Gossamer Tapestry

Whitewater River

2011-12-06T14:11:00.010-06:00

Every time I drive east of Palm Springs, I pass an exit on I-10 called whitewater. If driven up that way before, but never all the way to the Whitewater Preserve. Leon and I were trying new spots for hiking this time around, so we thought we'd give it a try.

When we first arrived, it didn't look like much- lots of mowed grass around an old fish hatchery. The overall effect was like a city park. Eventually we found the trail system, and discovered a lovely bit of wilderness where the mountains meet the desert.

The Whitewater River drains out of the mountains around Big Bear. It's a year-round water source in an otherwise rather arid region. The trail begins by going upstream. Eventually it crosses the river, goes a short distance up a side canyon, and then switchbacks sharply up hill to a plateau overlooking the valley. The weather was just about perfect, and the views were magnificent.

There was not a lot in bloom this late in the season. I'm always a bit disoriented when I venture out in a part of the world that I don't know well- the few blooming plants that I saw were mostly unfamiliar. The pale pink blossom appears to be a composite, possibly related to chickory. Down by the river we saw a few plants with amazing bright orange flowers that I thought might be some sort of Justicia. You would think that such a showy, conspicuous flower would be easy to identify- but so far I've had no luck.

We didn't see many insects, either. There were a couple of cloudless sulphur butterflies, and a very active little carabid beetle. When we stopped for lunch, a darkling beetle ventured out of its hiding place and started eating a crumb from my sandwich.

I would love to go back at a different time of the year when the insects might be more interesting. Still, I wouldn't hesitate to return in November- it was a beautiful spot in very easy reach of Palm Springs.

Forty-nine Palms

2011-11-16T11:28:00.013-06:00

Leon and I are on our annual autumn trip to Palm Springs. We are having beautiful weather, and decided to venture up to Joshua Tree National Park yesterday. This year, we wanted to see a part of the park that we had not previously visited. The guide book listed a hike to an oasis called 49 Palms. It sounded intriguing, so off we went.

View along the ridge line

The trail runs up to a ridge line, then down into a valley where the palms are found. The book mentioned abundant barrel cactus at the ridge, and they were quite impressive. What I really liked about the barrel cactus here is how vivid red the spines are. We saw some orange and yellow examples, too, but the red really dominated.

Barrel cactus with rock

Red spines!

The oasis at 49 Palms is particularly lush, probably because there is surface water here year round. The pools of water and tiny stream that trickled just enough to be barely audible lent a serenity to the late morning- something I always love about the desert.

A pool at the oasis

The guide book mentions a second grove of palms upstream from the first, and cautions that the hike involves some rock scrambling. The hike actually involves quite a bit of rock scrambling, and progress was quite slow in places. There were very few insects about, and not many blooming plants. There were a few chuparosa in bloom and some pretty yellow sedums.

Chuparosa

Sedum

We kept encountering pine cones in the watercourse, and saw one large pine log that had washed downstream during a flash flood. We never did encounter the second grove of palm trees, but eventually got high enough up that we started seeing scattered, scrubby pines. The huge log must have washed down from considerably higher up- none of the trees that we were seeing were anywhere near that big.

Large pine log

Pine tree

Even though we did not get up to the second grove of palms, we enjoyed the scenery, the botany, and the company. I'm not sure that we will hike upstream from the palm grove again, however I hope to visit 49 Palms again.

Cool cactus tree about 6 feet tall

Leon at the point where we turned back

Valençay

2011-10-27T21:39:00.008-05:00

Through my friends Iva and Kevin, I have recently gotten a source for raw goat's milk. A few months back, I got my first batch and used it to whip up a goat version of Camembert. It turned out fine, and it was very exciting that I finally had the chance to get real curds from goat milk. The goat milk that I had previously used was from the store and ultra-Pasteurized. I could only use it to make soft cheeses, and then only with difficulty.

As happy as I was to be able to use it for making Camembert, the results were not as exciting as I would have liked. The raw bovine milk that I typically use just tastes better in the final product. Late last summer I was reading through one of my cheese cookbooks and found an interesting recipe for a goat cheese called Valençay. About a month ago the opportunity arose to get more raw goat's milk, so I thought I'd give it a try.

There were several features of Valençay that intrigued me. The cheese is made in pyramid-shaped molds (which I had to buy), and uses food-grade ash (which I also had to buy). The rennet is added to the milk at room temperature, so the milk has to incubate for a long time- overnight- before the curds have fully formed. The curds are not cut as they are with most of the other cheeses I have made. Rather, some of the whey is decanted off of the top, then thin slices are cut from the curd and piled into the molds. After two days, the newly-formed cheeses are unmolded and the surface dusted with ash.

The ash serves several purposes. It inhibits the growth of unwanted bacteria, it promotes the growth of the desired white Penicillium mold, and it helps firm the surface of what is otherwise an extremely soft cheese.

The aging process is relatively short for Valençay- just 2 weeks. We opened the first one the other evening, and I was really pleased with the results. It's very different from any of the other cheeses that I have previously tried to make. It had a great flavor, the texture was wonderfully soft and creamy, and it's a very pretty cheese. Leon loved it. I predict that this one will go into my regular cheese-making rotation.

Five Things

2011-10-10T16:03:00.005-05:00

I've been shorthanded at work for the last month and a half- hence my lack of posting. In celebration of National Coming Out Day (tomorrow!) I have previously blogged about my own coming out- but I've now told most of that story (the bits of the story are here, here, and here. UrSpo recently did a post that serves nicely as a meme appropriate for a day dedicated to honesty in identity. The question is simple:

What five things would you pick to symbolize yourself?

1. Leon. This should surprise nobody. I have spent over half my life with the man. He has helped me to become the man I am today and my life would be greatly impoverished without him.

2. A butterfly net. Butterflies have at various times of my life been my hobby or my career, but they have always been my passion. Most people who know me strongly associate me with them. My current net has accompanied me across the country, and to many exotic places including Ecuador, Malaysia and Mexico, so it also represents my love of travel.

3. Home made cheese. Although a relatively recent interest, cheese making represents a lot of what I like about food and cooking. The end result is something that I really enjoy sharing with family and friends. For me, cheese making appeals to both head and heart. My heart responds to the nurturing aspects of making something good for people who mean a lot to me. For a while I was teaching the process to a friend and felt similarly about that experience. My head really enjoys the chemistry involved.

4. A Spo-shirt. This object is really about friendship. UrSpo makes fabulous Hawaiian-style shirts, and I am the proud recipient of several of these. A handmade gift such as this (or, for example, jam or tomatillo salsa) is a beautiful expression of friendship. I choose this item both as a specific emblem of my friendship with Spo and as a more general symbol of the importance of friendship in my life.

5. Bluff Spring Fen. I got the Fen at about the same time that I got Leon. It has been a joint project and a labor of love for nearly thirty years now. I would have had no idea when I started volunteering there, but the fen has influenced huge parts of my life: where I live, my job, my marriage. As with all great loves it has been the source of both joy and heartache. My decision to become involved remains one of the most fulfilling transformative experiences of my life.

Happy Coming Out Day to all!

Indiana Metalmarks

2011-08-29T12:13:00.009-05:00

Our visit took us to the banks of the Ohio River

Unlike populations further to the north, swamp metalmark butterflies in southern Indiana have two generations annually. The second one flies in mid August. Last year, members of my department visited and found dozens of individuals, the largest population we have yet encountered. A couple of weeks ago, I returned for some further work with this population. My goals were:

1. Do a mark/release/recapture study, incorporating GPS to measure dispersal rates of the species
2. Obtain a few specimens to test for an insect pathogen called Wolbachia
3. Obtain females from which to obtain eggs in order to try to develop methods to hold larvae from this species over the winter

This year, I went down with Andy. a member of the horticultural staff at the museum. We had beautiful weather, but were disappointed to find far fewer metalmarks than we did last summer. We were unable to complete the dispersal study, but did manage to to GPS mapping of the capture location of the 18 or so specimens that we marked. Having been able to mark very few individuals, we recaptured only one. No statistical analysis possible here. Still we got four females and have a bunch of eggs in the lab. We also have sufficient material for Wolbachia testing.

Marked metalmark
These guys are so tiny that it's really hard to mark them

Although we found few metalmarks, we did see lots of other butterflies, including three lifers for me: Hoary-edged Skipper, Goatweed Butterfly, and Gemmed Satyr.

Goatweed Butterfly (Anaea andria)

Hoary-edge Skipper (Achalarus lyciades)

In addition to new species, I was able to get some better photographs of familiar species. I was most pleased with the Tiger Swallowtail and Least Skipper.

Tiger Swallowtail (Papilio glaucus)

Least Skipper (Ancyloxypha numitor)

What do do when the big experiment of a trip for field study turns out to be a bust? I consoled myself with a stop at Falls of the Ohio State Park on the way home to check out the tiger beetles. I got some decent photos, including the Coppery Tiger Beetle, another lifer for me.

Coppery Tiger Beetle (Ellipsoptera cuprascens)

Hentz' Red-Bellied Tiger Beetle, Revisited

2011-08-20T15:17:00.010-05:00

Three years ago, I made my first visit in many years that took me back to my home town in mid summer. On a walk in the woods, I stumbled upon a tiger beetle subspecies (Cicindela rufiventris hentzii) that is endemic to the Boston area. The beetle was on Agassiz Rock, a large granite outcrop that is owned and managed by the Trustees of the Reservation. Several months later, I was contacted by the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife, informing me that this is a state-listed (Threatened) species, and that this population was not in their database.

Agassiz Rock

For the first time since then, I'm back in Massachusetts at the right time of year to see hentzii. I went back today with several goals. I wanted to see that the population is persisting. I have a much better camera than I did in 2008, and wanted to try for some better photos. I am aware of a second rock outcropping about a half mile away from Agassiz Rock, and wanted to see if the beetle could be found there as well.

I was successful at all three of these goals. The population at Agassiz is small- I've never seen more than one individual per visit, but I did see one this time. I was able to get a series of photos with the new camera. I'm much happier with these pictures than with the ones from my old camera.

Cardinal Flower and Pickerelweed

The walk to the second rock outcropping is lovely. The land is owned by the Manchester-Essex Conservation Trust. A beautiful wetland stretches between Agassiz Rock and the other outcop. The Pickerelweed and Cardinal Flowers were potting on a spectacular display.

The Second Granite Outcrop

I've never been to the second granite outcrop before, though I have seen it from the highway many times. The tiger beetles are very well camouflaged, and fly less than many other species I am familiar with. Perhaps they persist better on the tiny islands of bare-rock habitat if they are reluctant to fly. I managed to see two individuals on this site.

On Wednesday, Leon and I are heading off to Martha's Vineyard. Who knows, maybe we'll see the last Massachusetts population of Cicindela dorsalis.

Goat's Milk Camembert

2011-06-19T18:07:00.008-05:00

I've been wanting to try my Camembert recipe with goat's milk for some time now, but I've been stymied by a lack of a source for the milk. Some months ago, my friend Iva mentioned friends in Wisconsin who raise their own milking goats. We have been talking about getting some for me to try. Last week they visited and had two gallons plus a quart. I made chèvre with the quart and was pleased with the results. On Sunday I tried a Camembert.

Part of the problem with store-bought goat's milk is that everything that I have found has been ultra-pasteurized. Although this process increases the shelf life dramatically, it denatures that milk proteins. The result is that you can never get a "clean break" after you add the rennet to the milk. As a result, there is no solid curd mass to work with. That wasn't a problem with this milk. It yielded beautiful curds.

So far, I've been very happy with my first experiments with the raw goat's milk. My main surprise was that the yield of curds is smaller from the goat's milk than from the same volume of cow's milk. It will be a couple of months before this is ready to try. I'm really looking forward to that.

Since I was already working with cheese on Sunday, I decided that it was time to scrape the surface of a couple of blue cheeses that I had started about a month ago. The blue mold is growing nicely on and (I hope) in them. When the cheese looks like the photo above, you have to gently scrape away the moldy surface with a knife. Below is the after photo.

