Yard Bugs, Day and Night

With the warm temperatures, the diversity of insects in our yard has exploded. I feel like I’m visiting some sort of exotic zoo every time I go outside. Here’s a selection of some of the cool little creatures that have shown up around our house over the past couple of weeks.

There seem to always be dragonflies flying around our yard right now, and this handsome Common Whitetail made our garden his hunting ground one day:

He would find a stick for a perch, and then zoom off after some smaller flying insect, then back to the perch again. It’s not often dragonflies are so obliging for me and my camera!

A couple of other fancy flying creatures have been hanging around the garden as well. This male Zabulon Skipper (what an awesome name) was very pretty with his checkered orange wings:

He looked maybe even more striking when back-lit:

And it probably wasn’t a coincidence that a female Zabulon Skipper was also flying around the yard at the same time. I never would have guessed that this dark brown butterfly is the same species as the first one:

Sometimes I’ll take a step in the garden and a tiny grasshopper will launch up from my feet, only to blend in almost perfectly with the soil when it lands again:

A bunch of stink bug eggs have hatched on one of my plants on the porch. I’m not exactly sure what species these are, but these teeny pinhead-sized dots are pretty darn cute:

(I ended up washing away most of these babies, lest they collectively hurt the plant when they get bigger and start eating more.)

At night, a whole different menagerie of bugs comes out, and I get to see them when they come to my porch light. This large Tulip-tree Beauty moth (Epimecis hortaria) was gracefully draped around our porch’s railing one night:

And we get a lot of Green Pug moths (Pasiphila rectangulata) this time of year, some individuals a lovely dark green-gray (which my camera's flash does not at all do justice, unfortunately):

And others with more faded colors:

This tiny weevil (I think it’s a Cambium Curculio weevil, Conotrachelus anaglypticus) came to show off its funny elongated snout (complete with antennae on the end):

And I had no idea what to make of this strange-looking beetle at first, but it turns out that it’s actually a type of weevil as well, an Oak Timberworm weevil (Arrhenodes minutus):

So basically, if you want to see something pretty, or bizarre, or just plain cool, some insect hanging around will almost certainly fit the bill!

Magicicadas!

The good news: Brood II of the periodical cicadas (genus Magicicada) is here! These big bugs have emerged from their 17 (or for some species, 13) years underground, shed their nymphal exoskeletons, and are now crawling and flying around in Connecticut.

The not-as-good news: I had somehow gotten the impression -- with all the media hype -- that this was going to be a big and widespread emergence (which it is in the sense that it covers many states), and since Connecticut is in this brood's range, I figured there would be cicadas pretty much all over the place. It turns out, however, that Connecticut's Brood II cicadas really only occupy a small portion of the state, and unfortunately that portion is not where I live. So my dreams of a cicada-covered yard (fueled by memories of the extreme can't-take-a-step-without-stepping-on-cicadas Brood X emergence at my parents' house in Maryland in 2004) were not to be. BUT, luckily enough, Brood II is hanging out only a couple towns away from me. So today I went on a field trip to see the Magicicadas, and Paul -- who seems to have a complex ew-gross/hey-cool relationship with bugs -- came with me.

And through the magic of the internet (where you can find maps of recent Magicicada sightings), and by following the UFO-like sounds of hundreds of cicadas calling, we found them! Hello, fancy bugs!

It's amazing how different these guys look from the normal cicadas that we get every year. The spot we found was buzzing with the periodical cicadas, black and orange/red blobs on all the bushes and trees. There weren't as many as I was expecting to see, but it was still a lot of cicadas. Most bushes had both brightly colored adults and brown shed exoskeletons clinging to them:
 

And some of the adults seemed to be pairing off:
 

It was amazing to see these guys up close. Paul absolutely refused to touch a cicada, but I loved interacting with these very placid creatures:
 

(Photo courtesy of Paul)

 The shed exoskeletons from the cicadas' nymph forms were interesting, too:

But the adult periodical cicadas were just way too pretty:

After a few weeks, the mating will be done, the eggs will be laid, and all these adults will die. Then their babies will burrow underground and emerge again only after another 17 years. As far as I can tell, Brood II is the only brood of Magicicadas in Connecticut, so the state will be without these fancy bugs until then. I don't know when I'll next get to see periodical cicadas, so I'm very happy we made the trip today. Hooray for unusual creatures!

For more cool stuff about periodical cicadas, check out this article on cicada life cycles, and this high-def video of the sights and sounds of periodical cicada courtship.

Exploring Bent of the River

This morning I decided to go on an adventure in a brand new woods (new to me, that is). Off I went to the Bent of the River Audubon sanctuary!

This place turned out to be basically wonderful. It had deep woods with delightful streams and pools, and wide meadows dotted with huge trees:

And a long trail following the river that gives the sanctuary its name:

The most amazing thing to me, though, was how obviously well cared-for this place is. I saw no trash at all on the whole 2+ miles of trails I walked. None. Every other park I go to around here always has at least the occasional (sometimes more than that) beer can, fishing line, cigarette butt, etc., so this seemed pretty crazy by comparison. I also didn't see any other people on the trails. I'm sure the fact that Bent of the River doesn't allow dogs, bikes, or fishing is related to all this. In any case, I loved it. Except for the well-groomed trails and occasional nesting box, this place really felt like it was more about nature than it was about people. I felt totally comfortable ambling along these trails (and not at all dorky with my binoculars and camera), and I was happy to pay the suggested $5 trail fee to get to hang out here.

