover.

Please don’t say, it’s just nature, because cats are not native here. Also, my neighbor’s cat dug up all of my garden pea starts last year and pooped in the garden bed. Pea starts are expensive. People need to keep their cats indoors, or in a catio, or just supervise them outside so they don’t cause problems or be killed by dogs that should not be owned by humans as pets.

After I checked on the bird, I did go and look at my moth bucket. There were 7 specimens. Not many, but I went through them and here’s what I found. Six moths and one wasp.

*Cerastis enigmatica*, the Enigmatic Dart Moth

*Orthosia hibisci*, the Speckled Green Fruitworm Moth

*Egira crucialis* , I believe. Egira for certain though

Orthosia sp. I am undecided about species for this one.

The next moth below looks like it has a little pixie cap on. It’s one of my favorites. The red colors are so pretty. It’s in genus Orthosia like some of the others above, but I believe this one is Orthosia transparens.

I saved the best one for last. I have only seen this moth on two other occasions, but it one so remarkable, you remember it well. This is an owlet moth called Behrensia conchiformis. I would love to discover what makes the interesting metallic colors in the wings. The larvae of this species are foodplant specialists. They feed only on honeysuckle (Lonicera spp.) and snowberry (Symphoricarpos spp.) in the Caprifoliaceae.

Thanks for reading…especially for reading my rambling rants of the day. While I’d like to stick to just bugs, I am finding it somewhat therapeutic to include my feelings here, and to interject some of my opinions. They are mine and yours may be different. I respect that, but I hope perhaps upon reflection, even someone who might initially disagree with my perspective, might have a change of heart.

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April 5, 2025 – Herman finds a fly

Posted on April 5, 2025 by "BUGGING" YOU FROM San Juan Island Leave a comment

That’s right! Herman the Persian found something interesting in the yard when we were outside sunning ourselves a bit this afternoon. He found one of the Bibionid March flies (a female). If you read my post yesterday https://buggingyoufromsanjuanisland.com/2025/04/04/nuptial-gifts/, you might note that Bibionid flies were being hunted by Empis flies who rolled them into little balls as nuptial gifts used to woo the lady Empids to mate.

Female Bibionid fly digging chamber to lay her eggs.

Evidently, a few of these Bibionid flies escaped that destiny and actually mated with their own kind. THIS one, that Herman found, was hard at work digging her own death chamber where she would expire soon after laying her eggs. Incidentally, the adults are very short-lived, and in fact, live only about 5-7 days with the primary objective of mating, and for the adult female to lay her fertilized eggs. In spite of their brief existence, adults are also thought to be important early pollinators of orchard trees. Yes, you heard me right! Flies don’t get nearly as much credit for pollinating as they deserve to receive.

I watched her digging with her fossorial forelegs. It seemed to be an impossible task, but she made slow and steady progress. She was still hard at work before we went back into the house about half an hour later. I marked the spot with a rock so I could go back and check, but I suspect even with the rock nearby as a marker, it will be next to impossible to detect any disturbance in the soil tomorrow. We’re supposed to get rain this evening.

In approximately 30-35 days, the eggs she lays will hatch underground. The larvae will live in the top layer of soil and feed gregariously on leaf and needle litter, decaying organic matter, and sometimes on below-ground parts of plants.

If you’re curious, you can read more about Bibionid flies in the attached links. I did see some additional Empis fly males dancing about today with their Bibionid “balloons” or nuptial gift balls for prospective mates.