This cheese will be ready to try in a few months. I may try to hold out and save it for the Christmas holidays.

The Spo Shirt Arrives!

2011-06-06T19:26:00.007-05:00

My good friend and blogger extraordinaire Urspo has started an event. The Spomeister is a talented tailor and makes his own Hawaiian style shirts.

He has been sending one of his creations to various blogger friends. They photograph themselves wearing it, post the photos on their blogs, and send the shirt on to the next recipient.

UrSpo then makes a donation to your selection from one of four charities. I choose Doctors Without Borders.

We decided to do the shirt photos while visiting our friends Iva and Kevin out in the country. I got Leon to wear the shirt, too. Thanks Dr. Spo for including us in the fun

In the Desert with Dr. Steve

2011-05-22T11:30:00.010-05:00

Impressive Lenticular Cloud

I have been remiss in not writing the final post from my trip to California in March. After the IBCM (Imperiled Butterfly Conservation and Management) course I stayed on to meet up with Dr. Steve in Palm Springs and spend some time in the desert. Dr. Steve is a chiropractor from Los Angeles. It's hard to believe that I have now known him for fifteen years.

On Saturday we hiked in Murray Canyon, one of the Indian Palm Canyons south of Palm Springs. Our hike began on a gloriously sunny day. The desert wildflowers were in bloom and we were treated to views of an impressive lenticular cloud over the mountains.

Dr. Steve Hopping on Rocks

The stream in Murray Canyon flows year round. The trail crosses the stream many times. There was lots of rock hopping as we crisscrossed the stream. This took some getting used to, but there were no seriously wet feet.

View of the Washingtonia Palms

Most of the trail is lined with desert fan palms (Washingtonia filifera), a species that I always enjoy visiting. We saw a fair number of butterflies, however few of them posed for a photo.

Bottom of the Cascade at the End of the Trail

The trail ends at a cascading waterfall. Unfortunately the spring runoff had the stream levels very high, so I was unable to position myself for a good photo of the whole cascade. As we were there on a Saturday, the trail was surprisingly crowded. There must have been between 50 and 100 people in the canyon that day.

Another hiker snapped this photo of me and Dr. Steve at the waterfall

Dr. Steve really enjoyed the hike (as did I). It's always an enjoyable opportunity to spend time outdoors with a friend that I don't get to see often enough.

Some Rare (and not so rare) Stuff From the Fen

2011-05-22T11:22:00.011-05:00

Yesterday was a Bluff Spring Fen workday. In addition to killing lots of lily of the valley, I took the opportunity to view some of the rare plants and animals at the Fen. Some of what I saw was truly rare.

Small White Ladyslipper (Cyprepedium candidum)

Small white ladyslippers are one of the Fen's rarest plant species. They are on the state list of Threatened species. For a number of years they have been decline at the Fen, so it's a pleasure to see them showing something of a resurgence this year.

Prairie Parsley (Polytaenia nuttallii)

Prairie Parsley is rare to the point that it's hard to find even in catalogs of prairie plants and seed. Ours came from seed collected years ago on a railroad prairie near Elgin. This is only the second time it has shown up on our site. It is not quite fully in bloom yet.

Seneca Snakeroot (Polygala senega)

Some of the plants at the Fen are not spectacularly rare, but still qualify as uncommon. This Seneca Snakeroot is from seed gathered at another railroad prairie remnant in Elgin. The seed was collected on the Fourth of July in 1994. It has been blooming at the Fen for about a decade now, and the population is expanding nicely.

Wood Betony (Pedicularis canadensis)

Wood Betony is both uncommon and uncommonly beautiful. I really like the mandala effect provided when I look directly down at the blooming spike.

Southern Dogface (Zerene cesonia)

Some relatively common things are rarely seen at the Fen. Dogface Butterflies are a southern species that only show up at the Fen about one year in five. Apparently 2011 is one of those years. They don't sit still long for photography. I'm really annoyed at that one blade of grass.

Baltimore Checkerspot Chrysalis (Euphydryas phaeton)

Baltimore Checkerspots are a fairly common species at the Fen. It's not unusual to be able to encounter several dozen on an hour monitoring transect. It's very unusual to find a chrysalis, however. Leon found this one on a skunk cabbage leaf.

Pearl Crescent (Phyciodes tharos)

Pearl Crescents aren't rare at all. I don't care. It's always good to see them, and I was happy with the photo.

In Search of Shivering Butterflies

2011-05-13T12:07:00.012-05:00

On Wednesday afternoon I played hooky from work. I have been wanting to photograph two rare butterfly species: the Olympia Marblewing and the Hoary Elfin. Both are found in sandy dune habitats and have brief flight periods early in the season. Illinois Beach State Park, on Lake Michigan up near the Wisconsin border, hosts ample populations of both species. Wednesday was a beautiful summery day- sunny with temperatures well into the eighties. I thought that it would be the perfect time for a photo trip.

Foggy Dunes

Illinois Beach State Park is somewhat notorious for having cold weather. I checked Weather.com before I left work and learned that it was mostly sunny and 75° up at the park. "OK," I thought, "cooler near the lake- but still plenty warm for butterflies." By the time I made the hour-long drive out there the wind had shifted off of the lake. It was foggy and my thermometer was reading 57°, even though it was still in the 80s at O'Hare Airport. Conventional wisdom has it that butterflies begin becoming active when temperatures reach or exceed about 65°, and then only if it's sunny out. I cursed my luck thinking I had wasted an afternoon.

Hoary Elfin (Callophrys polios)

The day ended up being a lesson on the limits of conventional wisdom. It was less than five minutes after I sent a complaining text to a friend that I saw my first Hoary Elfin.

Bearberry (Arctostaphylos uva-ursi)

Caterpillars of Hoary Elfins feed only on bearberry leaves and flowers. Bearberry is an extremely rare plant here in Illinois, so it's really not surprising that this butterfly is on the state endangered species list.

Hoary Elfin (Callophrys polios)

As I continued wandering through the dunes, I started seeing more and more elfins- over a dozen in very suboptimal conditions. I even encountered a mating pair!

Mating Elfins (more insex for Rodger)

As excited as I was to be finding elfins, I really wanted some photos of Olympia Marblewings. I have one digital image of a hoary elfin from last year. It isn't the best photo, but it's sufficient for use in talks. In contrast, my only marblewing photos are from at least a decade ago, and they are on film. Unfortunately, I wasn't seeing any.

Olympia Marblewing (Euchloe olympia)

Finally, I noticed that one of the white sand cress flowers seemed unusually large and yellowish. Moving in to check a bit more closely, I found a marblewing, torpid in the cold. The chilly weather that I was cursing when I arrived at the park ended up helping me out by keeping the butterflies calmer and less active. I could approach close with the camera and take my time composing shots. I only saw 3 marblewings on this trip, but managed to get decent shots of both upper and under surfaces.

Olympia Marblewing (Euchloe olympia)

As I already mentioned, Illinois Beach State Park has a reputation for being unusually cold during the spring months due to its proximity to the lake. Both of these species of butterflies have very brief flight periods that coincide with this unpredictable and often quite chilly weather. It's possible that their willingness to fly under such poor conditions may be a survival adaptation that allows them to persist through years with very little good weather during their flight time.

White Pines Forest State Park

2011-05-10T21:02:00.011-05:00

Update: This post vanished in this week's Great Blogger Crash. Depending how you are viewing my blog, it may appear twice or be dated incorrectly. It was originally posted on Tuesday, May 10.

On Sunday, Leon and I joined Michael, Kevin and Iva and headed out to White Pines State Park. It's in the north central part of the state, out by the town of Oregon. Neither Leon nor I had been to this park before, so we were looking forward to seeing it. Much of the park sits atop limestone bluffs that line Spring and Pine Creeks, tributaries of the Rock River.

After a picnic of cheese and crackers with sandwiches and a nice bottle of Riesling, we went for a hike through the woods. The spring flora was putting on a good show.

Jacob's Ladder(Polemonium reptans)

Large Flowered Bellwort (Uvularia grandiflora)

Bishop's Cap (Mitella diphylla)

We saw a bunch of butterflies and some other insects. The butterflies were reluctant to land, so the photography wasn't very good. I was disappointed to miss a shot of a Meadow Fritillary. I did manage a couple of bug photos.

Spotted Lady Beetle (Calvia quatuordecimguttata)

Leaf-footed bug (Acanthocephala sp.)

After hiking, we had an early supper at The Roadhouse in Oregon. It's a restaurant that time forgot. In this case, time seems to have forgotten sometime in the early 1970s.

The Roadhouse!

It was a gorgeous day in beautiful surroundings with good friends. What more can one ask for in life?

L-R: Kevin, Leon, Doug, Michael
Photo by Iva

Diamond Desert

2011-04-22T08:46:00.008-05:00

I stayed late after the IBCM conference to go out and see springtime in the desert. I got to spend a delightful day hiking and insect watching out by Desert Hot Springs.

The weather was mostly sunny but cool, and there was even rain and snow in the nearby mountains. It made for marginal insect viewing. On the other hand, I got to see a really nice rainbow.

The spring flowers were beautiful. I was drawn to the above hillside, which was covered with desert dandelion and desert chickory.

The desert dandelion flowers were being visited by a beautiful little moth in the genus Heliolonche. The air temperature was cool enough that they were readily approachable for photography. I must have seen about a dozen.

There's something about hiking alone out in the desert that I find very restorative. The day after this hike, I met up with my friend Dr. Steve from Los Angeles, and we hiked together in the palm canyons. I'll try to get photos from that day up soon.

IBCM V - Lake Skinner and the Quino Checkerspot

2011-04-03T16:21:00.011-05:00

Wednesday was the final day of the IBCM California workshop. The weather forecast had been marginal, however we woke to a gloriously sunny day as we headed out for the Lake Skinner unit of the Southwest Riverside County Multi-species Reserve. The reserve is home to numerous endangered species and we would learn about, and perhaps see, the Quino Checkerspot butterfly. The preserve is perhaps the most beautiful place that we visited on this particular workshop. There had been snow at the high elevations, so the views of the nearby San Bernadino Mountains were particularly impressive.

The meeting room at the reserve is in a charming old one-room schoolhouse. A pair of Great Horned Owls were nesting in a large eucalyptus tree right outside. Unfortunately, my photo of the cute, fuzzy owlet did not turn out well, however one of the adults posed nicely on the building. One of the talks was given by Ken Osborn, who also spoke to us on the first day of the workshop. Ken presented a fascinating account of how local geology affected the soil chemistry, which in turn affected the growth habit of the checkerspot's host plant. It turns out that the caterpillars feed on the type of leaves that the plant produces on one soil type but not the other, so geology combines with host plant presence to determine the distribution of the species.

The meeting room at the reserve is in a charming old one-room schoolhouse. Nearby, a pair of Great Horned Owls was nesting in a tall eucalyptus tree. Photos of the cute, fuzzy owlet did not turn out well, however one of the adults posed nicely on the building. Ken Osborn, who also spoke to us on the first morning of the conference, gave a fascinating talk about how the local geology influences the distribution of the Quino Checkerspot.

As interesting as Ken's talk was, it was such a beautiful day that we were all eager to venture outside, both to see the preserve and to try to find the butterfly. This part of California is quite charming in late March. I really enjoyed walking in the softly green landscape and looking at the spring wildflowers.

It wasn't long before we started finding Quino Checkerspots. There was some concern that our visit was too late and that the butterflies would already be done flying for the year. Not so- we saw dozens of them and there were lots of opportunities for photography.

Quino Checkerspots are endangered because so much of their habitat has been converted to the ever-growing urban and suburban sprawl of southern California. It has been the subject of extensive conservation efforts and a lot of research. I hope that these efforts pay off in the long run. It's a very beautiful species.

