Day 19.257: Things with wings

Have you ever seen a dragon fly?

What about a dragonfly?

These are from our Saturday afternoon nature walk:

Black-tipped farmer

Meadowhawk (possibly autumn meadowhawk)

Day 19.245: Insects catch-up

Well, you wouldn't want my insect photos from the last couple of weeks to go un-shared would you?

St. Joseph's Cemetery 8/29:

Peck's skipper

Monarch

Cape Ann 9/2-9/4

Female wasp in the astata genus with a captured stink bug nymph

Orange sulphur

Black swallowtail

Biddeford Pool 9/7

Mourning cloak

Parker's thread-waisted wasp. We watched this one digging a hole.

Today at Mount Agamenticus:

Pearl crescent

Eastern tailed-blue

Day 19.203: Very dry in California ... Fields

After the extremely wet week we've had, we were surprised at just how desiccated the landscape was at California Fields Wildlife Area when Exile #2 and I visited this afternoon.

So dry

We saw quite a few monarchs on the Queen Anne's lace

There was quite a bit of common mullein - this was one of the more impressive flower stems

There were lots of Carolina grasshoppers flashing their dark banded wings as they flew and then almost disappearing when they landed

Even if I saw where they landed, they were hard to pick out

A little less dry once we were into the partial shade

This oak sapling had enormous leaves. Maybe black oak?

Morrow's honeysuckle

We heard more birds than we saw: indigo buntings most prominently. We did catch glimpses of eastern towhees and goldfinches and a sparrow (likely a song sparrow). Our best sightings were of cedar waxwings.

This one was having a good "hair" day 

Day 18.267: Weekend update (with insects)

No Sunday Column today: Exile #2 is in the UK visiting with family and - amazingly - Exile #3 and I are managing to eat and keep the place in working order without her (but we're very glad it's not for too long!)

Here are four more pictures from yesterday morning - the trail (with some of our group), a view over the river and a couple of interesting insects.

Saco Riverwalk

The Saco River

Autumn meadowhawk (dragonfly)

Familiar bluet (damselfly)

Day 18.248: Downeast nature (miscellany)

Birds dominated my nature photography (with honorable mention to mammals) but here are a few other natural things.

Northern pearly-eye

Quite beautiful in all their brownness

The most spectacular display of pitcher plants on the bog trail at West Quoddy Head

Many of them were in flower - the flowers tower over the rest of the plant...

...and have a remarkable structure

Fly agaric

Bluemink

Hickory tussock moth - it was suspended by an invisible thread at about head-height on the trail. I assume descending from its infant feeding grounds to find a place to transform. For a bit of fun, you can check out this video of a similar encounter from 15 years ago with a disco soundtrack)

American toad

There were so many of these wolf spiders in among the stones (there are two in this picture and maybe more hidden beneath the stones). We've seen them on other beaches too and just discovered they are called - appropriately enough - stone spiders.

Beard lichen

Wild sarsaparilla

Tawny grisette (what a lovely name - tawny little gray)

Blue-bead lily (very appropriate, the beads ranged from this dark blueberry color to bright blue)

Mourning cloak (I just discovered it's the same butterfly known as Camberwell beauty in the UK)

Viceroy (funny how easy it is to tell this isn't a monarch by the way it flies, but you could easily be fooled by a photo like this)

Dyer's polyphore

Day 18.209: What’s in a name?

This visitor our new deck door bug screen has the wonderful common name American carrion beetle:

But its Latin name is Necrophila americana which is much worse.