Thanks for reading. 🙂

References

Bugguide.net. 2025. Family Bibionidae – March flies. https://bugguide.net/node/view/3834

Morris, H. No date. The larval and pupal stages of the Bibionidae. Entomological Department, Institute of Plant Pathology, Rothamsted Experimental Station, Harpenden. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/212009582.pdf

Nuptial Gifts

Posted on April 4, 2025 by "BUGGING" YOU FROM San Juan Island 3 comments

Empis Dance Fly with Bibionidae fly as nuptial offering for a female Empis fly

This afternoon I would rate a 10/10 for entomological adventure. It happened outside, just behind our barn about 3:30pm. I went out to feed our resident raven and took a stroll over to a sunny corner of our property. As I neared an old barbed wire fence line, I noticed an aggregation of flies bobbing around over one of the native Ocean Spray (Holodiscus discolor) shrubs. Moving closer, as stealthily as possible, I saw these were Empis dance flies and I got very excited. There seemed to be about 15-20 in the group.

Empis Dance Fly (male) with Bibionid fly nuptial gift

I watched as I stood in the sun. The sun’s warmth felt really good on my body. Hopefully, we will have more sunshine and some days of vitamin D will infuse my cells and pull me out of this funk I have been wallowing in. The flies dancing in the sun were a sight. I crept forward a bit closer, trying not to slip into the fencing, but enough so as to get some video to share.

You will have to forgive me for the shake in the footage. It is not easy to remain steady and focus on a nervous fly that leaves its perch if you so much as breathe too deeply when you are moving the camera close enough to zoom in for a good macro shot. I think I was holding my breath a lot while I was trying to take pictures.

Empis Dance Fly with nuptial offering

This fly should be classified in the genus Empis. Last year, I found Empis barbatoides in our orchard. You can read an earlier blog post I wrote about them here https://buggingyoufromsanjuanisland.com/category/dance-fly/empis-barbatoides/ I believe these may be the same species, but I say this with a caveat. I am hoping to get my hands on a copy of the revisions by Sinclair, Brooks, and Cumming I have referenced below. It appears I may need this and the updated keys to try and ID my fly beyond genus level, so I’ve emailed the lead author and hopefully will hear something back.

If you look closely, you’ll see in some of the photos the fly is holding a balled up insect. This is a species of March fly in the family Bibionidae. I saw a few hiding around in the tall grass like this one in the photo below.

March fly (Bibionidae) hiding in the grass

Evidently, they were being picked out by the male flies and rolled up into a nice nuptial gift to present to a female Empis fly to entice her to mate. The male Empis fly will carry this balled up dead insect and “dance” around to attract a female. That’s what I found so fascinating to actually watch in person. It isn’t every day you see something like this! Since flies seem to be attracted to certain spots for mating aggregations (it’s called hilltopping), perhaps this is a spot where I might be lucky enough to see this action again.

References and Further Reading:

Alcock , John. 1973. The mating behaviour of Empis barbatoides Melander and Empis poplitea Loew (Diptera: Empididae), Journal of Natural History, 7:4, 411-420, DOI: 10.1080/00222937300770301

Bugguide. 2023. Family Empididae – Dance Flies. https://bugguide.net/node/view/6578

Pehling, D. 2004. Empis Dance Flies Empis spp. Bug of the Month . Scarabogram. https://crawford.tardigrade.net/bugs/BugofMonth40.html

Sinclair BJ, Brooks SE, Cumming JM. Revision of the western Nearctic species of Empis subgenus Enoplempis (Diptera: Empididae). Zootaxa. 2025 Mar 31;5615(1):1-200. doi: 10.11646/zootaxa.5615.1.1. PMID: 40173481. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40173481/

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April 2, 2025

Posted on April 2, 2025 by "BUGGING" YOU FROM San Juan Island 2 comments

I didn’t turn on my moth light last night. I thought about it, but supposed I just wasn’t feeling all that motivated. If I’m completely honest with myself, I am feeling a bit blue. Maybe more than a bit. I wrestle with feeling shut out of the “enviro” community on the island and have felt snubbed by some of the folks in certain organizations. Life on an island can be great, but there are times when it feels like you’re in a fishbowl. Some people don’t get beyond 8th grade social networks. Shrugging here. 🤷‍♀️ I am just going to continue to do my bug thing and if people want to connect, they are always welcome. Sometimes I get really great emails and feel like my efforts to share what I know about bugs matter. I hope so. We need bugs. Even the ones that aren’t perceived as charismatic as a butterfly or a bee.