IBCM V - Irvine Ranch

2011-03-25T21:13:00.013-05:00

Day 2 of the California IBCM workshop included a visit to the Irvine Ranch preserve. It's a huge parcel- over 50,000 acres of coastal sage scrub, chaparral, oak savanna and riparian habitats. As someone who has done land management for many years at Bluff Spring Fen, I was very impressed at the stewardship of a site roughly 500 times the size of the Fen. Although there no endangered butterfly species currently occupy the site, it does represent a spot with the potential for restoration of on or more species.

California Ringlet (Coenonympha tullia california)

Gray Hairstreak (Strymon melinus)

Sara Orangetip (anthocharis sara)

Silvery Blue (Glaucopsyche lygdamus)

Although we did not see endangered butterflies on this site, the weather was near-perfect, sunny and in the 70s. We saw lots of other butterfly species, and I even managed to photograph a few. The ringlet, orangetip, and blue are all species that I associate with springtime in coastal southern California. I wish I had been able to get a better shot of the orangetip. That species is very uncooperative as a photo subject.

The U-shaped structure is the entrance to a trapdoor spider burrow
We tried bating with a tiny katydid to entice the spider to show, but had no luck

Jerusalem Cricket (Stenopelmatus sp.)

Hide Beetle (Family Trogidae)

We saw a bunch of other arthropods, as well. I wish that we had been able to entice the trapdoor spider to pop out of it's burrow. I suspect that there were just too many of us, and it could sense the vibrations that we were producing as we milled about the area. At one point, I saw what I thought was an ironclad beetle (Family Zopheridae). When I posed it on my hand for a photo, someone pointed out that it was actually a hide beetle (Family Trogidae). I wish I had known that before I put it on my hand- the Trogidae feed on carrion. I wonder where it had been before I grabbed it.

The entire hike was about 4 miles. I spent that part of the day in warm sunshine surrounded by beautiful scenery and valued colleagues. What more can one ask for in a day's work?

IBCM V - Palos Verdes Blue

2011-03-22T23:30:00.009-05:00

I'm in southern California attending the fifth installment of the Imperiled Butterfly Conservation and Management workshop. I'm having a great time, thought the weather has been touch and go. Yesterday we began by touring the sitr in Long Beach where the Palos Verdes Blue was re-discovered back in 1994 after having been thought extinct for 11 years.

Discussing the Palos Verde Blue in the Rain

The day began inauspiciously with rain, hard enough that I was briefly reminded of the underwater bioblitz in Indiana from a couple of years ago. Our hosts were gracious in the cold rain. That's Ken with the clipboard and Travis Longicore at the far right. Travis is an ecologist whose work I have admiredfor a while. I was pleasantly surprised when he approached me as we walked to one of the field sites and asked if I was Doug, adding that he was a fan of my blog. I was very complimented, and decided that it was high time to begin posting again. Hi Travis!

Palos Verdes Blue Release Site

After lunch the weather began improving and the decision was made to release a couple dozen adult blues that had been reared in the laboratory. Things (including the workshop participants) were still a bit soggy, but we had a successful field release. I managed to get some decent photos.

Palos Verdes Blue (Glaucophyche lygdamus palosverdesensis)

Underside View

We had lunch and some lectures at Friendship Park, another nearby butterfly release site. After lunch, we took a walk to the top of a hill in the park. The view to the east shows just how urbanized the immediate vicinity of this butterfly's habitat has become. Is it any wonder that this is now an endangered species? As we crested the hill, a lovely vista of the Pacific Ocean and Channel Islands came into view. It was a lovely opening day for the conference, and a good reminder of the importance of dry socks.

Urban Scene Looking East from Friendship Park

Mr. R.

2010-12-21T14:36:00.000-06:00

Growing up, not everyone is fortunate enough to encounter teachers that have a significant influence. I’m fortunate enough to have had several. I’d have to place my high school biology teacher at the top of the list. Mr. R. was the first person to teach me biology as a specific discipline rather than just as part of a general science curriculum.

Mr. R. was a superb teacher of general biology, but his own interest centered heavily on ecology and environmental science. One of our exercises was to lay out a meter square plot in a field adjacent to the school and identify everything, including both plants and animals, found within the plot. We took lots of field trips to examples of New England ecosystems, some of which have become much beloved by me (quaking bog, anyone?). He introduced me to a lot of ecological terminology (ecotone, niche, succession) that I use to this day. More than any other single individual, Mr. R. influenced me to become a biologist.

On my first visit home after completing my doctorate, my parents threw a small reception for me. Mr. R. was, of course, on the guest list. I remember him beaming through the entire event, and me feeling pleased that he was so obviously proud of my accomplishment.

Mr. R’s funeral was today. I learned only yesterday that he had recently passed after a brief illness. I owe so much to his guidance and mentorship. In his honor, I am contacting a couple of other teachers to tell them what they meant to me. Goodbye, Mr. R., and thanks.

A Day on the Mountain

2010-12-19T17:37:00.017-06:00

Mt. San Jacinto is the mountain that looms above Palm Springs. It has a huge vertical drop- the summit is at 10,834'. The elevation of downtown Palm Springs is about 500 feet. For several years now, Leon and I have hiked partway up the mountain during our visits. We have wanted to hike up to the upper terminal of the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway, however it's a long and steep hike, and we have always turned back partway up.

This year we decided to get an early start and really try to get to the tram. The trail begins right at the end of Ramone Road, about half a mile from where we were staying. It's not very long- only about 8 miles to the tram. We have easily gone that distance on other day hikes, however this trail involves an 8,000 foot elevation gain.

Leon at the trailhead

Looking fresh at 7:30 AM

We left the hotel just after 7. Michael opted to spend the day poolside, so it was just Leon and me this time out.

The views of Palm Springs were spectacular

The trail begins in desert and quickly rises high above the city. We were treated to spectacular views throughout the day. It was sunny and beautifully warm at the lower elevations. Probably due to the lateness of he season, I saw very few insects. I did manage to get a photo of a pretty beetle and a variegated meadowhawk dragonfly.

Cool beetle

Variegated Meadowhawk (Sympetrum corruptum)

The climb gives a beautiful lesson in the alpine life zones of southern California. Desert gives way to the shrubby scrub land known as chaparral. This is an ecosystem that I have less familiarity with. I always find it disorienting when I'm someplace where I don't know the names of even the common, conspicuous plants.

Chaparral

Up in the chaparral zone the views are amazing

Eventually, trees begin appearing. The hike ends in ponderosa pine forest at the tram station. The air up here is thin. Between the elevation and the prolonged exertion of hiking we were really wiped when we got to the tram at about 4 in the afternoon. I have few photos of the end of the hike. What really amazes me is that after the tram ride down, we still had the energy to go out to dinner with Michael and a couple of other guys that we had met at the resort. I guess we were hungry.

Trees!
I think I would have died if I had known that there was still
nearly 2 hours of hiking in front of us here

Side benefits of the hike: I have restarted my running program, run more than 15 miles each week , and dropped 8 pounds since this hike. Michael wants us to repeat this (with him) next year, and I want to be in better shape for it.

Why I haven't Been Sleeping Well

2010-12-15T19:06:00.005-06:00

We've had her for about 3 weeks. She doesn't yet have a name, though we are considering Nadia. She walks along the bar under the dining room table as though it's a balance beam.

She's also a big part of the reason we're not having a Christmas tree this year.

Autumn in the Desert

2010-12-08T06:52:00.013-06:00

It's hard to believe that I've been back from California for 2 1/2 week already. Nearly every November, Leon and I head out to the desert east of San Diego and Los Angeles. Palm Springs is our base of operations. This year we were joined by our friend Michael. For the first weekend, we were also joined by UrSpo and his partner who drove over from Phoenix.

Indian Palm Canyon

The five of us did a delightful hike in the Indian Palm Canyons. It was fun to introduce Michael to the palm oasis ecosystem, and to go for yet another hike with Urspo and his partner. I also enjoyed all the dragonflies that we saw that day. We also had fun watching all the hummingbirds up at the trading post.

Bluet (Enallagma sp.)

Hummingbird

On Monday, after the Spos had returned to Phoenix, we visited Painted Canyon in the Mecca Hills. Although I brought my camera, I left the memory card in the computer back at the resort. As a result, i enjoyed lugging a useless camera up the canyon and back. The photography on Tuesday was much better at Joshua Tree.

Michael with Joshua Trees

Cute Ground Squirrel

Leon at the crest of the hike

We really enjoyed introducing Michael to some of our favorite desert spots. I'll save the rest of our adventures, including a major mountain hike, for further postings.

Moonrise at Joshua Tree

Ch-ch-ch-changes

2010-11-24T07:15:00.004-06:00

Before (from a couple of years ago)

(Mostly) After

Forgotten Photo Friday - Marine Blue

2010-11-05T11:51:00.003-05:00

Marine Blue (Leptotes marina)

Fellow blogger Steve does an occasional feature called Forgotten Photo Friday. This week, I was arranging my collection of digital butterfly images and found this one, so I thought I'd indulge in the practice. It was taken last summer on a hike that I took with my friend Andy up Madera Canyon in Arizona. I have a couple more posts of memories from last summer that I hope to get up in the next week or so. One week from today Leon and I are off to southern California with a friend to meet up with UrSpo and Someone. I'm hoping for lots of nice photos from the desert.

Indian Summer Afternoon

2010-10-30T21:11:00.006-05:00

We had a fairly hard freeze the night before last. The vegetable garden is now toast. Today was a beautiful warm and sunny day. There were late autumn flowers in my yard.

Autumn crocus

Witch Hazel

Leon and I went out to the Fen this afternoon. I was startled to see a very late butterfly. The buckeyes really did have quite a year this summer. This one looks remarkably fresh. I suspect that this will be my last Illinois butterfly photo of 2010.

Buckeye (Junonia coenia)

Bullhorn Acacias

2010-10-24T23:06:00.013-05:00

Bullhorn Acacia (Acacia cornigera)

On my recent trip to Mexico, we saw lots of bullhorn acacias (Acacia cornigera), particularly in the sand dune areas at Cansaburro. They are attractive shrubs that are named for their prominent swollen thorns that resemble a bull's horns.

Yes, the thorns really do resemble a bull's horns.

Bullhorn acacias are noteworthy for their complex, mutualistic relationship with one particular ant species, Pseudomyrmex ferruginea. Most acacia species contain lots of bitter alkaloid compounds in their leaves and stems, which act to deter browsing by various herbivores. Bullhorn acacias lack these chemical defenses, but have lots of biting, stinging ants living on them. The ants hollow out the large thorns and nest in them.

Pseudomyrmex ferruginea

This hollowed-out thorn contained an active ant nest

The mutualistic relationship between the ants and the acacias was studied by biologist Thomas Belt, who described the interaction in his charming 1923 book The Naturalist in Nicaragua. The ants deter herbivores with their painful bites and stings. They also remove seedlings that sprout around the base of the tree, thus eliminating potential competitors for sunlight. In return the trees provide food for the ants. Protein-rich nodules called Beltian bodies form at the tips of newly-unfolding leaves. These are harvested and eaten by the ants.

Pseudomyrmex harvesting Beltian bodies

The acacia trees also provide carbohydrates from foliar nectaries that form at the base of some of the leaves. The ant/acacia relationship has a long evolutionary history, with both partners showing a considerable dependence on one another. Colonies of this species of ant are only found living on acacia bushes. Conversely, acacias that have been experimentally cleared of their ant colonies suffer considerably more herbivory than bushes that retain their ants.

Foliar Nectary

I was a bit surprised at the lackadaisical nature of the acacia ants that I encountered in Veracruz. Shaking the bushes, or even giving them a stiff whack with the handle of my butterfly net only produced a small amount of rather tepid ant activity. I contrast this with my encounter with another ant-protected tree some years ago in Costa Rica. In that case, the tree involved was a cecropia. When I struck the trunk just once with a stick, thousands of tiny ants boiled out of small holes in the bark.