And as for my actual woods walk, there was plenty to see! Now that the canopy has entirely leafed out, I heard a lot more birds than I saw, but that just meant I got to work on identifying by ear. (Normally I take pictures of things I don't recognize to figure out IDs later, and today I was doing a lot of sound recording for the same reason.)

Although the birds stayed out of camera range, several other creatures did come close. A few Little Wood Satyr butterflies were chasing each other through the woods and fields, and one let me creep up on it for a picture:

(I love those orange antennae.)

A dark fishfly (genus Nigronia) fluttered around on oversized wings:

And this Ebony Jewelwing damselfly was definitely jewel-like in the light-dappled forest:

At one point, I turned around to face where I had just been walking, and I was surprised to find that an Eastern Garter Snake had suddenly appeared a few feet away from me and directly in my path:

Sneaky snake! Oo, look at your pretty red and black tongue:

I looked away to check my camera's settings, and when I looked back up the snake had completely disappeared again. I think this snake might have some ninja skills.

I had been hoping to see Pink Lady's Slippers in bloom in these woods, but all I managed to find were several large flower-less plants:

Oh well, maybe these plants will have flowers next year.

The Mountain Laurel was just opening its fancy flowers:

These flowers are gorgeous, but I also really like the way these buds look before they open, like little shooting stars lighting up the woods:

Continuing the lighting theme, these (I think) Varnish Shelf Fungi (Ganoderma tsugae) were like weirdly-shaped lanterns:

In the fields, huge Cow Parsnip plants were opening their big flower-umbrellas a few feet above the ground:

It was definitely a good morning, and if I lived closer to this place it would become one of my frequent haunts. And really, any nature walk gets bonus awesome points when it ends with a field of horses:

:)

Non-traditional Geese, A Heron's Crab Feast, and More

Yesterday morning's trip to Silver Sands State Park was full of surprises. There were no nesting shorebirds (which is what I was actually supposed to be looking for), but the many other awesome creatures roaming the beaches and marshes more than made up for it.

A group of about 40 Brant (our small dark geese) was hanging out on the shore. That in itself wasn't too surprising, since these birds are in Connecticut in the summer (although I don't see them very often), but wait, what's up with those two weird-looking white and gray geese in there?

I'm still not exactly sure what to do with these two geese, but they are unquestionably something unusual. Parts of them look so similar to the Brant (which are on the right hand side and in the back of the above picture), but they've also got those splotchy white patches and orangey-pink legs (but dark beaks), which is, well, weird. And from other views, they don't really look much like Brant at all:

I circulated my pictures among some Connecticut bird people, and the consensus seems to point to a hybrid between Brant and Snow Goose. I can definitely see some Snow Goose in these birds. And I think this is really pretty cool. However unlikely it might actually be (and according to my internet searches, Brant x Snow Goose hybrids have happened before, but they are extremely unlikely), and even though it'd be pretty difficult to know for sure that this is what's going on here, I just really like the idea that somewhere, at some point, there was a Snow Goose who looked at a Brant and thought, "Hey, that is one attractive goose," and the Brant thought so, too, and so what if you're only supposed to mate with geese that look like you. It seems to have worked out, if these two unusual birds are any indication.

So that was pretty awesome. I'll probably never see another Brant x Snow Goose, and these guys are absolutely one of a kind.

In other parts of the beach, tiny Semipalmated Sandpipers pattered over the low-tide sand:

And then flew off on little wings when they thought I was too close (I was crouched in one spot, so really they were the ones who got too close to me):

In the marshes near the beach, a Yellow-crowned Night Heron was feasting on the little Fiddler Crabs that live in the mud, and I had a great time watching this graceful hunter close up:
 

There were tons of crabs all over, and the heron was busy snatching them up. There was a lot of crunching (note the crab's shadow in this next picture):

I had way too much fun taking pictures of this gorgeous bird as it danced and posed. I love the pattern of feathers on its back and the fancy marks on its face:
 

The heron was really very good at what it was doing. Oh little crab, I don't think you're going to be around much longer:
 

Nope, there you go:
 

Down the hatch!
 

Mmm, a satisfied heron:

Speaking of crabs, this little spiky creature caught my eye as it scuttled through a quickly-moving stream to the ocean:

I scooped it up to check it out, and it turned out to be a Hermit Crab! It immediately rushed back to the water, quickly enough that I couldn't quite keep it in focus:

And although not technically a crab (actually in a group of its own, separate from crustaceans), this Horseshoe Crab had buried itself in a swirled depression in the wet sand. I assume it's still alive, although I didn't disturb it to find out for sure:

The hot weather is really coming in now, and what better way to start off another season of summer weather than with an awesome and eventful trip to the beach!