Here’s a moth that made me think of a funny story to share. This one’s for my daughter. I hope she will get a laugh out of it. We used to have a rabbit named Izzy. Her full name was Izzy Belle Cottontail. She was supposed to be a wild rabbit. How did we come to have her? A neighbor’s dog killed her nest mates and she was the only one to survive. They brought her to me asking for help. She wasn’t but days or maybe even hours old. Her eyes were closed and her umbilical cord stump was still attached. I tried to give her to my rehabber friend, but she was overwhelmed. I ended up caring for Izzy. Bottle feeding every hour or so, even through the night. When she was old enough, we tried to release her. She ran back in the house and that was that. She came with us when we moved to Washington…all the way from Texas. If you want to see a video of Izzy, you can check out the YouTube link here: https://youtu.be/6S0qnwgzLbM?si=JsMYN8rG1Hfu67FB

So why does this moth in the video below remind me of Izzy? Well, Izzy had a really bad habit of chewing things. Rabbits have to wear their teeth down, but I think young rabbits just want to try everything out. One morning my daughter got up and came to get me. She said, “Mom, Izzy gave me sprigs.” She did indeed have “sprigs” of hair sticking up where Izzy had chewed off pieces in the night. Izzy gave me sprigs a few times too. In spite of her chewing and other unfortunate habits, we loved Izzy dearly and she lived a very long and happy life with us.

This little moth is Orthosia hibisci, the speckled green fruitworm moth. As you can see, it has little “sprigs” sticking up from the top of its head too. Those aren’t antennae, but they are cute! Orthosia hibisci is a moth in the Noctuid family. The caterpillars are sort of a generic green. They like chewing too, but fortunately, it’s limited to leaves. You might find them on willow, birch, maple, or other various deciduous trees (including fruit trees like plum and cherry). The adults are typically one of the earliest species to emerge in spring.

Orthosia hibisci, Speckled Green Fruitworm Moth, Observed April 1 2025 on San Juan Island, WA

Check out the links below to find out more about Orthosia hibisci

Bugguide.net https://bugguide.net/node/view/4865

Butterflies and Moths of North America https://www.butterfliesandmoths.org/species/Orthosia-hibisci

Moth Photographers Group https://mothphotographersgroup.msstate.edu/species.php?hodges=10495

Spring!

Posted on March 27, 2025 by "BUGGING" YOU FROM San Juan Island 2 comments

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)

I’ll leave you to shadow dance with this happy little Cereal fly on my blue garden chair….💙

Thanks for stopping by!

Cereal Fly (Geomyza tripunctata) shadow dancing

Western Thatching Ants (Formica obscuripes)

Posted on March 15, 2025 by "BUGGING" YOU FROM San Juan Island Leave a comment

Formica obscuripes, Western Thatching Ant

I went for a walk yesterday on Three Corner Lake Road just to get out of the house. Springtime on San Juan Island has been cold and dreary, but sometimes there’s a moment or two when the sun peeks out, giving a bit of hope that the winter doldrums are coming to an end. Don’t get me wrong, I love the Pacific Northwest, but the Visitor Center’s claim that San Juan gets 247 days of sunshine a year is a stretch. I think they actually count the days when it is overcast and rainy as long as the sun peeks out for just a minute before the clouds darken the day again.

It was cold and I wasn’t expecting to see any insect activity, so I was surprised to find this long time ant colony with a mass of individuals near the top of the nest. The sun had been out intermittently, so I believe what was happening was the workers were at the surface to warm themselves (thermoregulating). There were a few straggling workers carrying thatch debris (conifer needles) to the nest from the forest. If the weather had been nicer, I would have enjoyed plopping myself into a chair to ant watch for an hour or so. They are quite pretty when you see them up close.