Otros Insectos Mexicanos

2010-10-20T09:10:00.018-05:00

Dunas de Cansaburro, San Ysidro, Veracruz

I've been poring over the roughly 750 photos that I took on my Mexican trip. I saw and was able to identify 76 species of butterflies on the trip. I have reasonable photos of 58 species.

The organic farm Cañada el Equimite near Coatepec

I took far fewer photos of dragonflies. That's partly because we saw far fewer species, but also because Celeste did most of the dragonfly photography. She was using the Xerces Society's camera (much better than mine) to take macro photos of hand-held specimens for later identification. We did take a few shots of dragonflies in environmental settings- but that was not our main goal.

B52? Nope, it's an enormous mosquito
Photo: Celeste M.

I did see (and photograph) other types of insects. I also felt a lot of critters. The mosquitoes and biting midges were ferocious. Celeste quipped that they viewed the Off that we were dousing ourselves with more as salsa than as insect repellent. She took a great photo of a huge mosquito that I stunned.

I did get to photograph three groups that I have particular affinity for. We saw a couple of cool band-winged grasshoppers. One with orange wings showed up in a bunch of dry spots with sparse vegetation. One particularly windy day in the dunes, they looked totally sandblasted. I think they might have been Lactista punctatus.

Sandblasted grasshopper at the Cansaburro Dunes

Lactista punctulatus?

At the organic farm up in the highlands we saw numerous examples of Macherocera mexicana, with beautiful bright blue hindwings. This species has recently been found in the US with the discovery of a population at the base of the Rincon Mountains just east of Tucson.

Macherocera mexicana
Photo: Celeste M.

Aren't my blue hindwings beautiful?
Photo: Celeste M.

We saw a couple of cool longhorn beetles. Most notable was this enormous, brightly colored Lissonotus flavocinctus from the Cansaburro Dunes. Thanks to Ted and Mike for help with the ID. There was also a very pretty (not yet identified) species that turned up at the botanical gardens in Coatepec.

Lissonotus flavocinctus

Cerambycid beetle at the botanical gardens outside of Coatepec

We spent quite a bit of time in the coastal dunes near San Ysidro, including the Pronatura reserve called Dunas Cansaburro. It's a beautiful reserve, and many readers have already figured out that this means tiger beetles. Unfortunately I did not get good photos at the dunes. When we were in tiger beetle habitat we were faced with a howling wind and stinging sand. I was able to get a (not very good) photo of Cicindela curvata. We also saw a species that may be C. sedecimpunctata. That turned up in a number of spots that we visited, and I was able to get some better pictures.

A terrible photo of Cicindela curvata

Possibly Cicindela sedecimpunctata

Somewhat unexpectedly were the numerous tigers that I encountered in the ruts of a two-track at the organic farm. They look a lot like C. punctulata. If that ID is correct, they are likely subspecies catherinae.

Possibly Cicindela punctulata catherinae
ID awaiting confirmation

Overall, the butterflies were the stars of this trip, but I was happy with some of the other biological diversity that I managed to see. There were even a few cool critters with backbones!

Peter Piper

2010-10-17T14:40:00.004-05:00

I've been enjoying peppers from the garden all summer long. We have had them in salads and casseroles since July. I've also been freezing a few batches. With the cooler weather, they aren't really maturing further so I decided to harvest what was out there. I was a bit startled by the yield. The long yellow ones are sweet bananas, and the long green and red ones are an Italian heirloom variety called Nardello. The more globe-shaped dark green ones are a mild chili called poblano. A few of the poblanos ripened to a very pretty red. I'll dry them to make anchos.

I'd like to thank Gary and Gary Lee's sheep for helping with this year's high yields.

On the Futility of Questing for Migrating Dragons

2010-10-10T21:34:00.021-05:00

I'm back from Mexico. We didn't see any dragonfly migration, however the trip was not wholly unsuccessful. I think that we returned with a much better idea of what it will take to learn more about the phenomenon as it occurs in Mexico.

Monday was a challenging day. We began early in some wetlands about 20 miles north of the city of Veracruz. That's just about where Hurricane Karl made landfall a month ago, and there was still lots of damage visible. We saw fewer dragonflies than butterflies. Normally that would be fine by me, except that this time around I was being paid to find migrating dragonflies and wasn't having much luck. I was particularly enjoying seeing other species in the same genus as the Silver-spotted Skipper. I also found some tiger beetles. I'm pretty sure that they were Western Red-bellied Tigers (Cicindela sedecimpunctata) a species that's very common in the western US.

Karl's Calling Card

Broken Silverdrop (Epargyreus exadeus)

Mexican Tiger Beetle! (Westerm Red-bellied?)

As we were headed off to the next site, I expanded my Spanish vocabulary. Elisa's car began making a dreadful noise and I learned the words freno (brake) and grúa (tow truck). We made it as far as the city of Cardél where we watched a river of migrating raptors from the roof of the big hotel, then had lunch downstairs in the coffee shop. Celeste and I then took the bus back to Xalapa and got some work done at the hotel there while Elisa had her car tended to. Fortunately the car problem was minor (a stone stuck in a wheel assembly). Unfortunately we lost a whole afternoon of field time.

Tuesday we went to an organic farm near the mountain town of Coatepec. There were plenty of dragonflies in the artificial pond, but little species diversity and no migratory activity. Some of the Mexican dragonflies are stunningly beautiful.

Hercules Skimmer (Libellula hercules) at the organic farm

There were lots of butterflies like this Blomfild's Beauty (Smyrna blomfildi)
on rotting fruit at the farm

Glasswing (Episcada salvinia)

Wednesday it was back to the dunes at Cansaburro. Thew weather was marginal, which probably put a stop to any migratory activity. Once again we saw lots of butterflies. Mexico has some amazing and beautiful skippers.

Blue-studded Skipper (Sostrata bifasciata)

Fantastic Skipper (Vettius fantasos)

Thursday was the last day of field work. We were hosted by Eduardo, who is also an employee of Pronatura. We visited the ecological field station at La Mancha, and later wandered along a dirt road where Eduardo sometimes takes visitors bird watching. We saw some very cool dragonflies at the bird watching site, but once again saw no migration activity.

Tropical Dasher (Microthyria sp.) at the field station

It's too bad that our visit did not coincide with obvious dragonfly migration activity. On the other hand, I met a bunch of new colleagues with whom I genuinely enjoyed spending time. I saw a beautiful part of the world and got to photograph lots of species of insects that I have never seen before. I believe that we learned a lot about what it will take to better study dragonfly migration, and look forward to presenting our results in December at a meeting that will take place in Austin, Texas.

Veracruz: Here There Be Dragons

2010-10-05T07:56:00.012-05:00

Pico de Orizaba- the view from my hotel window

Saludos de Mexico. I'm in the city of Xalapa in Veracruz. I'm working with the US Forest Service, the Xerces Society and Pronatura to try to figure out how we can include dragonflies in the USFS international migration program. We are visiting a bunch of sites, collecting data and identifying species. The Pronatura folks would also like some butterfly identification for a site that they own, so I'm helping with that as well.

Big-spiked Gemmed Satyr (Cyllopsis pephredo)

Anna's Eighty Eight (Diaethera anna)

I'm staying in the city of Xalapa, and working with my colleagues Elisa who lives in Xalapa and works for Pronatura and Celeste, who lives in Portland and works for the Xerces Society. The afternoon that we arrived, Celeste and I visited the Museo de Anthropologia, then went for a walk in a preserved woodland remnant right in Xalapa. We got some nice butterfly photos.

Welcoming committee at the dune refuge

Large Dune Complex

On Monday we went to a preserve right on the coast. It's a complex of dunes and coastal wetands. Xalapa is famous for its raptor migrations, and we worked out of a Pronatura raptor banding blind. We got to watch some of the ornithologists at work.

Banding a Sharp-shinned Hawk

We've gotten to see lots of cool species of dragonflies, but have yet to encounter migratory swarms. With luck, we'll see some of that before the week is out. Meanwhile, both the dragonfly and butterfly species diversity have been outstanding.

Roseate Skimmer (Orthemis ferruginea)

Malachite (Siproeta stelenes)

Dusted Spurwing (Antigonus erosus)

Butterfly Photo Project

2010-09-27T08:26:00.013-05:00

Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta)

I've been subjecting my Facebook friends to a stream of butterfly photos all summer long. It's part of a project that I started last spring. I'm sometimes called upon to give talks for various community groups. A particularly well-worn presentation is one titled Butterflies of the American Prairie. I've been giving variants on this talk for many years. It's still in 35 mm slide format. Many of the images are quite old, and very few of them are actually my own photos. This year I decided to change that by upgrading the whole talk to a PowerPoint presentations using fresh photos that I have taken myself.

Karner Blue (Lycaeides melissa samuelis)

As I got into this project, I realized that I had a few good images from last year, such as this Karner Blue from northwest Indiana. This photo is what got me thinking about my project.

Hoary Elfin (Callophrys polios)

I began way back in April. My goal was to get all of the images that I will need to create a digital version of my talk. This Hoary Elfin was photographed on April 30 at Illinois Beach State Park. This is a very rare species in Illinois, and flies for just a few weeks in late April and early May.

Buckeye (Junonia coenia)

As the summer progressed, I was able to collect more and more images. Sometimes I went out specifically to take photos. Field work also offered some good opportunities. I spent a lot of time this summer doing butterfly surveys for one of the large Cook County agencies. They wanted me to take lots of photos, and I obliged. Some of them turned out to be useful for my project.

Eastern Tailed Blue (Everes comyntas)

My conservation work has allowed my additional photo opportunities. Sometimes I'm taking pictures of the species that we are working with, as is the case with this Regal Fritillary picture.

Regal Fritillary (Speyeria idalia)

Other times I found opportunities to snag shots of species that we aren't working with in the lab. That was the case for this Little Yellow, which we found while collecting Regal Fritillary moms for egg laying.

Little Yellow (Eurema lisa)

It's been a rewarding effort. I tried to do a lot more butterfly photography a decade ago. My parents had given me a very nice camera for my fortieth birthday. I always felt butterfly photography to be a struggle. My macro lens was amazing, but I had to get right on top of an individual butterfly if I wanted to use the lens' capability. Butterflies typically do not cooperate with that behavior.Depth of field was always a huge issue for me. The greater flexibility that the digital format offers has really liberated me, and I'm enjoying the photographic opportunities that are opening up.

Fiery Skipper (Hylephila phileus)

The season is rapidly ending, however the project isn't done yet. I now have enough images that I can put together a digital version of the talk. There are a bunch of species that I need, and still others that I'm not yet fully pleased with. I'm very fortunate that I started this project during an extremely good year for butterflies, and look forward to filling in many of my gaps in 2011.

Black Swallowtail (Papilio polyxenes)

A Regal Afternoon

2010-09-12T11:11:00.014-05:00

Land of Regal Fritillaries

There is nothing like spending a beautiful early autumn day collecting Regal Fritillaries for egg laying. Vincent, Robin, and I went out on Thursday, and had the opportunity to spend a picture-perfect day along the Kankakee River near the Illinois/Indiana border. We were a bit late this year. We managed to collect six females. Every fritillary that we saw was a female, which is an indication that we are getting pretty far along in the season here. I did not photograph any of the Regals that we saw. There weren't many and we really needed to focus our efforts on getting the moms collected for egg laying.

Little Yellow (Eurema lisa)

We got to see lots of species of butterflies. I was able to continue my summer project of getting digital images of local butterfly species. I was especially happy to be able to get a shot of the Little Yellow. This species has had a population explosion in northern Illinois this year. I've been trying unsuccessfully all summer to get a decent image of it.

Great Tiger Beetle Habitat

You can't see an image like this one without thinking about tiger beetles (well, at least I can't). I saw four species on Thursday: Punctured, Bronze, Festive, and Big Sand tiger beetles.

