Back to the Bugs

I may have gone a little overboard with my last post. Well, maybe not overboard so much as rambling. I get so excited about things that interest me, like the brain, and there's so much to know and learn, I get a little carried away.

Anyway, I have been trying to find some cool bugs to show you. Many of us have seen these little clumps of baby spiders in cracks and crevices. They are another source of amusement for me. If you disturb the clump, the spiders disperse. This is a defense mechanism; if a predator, like a bird comes along, it is likely to get fewer of the spiders if they run away in different directions. When the danger passes, they come together again. A few days after the babies have hatched, they release a thread of silk and are carried away by the wind.


I found a crane fly larva the other day and took it home to look at more closely under the microscope. Crane flies look like daddy long legs, only with wings. The larvae live in the soil and can cause damage to grass and flower roots. When it rains, they surface, like earthworms, to avoid suffocation. And the birds have a feast. Anyway, if you look at the video closely, you can see the back end of this one and as an added bonus, there's a tiny beetle crawling around its butt.

I came across some wild blue flag iris when the Wookie and I were on a Sunday drive and a few weeks ago we came across a small family of Canada geese. I rarely see these magnificent birds in this part of the world. The geese land an hour north of me as a rule, so when I do see them, they're on their way to and from their summer homes, too high in the air to get a decent picture.


On the biking front, I'm trying to get physically ready for the bike tour, which is coming up July 23 and 24. 10 k is my max so far, since the weather has been so crappy
it's really hard to get out. I can walk or hike in anything, but it's more dangerous cycling so prefer days that aren't raining. We've had an extraordinarily wet spring.
Of course, my fund raising is underway. Feel free to contribute by clicking on the link on the right. One of my instructors this past year is also doing the Bike Tour. I have to admit that my highest mark last semester was in his class. Blair rides for another team, but once he sees how much fun the Cycledelics have, I may be able to convince him to cross over to the dark side.

S.

Porcupine Crossing

Gas stations are great places to find bugs. They have these really big lights that are on at night attracting all sort of insect. Yesterday morning I raided the local station and retrieved a polyphemus and an azalea sphinx. Just beautiful specimens - which are now napping in my freezer until tomorrow when I will preserve them for posterity (actually, for my own amusement and study). Pics in the very near future, dear reader.

Today, the Wookie and I went on a 21 k ride, half on a trail, the other half back to the car on the highway. On the trail, I nearly ran over a porcupine that hadn't looked both ways before attempting to cross. It waddled off into the trees while I stopped to get my camera. I managed a few shots of it in the tree. These adorable animals have poor eyesight and not great hearing; they don't really need those senses too much anyway, what with all the sharp pointy things sticking out of their fur. Anyway, I had to get a pic for Lisa (I think), who last year was disappointed that I hadn't posted a pic of the one crossing a street that I had stopped for.



We left the trail just short of the end as I could see the ocean down a drive that crossed the trail and wanted to be next to the water. It was about 2k on that road to the main highway, then 9 more to the car. I took a couple of pics of the beach on one side, and pics of a fresh water marsh on the other side of the road. The marsh had several pitcher plants and a few clumps of blue flag irises. I had noticed both plants along the trail as well, though not as many pitcher plants (they are a protected species).




All in all it was a good ride, lots of sweat dripping everywhere and a few drops of rain from time to time to tease us. I was wishing the skies would just open up to cool us down. Then off to mom and dad's to wish a dad a Happy Pappy Day. He was happy with the gifts, of course. "Don't be spending your money on me" is a quote to be ignored.

S.

CSI:Bugs

I have been negligent of late, not keeping everyone up to speed on what's going on. Thing is, I'm spending a lot of time just waiting for people. Waiting for the gov't to decide if they'll support me while I go to school. Waiting for people to show up for appointments to view an apartment. Waiting for service people to show up to service a broken appliance. Etc.

I could write about my experiences as the female Schneider (a reference to One Day at a Time), but I know that might get me into trouble. Let's just say that when this part of my life is done, I'll be able to write a couple of books about human behaviour. It's interesting and aggravating at the same time and I'll leave it at that.

A couple of weeks ago, I began riding my bike in earnest in preparation for the MS Bike Tour in July. As you know, I've been doing a lot of walking and hiking (and now, biking), yet when the Wookie came out with me on the weekend for a bike ride (after not truly exercising for months) he whizzed past me like there was no tomorrow, leaving me in his dust. On Sunday, I was in tears at the end of our short (7k) ride, frustrated because I was so tired and the Wookie was just fine. My legs were weak, had been the day before as well. Anyway, I pulled it together and we did a nice 10k ride the next day. Lucky for me, my meltdowns are few and far between.

I have been outside a lot, scouting for bugs of course, and being rewarded. Some of them I rush inside to go under the microscope, while others (like the ants) I leave outside and mess with their tiny minds. I find a line of ants, and try to rub out the scent trail, then watch them try to figure out how to get home again. They always do, after a moment's hesitation. Or I push a little sand into one of their entrances and watch them clean it out.