Western Thatching Ants (Formica obscuripes) are native to our region. They seem to like forest edge habitat, and you’ll find the nests situated in areas where there is some clearing to take advantage of the sun’s warmth. These ants are considered general omnivore-predators. They scavenge or prey upon insects and other arthropods for food. Foraging activity takes place both on the ground and on vegetation, including high in trees. Thatch ants also harvest honeydew from aphids and other homopterans as well as from extrafloral nectaries. You can read more about extrafloral nectaries or EFN’s (little nectar producing glands on plants) here https://bygl.osu.edu/node/1774 or check out one of my earlier blog posts about them here https://buggingyoufromsanjuanisland.com/2022/05/17/what-are-extra-floral-nectaries%EF%BF%BC/

Extrafloral nectary on Fruitless Cherry Tree

The ant workers are considered weakly polymorphic, which means they have only slight variations in size and shape within the worker caste as opposed to other species where workers may be monomorphic (all the same size and shape), or strongly polymorphic (a high degree of variability between worker sizes and shapes). You can read more about polymorphism in ants here https://www.antwiki.org/wiki/images/1/1c/Wheeler_1908f.pdf .

Given all the information you’ll find from pest control companies online about these ants and others, you might ask, why or if there is any benefit to having these ants around. The answer is YES! Western Thatching ants are beneficial in ecosystems because they not only aerate the soil with their burrowing practices in nest construction, but they also provide FREE pest control, helping regulate populations of other insects that defoliate forests, fruit trees, and even our vegetable gardens. They also help clean up the environment through scavenging dead animals. There is no need to eradicate these nests and if you get into ant watching, they might provide a bit of intriguing summer entertainment. Pull up your lawn chairs and sit and watch with your friends. As long as you aren’t poking the nest, they are not inclined to bother you at all.

Thanks for reading!

References:

Formica obsuripes. 2025. Bugguide.net. https://bugguide.net/node/view/31269

Formica obscuripes. 2025. AntWiki. https://www.antwiki.org/wiki/Formica_obscuripes

McIver, J.D., Torolf, T.R., Cimon, N.J. 1997. A supercolony of the thatch ant Formica obscuripes forel (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) from the Blue Mountains of Oregon. Northwest science., Vol.71(1), pp.18-29. https://rex.libraries.wsu.edu/esploro/outputs/journalArticle/A-supercolony-of-the-thatch-ant/99900502747101842

A Sedgesitter

Posted on March 13, 2025 by "BUGGING" YOU FROM San Juan Island Leave a comment

This was Wednesday’s bug of the day. I’m a day behind writing up my post. Although I have tried to get out for a quick bug search every day, it’s been overcast and/or drizzly here this past week. I was excited to see this little fly hunkered down on a twig of our fruitless cherry tree, the tree that I whacked off as an unwanted upstart for several years before I discovered how interesting it is.

Western Forest Sedgesitter, (*Platycheirus trichopus*), I believe

That tree is a mini ecosystem: floral nectaries that feed the aphids, aphids, slave making ants that have fights to the death (winning) with the carpenter ants that try to invade our home every spring, and the birds that rip the leaves apart trying to get the aphids. Now I can add Syrphid flies to the list!

That’s what this is. A syrphid fly. Syrphid flies eat aphids. It would make perfect sense for this adult to lay eggs on the tree, though I’m not sure what would happen because the ants that farm those aphids are certainly willing to die defending them. I could definitely see the ants overtaking the syrphid fly larvae. Nevertheless, the fly flew off. Somewhere.

I believe this particular fly is the Syrphid fly species Platycheirus trichopus, the Western Forest Sedgesitter. While difficult to ID to species, I did reference the helpful ID guide by fly expert, Even Dankowicz. https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/19F1qRGpmNDgaGE13M2SMUBlI846JicTOYjIescjVTHw/preview?slide=id.g8918834f0e_0_92

This species, as mentioned earlier is pretty small at only about 6.8-9.4 mm. Geographic distribution ranges from the Rocky Mountains west from Alaska to Mexico (bugguide.net). Adults of this genus are known to feed on the pollen of wind pollinated plants like Willow (Salix sp.) and various grasses (Poaceae), and sedges (Cyperaceae). It is believed they are better adapted to activity in cooler temperatures and that fits with yesterday’s rather gloomy spring day.