Big Sand Tiger Beetle (Cicindela formosa)

Festive Tiger Beetle (Cicindela scutellaris lecontei)

I was seeing Festive Tiger Beetles last week in Michigan. Ted aptly noticed that the one in my photo looked very green. This was true of many of the individuals that I saw up there. The one above is the more typical red color of this subspecies. Others in the Indiana population are much more blackish, including the one below.

Festive Tiger Beetle (Cicindela scutellaris lecontei)

Meanwhile back in the lab, we have set the six Regal Fritillary moms up for egg laying. Each female is placed in a white paper bag with strips of paper towel, a sprig of violet leaf (the caterpillar food) and a moist piece of paper towel. The females generally lay eggs all over the edges of the paper towel strips.

Paper Towel Strips, Violet Leaf, and Moist Paper Towel

Each Bag Contains a Female Regal Fritillary for Egg Laying

We have yet to get any eggs out of these girls (not unusual, it generally takes a few days for them to start). Still, we have no mortality yet and all six females are feeding well. We are hoping to put some of what we learned this past year into practice with the result of greater survival of the larvae over the winter.

A Regal Fritillary Mom Feeding in the Lab

Farewell to Summer

2010-09-06T19:07:00.015-05:00

Labor Day weekend. The end of summer, the end of white shoes and belts, and the beginning to the progression into winter. Leon and I took Friday off, and were joined by our friend Michael in celebrating the end of summer in Michigan. We went camping in the Saugatuck region. Unfortunately, the weather was not overly cooperative. Although the only truly terrible weather was a robust thunderstorm the evening that we arrived (fortunately, after the tents were pitched), much of the weekend was rather marginal. Friday was drippy and therefore a day to hang around camp and go into town for a bit of shopping.

Oval Beach

Dunes Behind the Beach

On Saturday we hiked on the shore and in the dunes at Oval Beach. It was cloudy and very windy- at least 25 mph off of Lake Michigan. It made for some impressive surf. There were lots of gulls and a few sandpipers hukered down right on the lake shore because of the wind, and I was able to get a couple of decent photos of the sandpipers.

Sandpipers!

Sunday was by far the best day of the weekend. It was sunny and pleasantly warm without being hot. We went for a great hike at the Allegan Game Area just west of where we were staying. I've been there before as part of the Imperiled Butterfly Workshop, and wanted to show the place to Leon.

Allegan State Game Area

This part of the world is very sandy with lots of black oak. As I have previously mentioned, there are lots of Allegheny mound-building ant here. I had Michael stand next to one of the mounds to show just how large they are.

Michael L. with Ant Mound

We say some pretty good butterflies and, not surprising for such a sandy area, lots of tiger beetles. We also saw a and wasp (Bembyx americana) digging in the soft sand. I got some video.

American Copper(Lycaena phlaeas)

Spicebush Swallowtail (Papilio troilus)

The Festive Tiger Beetle (Cicindela scutellaris lecontei) was the only species that we saw- but they were abundant. I have both collected and photographed this species before, but have not been happy with the photographic results. The abundance of the species and relatively cool temperatures allowed me to do better this time.

Several Shots of the Festive Tiger Beetle
(Cicindela scutellaris lecontei)

At breakfast yesterday, we noticed migrating monarch butterflies filling the skies like autumn leaves. This weekend featured many signs of the change of seasons. I guess I'm ready to say goodbye to the summer of 2010. It's been a fine one.

Begin Year V

2010-08-17T22:53:00.006-05:00

I can't believe that it's the anniversary of this blog again (well, it will be in about an hour), and that I've been at it for 4 years. To celebrate, I'm posting pictures of two beautiful beetles that I photographed in Arizona a couple of weeks ago.

Chrysina gloriosa

Chrysina beyeri
You gotta love a beetle with purple legs

Both of these beetles were attracted to the lights around my cabin in Madera Canyon/ They were still on the tree when I got up the next morning.

What’s more difficult to see…

2010-08-09T07:28:00.003-05:00

than a Trimerotropis latifasciata (broad-banded grasshopper) adult on lichen-encrusted clay exposures?

This question was recently posed by Ted at his blog Beetles in the Bush. Ever up for a challenge, I'd argue that a Leuronotina ritensis (Lichen Grasshopper) adult on a lichen-encrusted rock is a pretty good contender.

This species is narrowly endemic to the sky island mountains of southeast Arizona and adjacent Mexico. I photographed this individual in the Atascosas Mountains west of Nogales during my trip last week.

Hiking to Josephine Saddle with Andy

2010-08-01T12:50:00.017-05:00

In my previous post, I mentioned having breakfast with Adam and Andy on my first morning in Tucson. I met them a year ago. Andy had found my blog through a comment that I had left on another Tucson blog- probably either Homer's or Cobban's. Adam and Andy do prairie restoration on the 400 acre farm in southwest Wisconsin that Andy's parents own. Leon and I have enjoyed getting to know them over the past year. Over breakfast, we discussed my plans for the coming week, and Andy expressed interest in joining me on one of my bug hunts. On Monday we drove down to Madera Canyon to hike up to Josephine saddle.

Milkweed

The day started cloudy, and the threat of rain was forecast. We were lucky, rain never materialized and the sun eventually came out. Because it was cloudy and we were hiking up a north-facing slope we did not see any insects at first. It's hard to get too disappointed about this- the scenery and botany are both amazing. Among the many interesting plants that we saw was a beautiful milkweed with maroon flowers.

View from the Trail

We ran into John, someone we had just met the day before while swimming with Homer. He had mentioned plans for a similar hike, but I hadn't expected to encounter his hiking party. Shortly after we ran into them, we began encountering more insects, including a bunch of butterflies.

Gold-costa Skipper (Cogia caicus)

Nabokov's Satyr (Cyllopsis pyracmon)

Marine Blue (Leptotes marina)

The saddle is an interesting destination, but still enough in the woods that there are not spectacular views there. We stopped for a snack of almonds and a few photos.

In Josephine Saddle with Andy

The trip back down was on a south-facing slope, which meant different plants and drier conditions. We saw lots of fat lizards along the trail. Much more interesting was the coral snake that we got a quick glimpse of.

On the Trail

We called this lizard Fatboy

Madera Canyon is famous for its three species of large, bright green scarab beetles. The are attracted to lights and very seldom seen during the day. Andy managed to find one, and I was delighted that he was able to experience that aspect of Madera Canyon. He posed with one on his hand to show how big they are.

Chrysina beyeri

Andy Poses with the Chrysina

As the hike wound down, my only disappointment was that we had not seen an Arizona Hairstreak, a species I wanted to photograph. We were nearly back to the parking lot before I saw one.

Arizona Hairstreak (Erora quaderna)

We wrapped up the hike and headed back up to Tucson to connect up with Adam for a fabulous dinner at a Guatemalan restaurant. It was a day of great scenery and insects and even better companionship.

Another Adventure at Willcox Playa

2010-07-25T11:29:00.011-05:00

Greetings from Tucson. I arrived Friday night. Saturday I headed on down to Willcox Playa, but not before a very pleasant breakfast with Adam and Andy at the B Line. The weather was interesting- a mix of clouds and sun. I dodged thunderstorms all the way out to Willcox. Although I spent much of the afternoon wondering if my time would be cut short by rain, it wasn't and the weather ended up helping the photography.

Aridlands Tiger Beetle (Ellipsoptera marutha)

I've never seen the playa so full of water. Numbers of tiger beetles were not overly impressive. As is often the case there, most of the individuals that I saw were the Aridlands Tiger Beetle (Ellipsoptera marutha). I've already got some reasonably good images, but I spent the first 45 minutes or so wandering around and snapping a few photos. As I have gained more experience with these beetles, I've come to realize that this is a pretty skittish species. The really gooshy mud that they like to land on also makes my typical technique- crawling on my belly to approach them- highly undesirable.

Aridlands Tiger Beetle (Ellipsoptera marutha)
Red Morph

I did get a look at one of the red color morphs of marutha. I've blogged about color variation in that species before, but I've never gotten a photo of the red form. I was pleased to be able to get close enough to shoot a couple of acceptable frames. Just as I was about to move on from that individual, a mating pair of green morph marutha darted out from under a clump of vegetation. Like a flash the red morph, obviously a male, pounced on the mating pair. For about the next five minutes, the trio of tigers lurched about as the red male tried to dislodge the green one. So intent were they on the struggle that I was able to approach very close to them for photography. In the end, the green male prevailed.

The struggle to breed:
Two male Ellipsoptera marutha wrestle over a female

Shortly thereafter, clouds began covering the sun with a bit greater frequency. A beautiful Arizona monsoon thunderstorm was crossing the desert a couple of miles west of me. I quickly discovered that the softer light was extremely conducive to photography. The diminished glare rendered it easier to avoid harsh reflections from the metallic elytra of the beetles. The tiger beetles were easier to approach than they would be in full sun. I quickly got a pretty good shot of a Western Red-bellied Tiger Beetle (Cicindelidia sedecimpunctata).

Western Red-bellied Tiger Beetle (Cicindelidia sedecimpunctata)

As the clouds thickened a bit, a pretty green tiger beetle landed rather close to me. I was able to crouch down without scaring it. The mud in that area was not quite as wet and squishy as elsewhere on the playa, so I was able to try my technique of laying flat and inching my way closer to the beetle with my camera extended at arms length in front of me. The stars must have been aligned, because I was able to bring my camera within a foot of the beetle and get a nice series of photos. So intent was I on the approach and the composition of the pictures that I didn't even realize until got up to review them on my camera that my subject was not E. marutha.

Glittering Tiger Beetle (Habroscelimorpha fulgoris)

The Glittering Tiger Beetle (Habroscelimorpha fulgoris) lives in wet, salty mud in the arid Southwest. Subspecies erronea is found at Willcox Playa and nowhere else in the world. I had gotten the front of my tee shirt crusted with salty mud, but it was worth it.

I capped off my day cooling off in Cobban's pool with a glass of wine. This may have been my best visit ever to Willcox Playa.

Media Madness

2010-07-12T19:05:00.003-05:00

Today we released 30 Regal Fritillaries at Paintbrush Prairie in Markham. The story has been picked up in a bunch of spots on the media, including the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Tonight, airing this evening on Channel 11. More links to follow

IBCM IV - Oregon Zoo

2010-07-11T14:31:00.014-05:00

Racks of Oregon Silverspot Caterpillars at the Oregon Zoo

It's hard to believe that it has been a full year since the series of Imperiled Butterfly Conservation and Management workshops began in Toledo. I've just returned a couple of weeks ago from the fourth installment at the Oregon Zoo in Portland.

Feeding Larvae

We're already pretty familiar with the butterfly conservation lab at the Oregon Zoo. Vincent and I visited a couple of years ago for some really great training from these folks. Since then our butterfly rearing has been far more successful. These scenes are very familiar to us. The first day of the conference involved lectures and a tour of the zoo. Sadly, I was not able to reconnect with my best penguin friend in the world.

Taylor's Checkerspot Habitat

Days two and three of the conference involved field trips. (Yay!! always the best part!) We visited one of the few remaining sites for Taylor's Checkerspot. After hearing about how awful the spring weather has been in the Pacific Northwest, we were thrilled to have a beautiful sunny day for our visit. I was a bit surprised at the site. In Illinois, very rare butterfly species are almost invariably found on sites with high-quality native vegetation communities. This site was dominated by an invasive grass and ox-eye daisy, a Eurasian plant.

Salt-spray Meadow Right on the Coast Just South of Newport

In the afternoon, conference organizers put us to work. We visited a salt-spray meadow, home to the federally endangered Oregon Silverspot. Conference participants helped release silverspot larvae and planted both host plants (violets) and a variety of nectar-producing plants to support the butterfly.

Nathan and I Release Oregon Silverspot Caterpillars

We spent the second night of the conference in Newport, a beach town on the Oregon coast. We had some free time late in the afternoon. I was excited to go down to the dunes to try to photograph the Pacific Coast Tiger Beetle. Unfortunately, the weather got cool and foggy. I was pleasantly surprised to find and photograph a single Oregon Tiger Beetle. Tony found a freshly-dead Pacific Coast Tiger Beetle, but , unfortunately, that was the only one that we saw.