Then there are the dead bugs I find. That got me thinking about CSI:Bugs. This june bug met an interesting end:


It's missing it's head! Wait, there it is, 15 feet away and 3 feet off the ground. Seriously, it's on the top of the lamp pillar in front of the building.


Not having the capacity to do DNA analysis, I will never solve this particular murder. I do suspect it was at the hand of a human, though, as the bug was not eaten. Here's how I think it went down: the bug was flying around the entrance to the building, attracted by the light. A tenant comes along and walks into its flight path causing a reflexive swat by the tenant. The swat is so fast it results in the decapitation of the june bug. Now picture all that in slow motion with the appropriate "Ewwww" and "Gross" as the tenant hits the bug and the accompanying clicking sound as the hard shelled body hits the front walkway and the head hits the cement light pillar.

Oh! And I have begun my fundraising for the bike tour. The link to contribute is on the right.

Little Bits of My Week

I've been hiking and biking all week when I haven't been at work. And when I haven't been doing those things I've been arranging stuff for a big fundraiser our bike team, the Cycledelics, is hosting at the end of June. So it's been a rather busy week. The cocoon I took home on Easter weekend produced a gorgeous cecropia moth, as I suspected. It's out a month earlier than its compatriots, only because I left it in my warm apartment rather than the fridge:


Earlier this week on a hike I came across this little fella in the grass along the trail, far from a tree and leaves. So I took him home and put him under the microscope:


His fuzzy armor up close:


The wild strawberries are in full bloom so I will have snacks on my treks next month, albeit, little snacks:


And the final pic for today is a piece of wood. Actually, it's an exposed tree or bush root, about 2 inches in diameter, but the texture and look of it is much like that of a person who spent too much time in the Florida sun:


Some of this long weekend (Victoria Day weekend in Commonwealth countries) will be spent on spring cleaning and hopefully a couple of hikes and a 15 k ride. I wasn't sure how the legs would hold up on the bike this week after having not ridden since late last year, but I was in pretty good form. All that hiking and trekking through the woods paid off. Oh, yeah, speaking of trekking, Star Trek is also on the agenda. Live long and prosper!

S.

Warp Speed

So the Wookie and I went for a relatively short but intense bike ride this morning. I had a flat tire before the bike even came off the car, but we fixed the inner tube and were off. On the way to a lake about 5 k away I stopped to inspect a yellow wooly bear. It's the larva of a dagger moth, though it could also possibly be the larva of a Virginia tiger moth. Not really sure as the caterpillars are very similar and we do have tiger moths here. Anyway, it kindly posed for pictures and we were on our way.


Once we reached the end of our ride, I checked my stats on the bike computer. It tells me how far I've gone, how much time was spent riding the bike, my average riding speed, and my maximum speed. To be honest, I'm not much of a speed demon. I sometimes check my speed on steep down-hills and anything above 25k usually frightens me. But I just about died when I saw this:


105.9 k/hour? That's like 66 miles an hour!!

No way did I do that. There's gotta be something wrong with the computer. But the Wookie asked if I was going to try for warp speed next weekend.

S.

Bug Update

Time for a little bug update...first, a picture of the mounted luna moths with a great self portrait reflected in the glass.

Next, the mounted cecropia I found in June with a clear wing moth to the left, an unidentified gray moth at the top, and the white one is actually a species of tiger moth. Sadly, it's quite small and when it went to sleep its wings were folded. I'm hoping to get another to put on its back with its wings spread so the underside will be visible and you'll be able to see why it's called a tiger moth.

Today, the Wookie and I did a 24 k ride on the St. Margaret's Bay Trail. We went as far as the Ingramport River. It's a beautiful trail that we hadn't been on for a year due to the many rocky areas. Since last year its been resurfaced so it was a much better ride. I'm pleased to say I didn't forget to unclip my feet once! Yay! We also saw lots of bugs, a snake , and a shrew or a mouse making a mad dash to cross the trail. It got a third of the way across and dashed back into the bushes as we were almost on top of it. I picked up a very tired bumble bee off the trail so it wouldn't be run over and after a few seconds she decided to fly off, seemingly recovered. We also found a very common caterpillar, though I'd never photographed one before or identified it. I'm pleased to say it's a Tussock moth caterpillar. There are several hundred species of them in the world so I'm not sure which one this is. It may be the Rusty Tussock moth.
(By the way, that's our old logo for the station I work at. We're still classic hits, kind of, and the dot is gone...it's back to being a "point". And our new tag line is "We play anything.")

The other interesting caterpillar we came across was a species of wooly bear, but one I'd never seen before. It had the most gorgeous sable coloured hair with very light blue spots on its body segments. I suspect it's a species of tiger moth (as most wooly bears appear to be) but I'm not sure which one.

I have about 5-8 more moths to mount and hopefully will get to them in the next week or so.

On the butt front, so to speak, I have a huge bruise and two other smaller ones on my butt and hip. No pictures, sorry, and my right lower leg looks like it had a run in with several coffee tables. Thankfully nothing was broken and I had no pain riding today.

Back to work tomorrow after several days off and I can guarantee it's going to be busy. Hope the place didn't fall apart while I was out exploring...

S.