Thanks for reading!

References:

Dankowicz, Even (2023). “Common Pipizini, Paragini, and Bacchini Species of the Southwestern U.S. (CA NV AZ UT NM CO)”. The Fly Guide: Field/Photo ID for Flies. pp. 9–10.

Bugguide.net. 2025. Syrphidae. https://bugguide.net/node/view/196

The Hitch-hiker

Posted on March 7, 2025 by "BUGGING" YOU FROM San Juan Island Leave a comment

Spilichneumon Wasp at Marketplace in Friday Harbor

Today as I was leaving the store after grocery shopping in Friday Harbor at Marketplace (the store it took me forever to find when I first moved here, and known as the store for the “locals”), I opened the door to my truck and found this cute little red wasp on the door handle. I’m not sure how it got there, but this is one hitch-hiker I had no problem picking up. And, pick it up, I did! I conveniently scooped it to safety in a brand new insulated cup I scored on sale at our local Ace Hardware for $10. It has little bears and forest trees on it. It was also perfect for securing the wasp for our ride back to the house.

When I got home, I left the cup by the door for a bit to unload my groceries, but got my camera afterwards and carried my hitch-hiker over to a stack of alder logs we collected and piled up into a wildlife stack. Those logs are “dead” to most humans, but for all the little critters that were in them when they blew over and broke into chunks, they are FULL of life! One had a perfect knot hole that my wasp targeted right away and will probably stay holed up for the better part of next week since we have rain in the forecast. I wish more people would see dead and dying trees as something of value (other than to chip or burn). They are stores of food for birds, and shelter for many other organisms. Dead and dying trees are often more interesting to me than live ones. You just have to change your perspective and perhaps you will see what I do too!

The wasp critter is in the family Ichneumonidae. It’s in the Genus Spilichneumon, I believe. These wasps hunt and parasitize Noctuid moth caterpillars. They are most excellent pest predators! The female wasp will lay one egg inside each caterpillar she finds and then her egg will hatch and the larva will develop in the caterpillar’s body. That’s THE END of the caterpillar. 🐛

Thanks for reading!

If you are curious to learn more, here are two links to get you started. https://bugeric.blogspot.com/2012/03/wasp-wednesday-spilichneumon.html and https://bugguide.net/node/view/444129

Megasemum asperum, a Cerambycid Beetle

Posted on July 18, 2024 by "BUGGING" YOU FROM San Juan Island Leave a comment

*Megasemum asperum*, a Cerambycid Beetle

Here is a new-to-me Cerambycid (longhorn) beetle. I haven’t added one of these to my photo collection in the 15 years I’ve lived on San Juan Island, so note here that they are “UNCOMMON” and not populous in number.

This species is the only one in its genus in North America. It is Megasemum asperum. I see in perusing iNaturalist.org that there have been 67 reported observations dating back to 2007.

Location: San Juan Island, WA

ID: Megasemum asperum

From Bugguide.net –

Size: 18-25mm

Season: July to August (this is when you could see an adult)

Numbers: a single species in the New World & in NE Asia

It was described by John Lawrence LeConte in 1854

From Beetles of Western North America – “Larvae mine Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) and fir (Abies). Adults are attracted to lights during the summer. Found in coniferous forests of western North America,” (Dr. Art Evans, entomologist, 2021).

Your take away message – NOT a pest. NOT a tree killer. NATIVE species! Performs important recycling of nutrients role in ecosystems allowing regeneration in our forests. Appreciate Biodiversity.

Thanks for reading!

Know Your Pest Predators – Make Friends with Eudioctria sackeni

Posted on July 11, 2024 by "BUGGING" YOU FROM San Juan Island One comment

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.