Oregon Tiger Beetle (Cicindela oregona)

Dinner was at the Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport. It was a nice surprise. I had not heard of it, and it's a delightful aquarium. I recommend it. I especially enjoyed the numerous tanks of jellies that they displayed. The evening's lecture as by Scott Hoffman Black, CEO of the Xerces Society.

Display of Jellies at the Oregon Coast Aquarium

Thursday involved a visit to NRCS, the Natural Resources Conservation Service in Eugene. This is a totally cool place. They grow all kinds of plants for conservation and restoration purposes, and they do it on an agricultural scale. They had all kinds of really cool farm equipment that had been modified to harvest seed from plants that are not agricultural crops. I was especially impressed with their arrangement for large-scale cultivation of violets for seed production. We could really use something like that here in Illinois.

Agricultural-scale Cultivation of Viola adunca

After lunch, we proceeded to a site where Fender's Blue, another endangered species, is being managed. Here again, I was surprised at the dominance of non-native plant species like tall oat grass, ox-eye daisy, and cow vetch.

Kincaid's Lupine, host plant of Fender's Blue

By this time, the participants were getting a bit giddy. Brian did an imitation of the Green Man. Tony, from the Henry Doerly Zoo in Omaha, did his usual death-defying number by handling a velvet ant. Velvet ants are wingless wasps with a potent sting that gives them the nickname "cow killers."

The Green Man

Tony Courts Death (Again!) by Holding a Velvet Ant

Since the crew obviously needed a bit of calming down, we had dinner at the brew pub at the Grand Lodge Hotel. The dinner speaker was Robert Pyle, author of many books including the Audubon Field Guide to Butterflies of North America. He autographed his book The Butterflies of Cascadia.

The next, and final, installment of IBCM isn't until June 2011. We're hosting at The Nature Museum, and the bar has been set pretty high. I'm looking forward to it.

Bilateral Gynandromorph of the Regal Fritillary

2010-07-05T20:52:00.006-05:00

We have been having great success in the lab with our Regal Fritillaries. More on that soon. Today we got quite a surprise from a Regal that just emerged from its chrysalis. Regal Fritillaries are sexually dimorphic. There are two rows of spots on the upper surface of the hindwings. In the males, the outer row is orange. In females, both rows are white.

The right half of the individual in this picture is male and the left half is female. The shapes of the two hindwings are subtly different. Even the body is split in half this way- the right half has a single male clasper. Bilateral gyandromorphy, while rare, is not unheard of in butterflies. It probably goes unnoticed (at least by people) most of the time, because when the males and females share the same color pattern, the effect is quite subtle. This individual is likely sterile- unfortunate when you are trying to rear as many adults as possible in order to establish a new population.

She Flies With Her Own Wings

2010-07-04T21:49:00.018-05:00

L-R: Leon, Me, Rodger, Mark

Oregon! The fourth installment of the Imperiled Butterfly Conservation and Management workshop was hosted last week by the Oregon Zoo in Portland. Leon is originally from Oregon, so he decided to join me this time around. The plan was to have some fun together, then he would visit family while I did the workshop thing. After the workshop, we connected up again for a bit more fun before returning home.

The first part of the trip was particularly enjoyable because it involved meeting friends that I don't get to see nearly enough. Leon had never met Mark and Rodger before. I was eager to make the introduction as I knew that they would all click. Saturday involved a gross excess of food. We began with beer and enormous burgers, fries and onion rings. Delicious, though I felt guilty afterward. Opting to go with the guilt, we proceeded to a strawberry festival and ate strawberry shortcakes as big as our heads. They were billed as "smalls." We skipped dinner, but engaged in the fine Portland tradition of drinking wine and gossipping about bloggers.

In Forest Park

Sunday was a bit drippy, but that didn't stop the four of us from going for a walk in Forest Park with Mac. Forest Park is a very green place that seemed especially vibrant in the soft rain. The weather did nothing to help the bug watching, though we did see a cool black and yellow millipede.

Millipede

It was very disappointing to leave Rodger and Mark after our walk, but we knew we would see them again before the end of the trip. Meanwhile we had arranged to meet Leon's college buddy Ron and his wife Sharol on the other side of the Cascade Mountains in the resort town of Sunriver. We had barely crossed the crest of the Cascades when we the emerging sun provided a vivid display of the rain shadow that the mountains create. Descending to the Deschutes River, we were even treated to some interesting insects, as I saw my first ever Cobalt Blue Milkweed Beetle on the river's banks. Equally impressive was the deep gorge of the Crooked River. We peered down the 300 foot cliffs that lined the river.

Crooked River

Sunriver is a on outdoor resort town. It's beautiful, but a bit too managed for my taste. On Monday we headed out with Ron for an adventure that included geology for Leon and entomology for me. The geology came at Fort Rock. It's not a fort, but the remains of a modest volcanic cone. It was a fine introduction to the high desert, and included lots of beautiful wildflowers. There were few insects there, but I did see a new lifer butterfly species- the Square-spotted Blue.

Fort Rock

Desert Monkeyflower (Mimulus sp.)

Square-spotted Blue (Euphilotes battoides)

We proceeded to Summer Lake. The lake has a very wide shoreline with lots of saline areas that result from evaporation of the lake water. It looked to be perfect tiger beetle habitat.

Summer Lake

We did not find many tiger beetles, and almost left without seeing any. Just before giving up, I noticed several large oval patches of mud ringed by salt deposits. These turned out to be the habitat for Williston's Tiger Beetle, another lifer for me.

Microhabitat of Cicindela willistoni

Williston's Tiger Beetle (Cicindela willistoni)

Tuesday brought more geology as we visited the Newbury Crater. It's part of a relatively recent eruption dating just 1300 years ago. Leon was fascinated by the bits of volcanic glass that crunched underfoot as we walked the Obsidian Trail. We also checked out the Lava Cast Forest. Hot lava flowed into a forest about 6,000 years ago, and left casts of both standing and fallen trees. It was amazing to realize that the lava had preserved a fairly detailed record of the trees in this ancient forest. I got another lifer insect here- the Ribbed Pine Borer, a longhorn beetle.

Leon on the Obsidian Trail

Cast of a Fallen Tree in Lava Cast Forest

Ribbed Pine Borer (Rhagium inquisitor)

A took quick goodbye to Ron and Sharol followed, and we returned to Portland to connect up with the IBCM participants.

Success with the Silver-bordered Fritillary

2010-07-01T22:14:00.003-05:00

This Silver-bordered Fritillary was photographed earlier today at Gensburg-Markham Prairie. It is the offspring (or, perhaps, grand-offspring) of Silver-bordered Fritillaries that were reared at the Nature Museum last summer and released at Gensburg-Markham Prairie last September. We have the beginnings of a new population of this regionally imperiled species.

Indiana Trek

2010-06-21T11:08:00.012-05:00

Kirk guides us through Swamp Metalmark habitat at Clover Lick Creek

Earlier this spring the Nature Museum's Butterfly Restoration Project and Susan Borkin of the Milwaukee Public Museum were awarded a small grant from the Butterfly Conservation Initiative. This grant would allow us to visit a population of Swamp Metalmark Butterflies in extreme southern Indiana. The population was reported to be very large. The purpose of our trip was to verify the existence and size of the population, to evaluate the habitat at this site, and to clip small fragments from the wings of a sample of metalmarks for DNA analysis. We would also collect a female to bring back to Chicago for some further experiments on breeding the species in the lab.

Looking for Metalmarks

We were guided in our efforts by Kirk and Jason from the US Forest Service. I don't know what we would have done without them. They guided us right to the appropriate spots, and offered valuable insights into ecological changes (mostly brush advancement).

Male Swamp Metalmark

We were to visits two sites about a half hour apart. At Boone Creek, we found metalmarks almost immediately. They were present in small numbers- we only found about a dozen individuals. We hoped we would do better at Clover Lick, which was reported to have a larger population. In that, we were a bit disappointed. All told, we only found 4 individauls at Clover Lick, and these were scattered over a wide area.

This shows a tiny part of a huge number of butterflies we saw
puddling in a dry stream bed

We were lucky to have gorgeous weather during our visit. The number of butterflies that we saw was amazing- every butterfly milkweed that we came upon was covered with a half dozen swallowtails or Great Spangled Fritillaires. I got lots of nice photos.

Great Spangled Fritillary

The habitat assessment was revealing. Both the butterflies and their host plants appeared to prever edges between open fields and woodland. In these areas, the host plants were in shade for part of the day. We collected data on host plant density, canopy height, as well as population size for the swamp metalmark. I was able to get DNA samples, though not so many as I had hoped for.

Harvesting DNA Fragments

All told, it was a very successful venture. We got lots of environmental data, and now have a single female set up for egg laying in our lab. The population is almost certainly a lot smaller than we expected. That's a disappointment, but it's still very important to know.

A Day for the Ducks at the Notebaert Nature Museum

2010-06-08T14:44:00.001-05:00

Ducklings!

The Gorgone Checkerspot Comes Home

2010-06-04T19:39:00.011-05:00

Gorgone Checkerspot (Chlosyne gorgone)

This project started out here at the Nature Museum nearly a year ago when we attempted to get female Gorgone Checkerspots to breed in the lab. The first week of July, 2009, we got 3 females. They laid a bunch of eggs in the lab and we started raising the caterpillars. Sometime in August they stopped feeding, and in September we put them to bed for the winter. In April we roused them from hibernation, learning in the process some important things about holding butterflies over the winter. We had 94% survival over the winter (!). The larvae have been eating like mad, and pupated about two weeks ago. Yesterday (June 3) we brought about 250 adults out to the Nachusa Grasslands for field release.

Vincent and Robin releasing Gorgone Checkerspots

Nachusa Grasslands is a huge prairie site owned by The Nature Conservancy. It contains perfect dry hill prairie habitat that the Checkerspots require. the caterpillars feed on pale purple coneflower. As you can see in the photograph above, there is ample hostplant on the gravel hills to support a population of this butterfly.

Robin shakin' it

Many of the butterflies needed to be coaxed out of the cage

The butterflies were transported in cylindrical screen-sided cages. They needed to be coaxed out into their new home. Perhaps they knew that they were entering a predator-filled world.

Dot's Knob

Nachusa is a beautiful prairie that covers rolling hills. the drier tops of the hills (or knobs) are the preferred habitat of this species. We released the butterflies on Dot's Know and Doug's Knob- named for two early supporters of Nachusa.

I really hope this was a productive mating

We saw lots of mating- both in the cage and with released butterflies. I hope lots of egg laying follows. It will be another year before we know whether there has been successful reproduction on site. Welcome home Gorgone Checkerspots!

Jungle Cucumbers and Longwings

2010-05-28T21:27:00.005-05:00

A longwing butterfly (Heleconius erato) visits a jungle cucumber (Psiguria umbrosa) flower

Longwing butterflies- species in the genus Heliconius- are a particularly important group in Butterfly Haven. Look out over the Haven at any time, and most of what you see in flight will be any of the dozen or so species that we fly. They do more than just about any other butterfly species in our exhibit to provide the interest that comes from motion and flutter.

The wall of jungle cucumbers in Butterfly Haven

We like to keep out butterflies healthy and living long lives. Generally this includes providing adequate sources of nectar for them. We carry this one step further with our longwings. Through their evolutionary history, these butterflies have developed a mutualistic relationship with Jungle Cucumbers- plants in the genera Psiguria and Gurania that are relatives of garden cucumbers.

Tiger Longwing (Heliconius hecale)
You can see the whitish pollen packed onto the proboscis

Longwings are the major pollinators of Jungle Cukes. The relationship is mutualistic, because the longwings get something in return for providing this service- and in this case it's more than the typical reward of floral nectar. Longwings can extract nutrients from pollen. A longwing will pack the pollen onto its proboscis and absorb vitamins, amino acids, and alkaloids. The pollen provides superior nutrition to nectar. Longwings that have access to this resource will live several months, as opposed to the roughly two weeks that is typical for most adult butterflies. We make sure that we always have blooming Psiguria in Butterfly Haven. In addition to keeping our longwings happy, it means that we get the maximum display time from them.

How I got my Camembert groove back

2010-05-22T18:55:00.005-05:00

It's been a while since I had any decent home made cheese. My last two batches of Camembert were uninspired to bad. In both cases I was fighting an outbreak of poile de chat, a black surface mold nicknamed "cat's hair." My last batch was a complete failure- I only got the barest of growth of the desirable white Penicillium mold. The rest of the cheese spoiled and I had to throw it out (painful!). Then there was a problem with my milk supply, and I feared that I might have to return to using Pasteurized store-bought milk. Yuk!

What to do? When I discovered that my milk supply was going to return, I immediately ditched all of my mold cultures (which were about a year and a half old) and purchased fresh ones. What a difference it made! I made four rounds of Camembert with beautiful snow-white rinds and the rich creamy yellow interiors that the raw Guernsey milk provides. I've got my groove back!

Dunes in Illinois

2010-05-02T09:41:00.011-05:00

Since I recently blogged about the wonders of the dune community in Indiana, it's only fair that I give some time to the sand dunes of Illinois Beach State Park. The park extends along the Lake Michigan shoreline right up near the Wisconsin border. The dunes are smaller here than in Indiana or Michigan. That's because the prevailing westerly winds blow a lot of the sand out into the lake rather than into or along the shore. The latter process is necessary to sculpt taller dunes.

Bearberry (Arctostaphylus uva-ursi)

Two rare butterflies are found at Illinois beach. They fly very early in the season, so on Friday afternoon, I made my way up to the park to attempt to find them. The Hoary Elfin is an endangered species in Illinois. The caterpillars feed exclusively on bearberry, a rare plant in Illinois. The population of Hoary Elfins at Illinois Beach is the only one known in the state.

Bearberry is a woody plant that grows in prostrate mats

Curiously, Hoary Elfins have never been reported from the Indiana Dunes, despite the existence of ample host plant in apparently similar habitat.

Friday afternoon was very windy, which helped neither the the butterfly watching nor the photography. I only saw about a half dozen elfins. The constant motion of even very low vegetation in the stiff breeze meant that most of my photos were blurry. I did manage to get one decent image.

I was keeping an eye out for tiger beetles during my visit, and only managed to see one. It's a terrible photo, but represents the only time I've ever seen Cicindela scutellaris in Illinois. This one is subspecies lecontii.

Festive Tiger Beetle (Cicindela scutellaris lecontii)

The other butterfly that I was seeking, the Olympia Marblewing, was a no show. I suspect that the wind was just too high. Despite the suboptimal conditions, it's really hard to have a bad day at such a beautiful nature preserve. I even managed to continue my project of trying to get more digital images of butterfly species that I need to include in talks. Just before I reached the parking lot to leave, an American Lady posed very briefly for me. Up until now, my only images of that species have been on film.

American Lady (Vanessa virginiensis)

Serendipity and Two Checkerspot Butterflies

2010-04-27T20:42:00.014-05:00

Baltimore Checkerspot (Euphydryas phaeton)

Lately, winters at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum find lots of caterpillars on the museum roof. Many of the species that we are breeding for conservation purposes overwinter as caterpillars. They need to experience the full effects of winter cold in order to complete their development. Carrying caterpillars over the winter has proved to be the trickiest aspect of our butterfly breeding activities. A couple of years ago, we learned a new technique form the Portland Zoo in Oregon that involves holding the larvae outdoors under inverted terracotta pots.

Terracotta pots for wintering caterpillars of an endangered butterfly
(Taylor's Checkerspot) at the Oregon Zoo

The larvae themselves are in plastic containers. We loosely crumple paper towels, place the towels and larvae in the containers, and snap the lids on. The whole affair goes under the terracotta flower pot.

Yogurt container, crumpled paper towel, and caterpillars

Two butterflies that we are currently working with are related species called the Baltimore Checkerspot and the Gorgone Checkerspot. Lat year, we did a trial run of keeping Gorgone checkerspots on the roof under pots. It worked so well that we decided to scale it up with both of these species this year. Last week, we woke up the caterpillars.

Gorgone Checkerspot (Chlosyne gorgone)
Photo: Tom Poklen

We has spectacular success with the Gorgones. Over 80% of the larvae survived the winter. They're now in the lab, munching away on their host plant, which is showy sunflower.

Gorgone Checkerspot Larvae
Wake up sleepyheads!

Gorgone Checkerspot Larva

The story with the Baltimores was not so good. Pot after pot yielded dead larvae. All looked perfect, except they were mummified and hard as tiny rocks. Same conditions, closely related species, completely different results.

Dead Baltimore Checkerspot Larvae

Here's where the serendipity comes in. We place our flower pots on wooden pallets on the museum roof. At some point last winter, one cup of larvae fell out of the pot. It was later found under the pallet. It got less protection from the elements, and the paper towel in the cup was soaked with water. Nearly half of the Baltimore Checkerspot larvae in that cup survuved- the only ones from over 1,200 that went on the roof to do so. Unlike Gorgone Checkerspots that live in dry sandy or gravelly prairies, Baltimore Checkerspots are wetland butterflies. Conditions that are fine for Gorgones turn out to be too dry for Baltimores. If the cup had not fallen under the pallet, we never would have known how to fix this problem.

Robin and Vincent feeding Gorgone Checkerspot and Regal Fritillary larvae

In June, the Gorgone Checkerpots will be used to start a new population at the Nachusa Grasslands. The handful of Baltimores will be released at the Fermi National Accelerator Lab. They will (we hope) join individuals that were released there as caterpillars last fall.

Regal Fritillary (Speyeria idalia) larva

In related butterfly conservation news, our Regal Fritillary caterpillars continue to grow and thrive. We are on track for releasing large numbers at the Indian Boundary Prairies this coming June.

Yellow Violets

2010-04-22T22:05:00.003-05:00

Yellow Violet (Viola pennsylvanica)

I had heard of yellow violets long before I saw one. I found them fascinating. I remember being vaguely jealous of my college friend Kathy who knew where they grew near her home town in Vermont. We have a nice population at the Fen. I thought of her when I took this photo.

Putting the Spring in Bluff Spring Fen

2010-04-20T08:54:00.009-05:00

Marsh Marigold (Caltha palustris)

It's marsh marigold time at the Fen. In a good year, the watercourses are all lined with vivid yellow. This is proving to be a good year, and the effects are spectacular.

Saturday was a Fen workday. While most of the crew was pulling garlic mustard, Kevin and I continued an experiment that has been going on for a few years. We are trying to re-vegetate the bare peat soil of a badly degraded seep by transplanting native sedges that have grown up onto a gravel spit that was bulldozed out into one corner of the Fen. I blogged about it last year. Our results are being very successful. The transplants settle in for the first year, then begin to spread rapidly through vegetative growth. This success is motivating us to continue the experiment.

Carex trichocarpa
Two years ago, this seepage slope was mostly bare peat soil

Spring is in evidence all around the Fen. I am pleased that some of our trout lilies have become sufficiently established to begin blooming.

Trout Lily (Erythronium albidum)

Migrant birds are returning.

Red-headed woodpecker (Melanerpes erythrocephalus)

Eastern Bluebird (Sialia sialis)

I mentioned recently that the 12-spotted tiger beetles are out now. I keep trying for a better photo. I'm making incremental progress, but I'm not yet where I want to be with that species.

Twelve-spotted Tiger Beetle (Cicindela duodecimguttata)

While tiger hunting, I ran into the Fen's other common species. It was a bit earlier than I was expecting.

Six-spotted Tiger Beetle (Cicindela sexguttata)

Overall, it's shaping up as a fine spring at the Fen.

Sunday at the Indiana Dunes

2010-04-13T09:21:00.015-05:00

Dune Face

On Sunday, just before heading out the door, I posted "Doug is off to the Indiana Dunes" as my Facebook status. A friend in New England expressed surprised that Indiana would have sand dunes, so I decided to take a bunch of photos and blog about the trip. To me, the surprising part about the Dunes is not that they exist in Indiana, but that so much of them has been preserved among the steel mills of Gary and on the doorstep of Chicago.

The Chicago skyline is dimly visible on the horizon

The occasion for our visit was our friend Michael. He had been driven to Dearborn, Michigan to run in a marathon the day before. He and the two friends who drove him out there plant to stop off at the Dunes on their way home. Leon and I decided to meet up with them.

L-R: Kevin, Iva, and Michael
Michael is doing pretty well for the day after running a marathon

There was construction at the park and we couldn't get into the nature trails via my usual route, so we started on the beach.

On the Beach

Duneland ecological succession is the natural process of conversion of shoreline to woodland. You can spend several millenia on the beach watching it happen, or move inland to view successively older vegetation. Beach grasses stabilize the sand. Smaller trees take root. As they grow, they shade out the grasses, which are replaced by a new community of plants under the trees. Each change in the vegetation changes the landscape and sets the stage for its own exit as other species take over. It was here at the Indiana Dunes in the early 1900s that Henry Chandler Cowles developed the theory of ecological succession. Over a century later, it remains a cornerstone of ecological theory.

Prairie Grasses Stabilize a Sand Dune

Further back, the dunes are cloaked with rich woodland. Some of the spring wildflowers were beginning to bloom.

Marsh Marigold (Caltha palustris)

Hairy White Violet (Viola incognita)

We were looking for the Olympia Marblewing, a beautiful early spring butterfly that lives in sandy habitats. The weather was a bit cooler and cloudier than was forecast, so the butterfly was a no show. Its host plant, Sand Cress, was putting on a show. I have a feeling that had we been there on Saturday we would have seen the butterfly.

Sand Cress (Arabis lyrata)

We did see other wildlife. Migrating birds included Brown Creepers, Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers and Eastern Towhee. All were difficult to photograph. I got a recognizable image only of the Towhee.

Eastern Towhee (Pipilo erythrophthalmus)

The hike ended with a visit to an interdunal pond and a stroll through some fine oak woods. The woods are being managed to help support endangered Karner Blue butterflies that live at the Dunes.

Interdunal Pond

Managed Oak Woodland

A wonderful day was capped off with a delicious dinner (dessert: red velvet cake). Congratulations to Michael for successfully completing his first marathon.

Cinnamon

2010-04-08T19:46:00.005-05:00

It was April, 2003. Leon's elderly cat had died about six months before, and he had decided that, a suitable period of mourning having elapsed, he would bring a new kitty into his life. I went with him to the animal shelter- mostly for moral support.

While Leon was doing some serious kitty shopping, I wandered around looking at some of the caged cats and poking my finger into a cage here and there to stroke a appreciative nose. One cage contained a very handsome grayish tabby with brown ears. I stroked his nose for a moment. Apparently this kitty was lonely, because when I withdrew my finger, he stuck his paw out of the cage at me in a gesture that could only mean "please, don't stop." Leon did not end up finding a suitable cat that day. I fell in love.

I asked for an interview with the cat. Leon came with me into the kitty interview room. The cat was very friendly. He loved being petted. He purred. He sat in our laps- but made it quite clear that he was more interested in me. About two weeks after he came home with us he figured out who the real feline pushover in the house is and became Leon's cat, though he always remained very affectionate with me.

About 2 1/2 years ago, Cinnamon began losing weight. A trip to the vet revealed that he was in the early stages of kidney failure. We have kept him going by feeding him a (very expensive) special renal diet. He stabilized on the diet, however the kidney failure eventually caught up with him. Cinnamon died last night.

I've shared my life with a total of about 8 cats. All were different, and all were much loved. Cinnamon was very special. I've only had one other cat that I would place in that category, and he has been gone for 20 years now. The sensation that the house feels very empty will fade and other cats will come into my life, but Cinnamon will always retain a very special place in my heart.

Good kitty. Bye.

The Great Awakening

2010-04-06T20:58:00.010-05:00

Female Regal Fritillary
Photo: Ron Panzer

We have been working with Regal Fritillary conservation for several years now. This beautiful butterfly, about the size of a monarch, is in deep trouble over the eastern 2/3 of it's range (which runs from eastern Colorado and Nebraska all the way to the east coast. They are listed as a Threatened or Endangered species by most states east of the Mississippi river, including Illinois where they are Threatened. We have had some success in establishing it near Markham, southwest of Chicago. For that project, we released newborn caterpillars.

One challenge to working with regals is their life history. The adults begin flying in late June. In late July, they estivate for about a month. Only when they emerge from their midsummer nap do the females begin laying eggs- usually in the last week in August into September. The eggs hattch in late September, at which time the caterpillars eat their eggshells and immediately go into hibernation. This means that in order to raise regals in the lab, we need to do something to carry fragile, tiny larvae over the winter.

We have struggled a lot with this process. Early on, we lost hundreds of caterpillars to a bacterial outbreak. Since then, we have developed much better protocols for lab hygiene, and have gotten much better about raising all kinds of caterpillars.

Last year, we tried to carry our regals over the winter in special cages stored in a refrigerator. Periodically during the winter we would wake them up and give them a drink of water. Although we were experiencing a lot of death over the winter, it looked like we would have enough survivors to move forward. Unfortunately, what had started out as a gradual but steady decline over most of the winter accelerated rapidly over the last two weeks of March, and we had a 0% survival rate.

This year, we tried something different and put them in covered cages outside on the Museum roof. Our goal was to give them the full impact of winter cold. It worked!

Spring has been progressing nicely in Chicago. There are lots of violets (the caterpillar food plant) in bloom around the region, so yesterday we began to wake the caterpillars up. We removed them from the rooftop cages and placed them on bits of wet filter paper for a drink. Not unexpectedly, we had quite a bit of mortality. Some cages contained nothing but dead caterpillars.

Dead Regal Fritillary Larvae

Other cages ahoowed much more hopeful signs. We recovered just under 250 regal fritillary larvae that were still active and moving. After a quick drink, they were moved onto violet leaves.

Regal Fritillary Larve on wet filter paper
The green bits are frass (caterpillar poop), which indicates that they are feeding

Regal Fritillary larvae chow down on a violet leaf

The larvae are currently on violet leaves with wet filter paper in petri dishes. Over the next couple of days, we will move them to individual paper cups, where it will be easier to keep them clean. With good care, we hope to have adults in June. We will release them at the Indian Boudary Prairies southwest of Chicago.

Bins of petri dishes with regal fritillary caterpillars

And thus begins the 2010 butterfly conservation season.

Happy Easter

2010-04-04T21:13:00.007-05:00

Sharp-lobed Hepatica (Hepatica acutiloba)

Bloodroot (Sangunaria canadensis)

For the first time in about 3 years, we're actually having a nice spring here in Chicago. There has been ample warmth and sunshine. Today was gorgeous, and Leon and I took an Easter morning walk at Bluff Spring Fen. In addition to the very familiar spring wildflowers like Bloodroot and Hepatica, we saw some more unusual species, like Early Buttercup and Whitlow Cress.

Early Buttercup (Ranunculus fascicularis)

Whitlow Cress (Draba reptans)

I especially like the Whitlow cress, because it's so tiny. The entire plant in the photo could be covered with a dime- with room to spare.

There were other important signs of spring at the Fen today, as well.

Twelve-spotted Tiger Beetle (Cicindela duodecimguttata)

After we returned from the Fen, we had our friend Michael over for a traditional Easter dinner of ham, squash, and rice pilaf. Michael brought over a special Easter bread that he made, and we had home-made raspberry ice cream for dessert. What made the meal especially fun is that it was in the 70's this afternoon, so we ate out on the screened porch.

IBCM Part 3

2010-03-31T22:36:00.012-05:00

Last week, I was part of the third installment of the Imperiled Butterfly Conservation and Management Workshop. This one was held at Fairchild Botanical Gardens in Miami (the previous two were held at the Todedo Zoo last July, and at the Florida Museum of Natural History in October).

It was fun going back to Fairchild after just a month. I saw more Atala butterflies this time than I did in February, however my February photo is better that what I managed to get this time around. On the other hand, I got a much better shot of the caterpillar this time, and managed to find a pupa to photograph.

Atala larva (Eumaeus atala)

Atala pupa (Eumaeus atala)

There were huge numbers of Needham's skimmers (Libellula needhami) in the gardens.

Needham's skimmers (Libellula needhami)

The focus of this session was originally to have been on propagating plants, and we had a couple of really wonderful hands-on sessions from some of Fairchild's very knowledgeable staff. In response to participant needs and some newly-emerging information, this session also highlighted disease and prevention issues. Last summer, a new paper described unanticipated implications for conservation efforts that can arise out of infection with a very strange bacterial pathogen called Wolbachia, and I was asked to give a presentation on it. I enjoyed that a lot, because it was a very challenging talk to put together, and it was well received.

We had a field trip day on Tuesday that included stops: Bahia Honda and Big Pine Key. I had visited both of these spots a month earlier. It was fun to see them a bit further into the spring season.

Vincent and I on Bahia Honda

The weather was much nicer this time around than it had been in February, however the earlier cold weather had taken a toll. We were looking for two endangered species, the Miami blue and Bartram's hairstreak, and saw neither of them. At Bahia Honda, I did get a photo of Martial's hairstreak, which is an uncommon species. The cassius blue is not uncommon, but I was happy with the quality of my picture.

Martial's Hairstreak (Strymon martialis)

Cassius Blue

At Big Pine Key, the group met with one of the site managers and then spit up for some exploration to look for Bartram's hairstreak. As we were splitting into smaller groups, Jaret suggested that some people tag along with me as I know Big Pine Key (somewhat true) and could help with plant identification (Yikes- so NOT true. I only know about a dozen species from that ecosystem). Still, it wasn't a disaster. We got to have fun and I got to see the imperiled Florida duskywing.

Butterfly Conservationists at Big Pine Key

Florida Duskywing (Erynnis brunnea)

I really enjoyed the conference a lot. At the same time I'm happy for a bit of a pause in my travels. My next trip will not happen until June, when Part 4 of the conference will take place at the Oregon Zoo in Portland.

Return to Florida

2010-03-21T09:52:00.010-05:00

Yeeps, I haven't even finished blogging about my last trip to Florida and I'm back down here again. I'm here for part 3 of the Imperiled Butterfly Conservation and Management workshop.

I started out with the trip by meeting a fellow blogger named Tony. Kathie will find this particularly amusing- yes, this is your brother-in-law. We went for a delightful nature walk at Hugh Taylor Birch Park State Park in Ft. Lauderdale and went out for a couple of drinks together. A charming and delightful man. We wanted to take a photo to post and forgot to do so. Ah, well,

I'm pleased to say that the weather has been far nicer so far than it was a few weeks back. I came down a couple of days early in the hopes of getting in some better entomology than I managed in February. Although it has been better, the bugs are still suffering the aftereffects of a very cold winter. In February, I was at Fackahatchee Strand State Park over near Naples and managed to get photos of a caterpillar of the Little Metalmark (Calephelis virginiensis). It's a very close relative of the Swamp Metalmark, and my photos are the first of the caterpillar to be posted on BugGuide.

Little Metalmark (Calephelis virginiensis) Caterpillar

This time around I wwanted a picture of the adult. I succeeded- after a fashion. I'm not thrilled with the quality.

Little Metalmark (Calephelis virginiensis)

Some of the other butterflies were more photogenic. I especially liked the shot that I got of the Twin-spot Skipper.

Twinspot Skipper (Oligoria maculata)

Dragonflies were also putting in an appearance. There weren't huge numbers, but a few posed for me.

Forktail Damselfly (Ischnura sp.)

Halloween Pennant (Celathemis eponina)

Ther were even a few vertebrates that posed for us. Yeah, cute cute, blah blah blah.

Green Treefrog (Hylas cinerea)

Over by Naples I connected up with other blogging friends- the Thingfishes! We went on an unsuccessful expedition for tiger beetles we had a great seafood dinner. It has been a very enjoyable trip so far.

Blogging friends (Thingfish sp.)

Crocus!

2010-03-14T12:38:00.000-05:00

A week and a half earlier than last year.

Key West 2010

2010-03-08T21:11:00.010-06:00

Well, duh.

Our first full day in Key West fell on Valentine's Day. Candy hearts with messages appeared at breakfast, and included one message that appeared to be directed at UrSpo. Dr. Spo and partner Someone appeared attired to celebrate the holiday.

Spo and Someone

Leon, Michael, and I ventured out to Ft. Zachary Taylor for a picnic lunch (Cuban sandwiches) and some time strolling about the old fort. It was one of the few really nice days of the trip- bright sunshine and temperatures in the mid 60s.

Ft. Zachary Taylor

Ft. Zachary Taylor is noteworthy because it remained in Union hands during the Civil War. The fort played a key role in maintaining the blockade of Gulf cities during the war. Although the fort never saw direct combat, casualties due to disease, especially typhus and yellow fever, were high.

The Infamous 10-holer

Poor sanitation and some of the attendant opportunities for mosquitoes to breed contributed to the disease problem. The above "10-holer" latrine was supposed to benefit from tidal flushing. Unfortunately, tidal flux in Key West is minimal. The result was stench, disease, and death.

Fritz & Me

On Monday evening Will and Fritz arrived. Tuesday they accompanied me, along with a famous author, to tour Ernest Hemingway's Key West residence.

Hemingway House

We toured the house and then the garden. While in the garden, the famous author was lamenting not having seen the spot where Papa Hemingway actually did his writing. Not to worry- the studio was in an outbuilding that was part of the tour.

The Hemingway Studio and Writing Desk

My favorite part was the polydactyl cats.

Don't my extra toes look elegant?

That Florida Chill

2010-02-18T10:17:00.016-06:00

We have been in Florida for a week now. Our annual visit to Key West has traditionally taken place in mid to late January. People kept telling us that the weather would be warmer if we would visit just a couple of weeks later- so this year we did. It's as cold as I have ever experienced here- but that's still way warmer than Chicago, and we're having a very good time.

Last Friday, we stayed close to Miami in the morning, as we were picking our friend Michael up wt the airport at noon. We decided that Key Biscayne would be the ideal way to stay close to the city while getting to experience a bit of nature. We climbed the lighthouse, watched birds along the beach, and wandered through the scrub.

Royal Tern (Thalasseus maximus)
Because one good tern deserves another

The park is maintained in part through private donations. Some famous, not famous, and infamous donors are remembered on bricks lining the walkway.

Famous Donors

Even though the weather was a bit chilly, we managed to see a few insects.

A tree hopper (Membracidae)
Especially for Bug Girl
Update: Umbonia crassicorns. Thanks, Ted

Just offshore lies Stiltsville, a group of buildings on pilings that plays a role in several Carl Hiaasen novels, including Stormy Weather.

Stiltsville

We collected Michael from the airport and ventured down to the Everglades for a stroll at the Royal Palm area. There is a nice boardwalk that leads out into the sloughs.

Slough at the Royal Palm Area at Everglades National Park

The wildlife is rather habituated to humans in this area- so getting close photos is easy.

White Ibis (Eudocimus albus)

American Alligator (Alligator mississippiensis)

Green Heron (Butorides virescens)

Saturday morning it was off to Fairchild Gardens, still one of our favorite places in Miami. When I blogged about the place last year, somebody asked me if I had seen Atala butterflies. My response then was no, however this year we saw both an adult and a bunch of larvae.

Atala (Eumaeus atala)

The Atala was once nearly extinct in Florida. Widespread plantings of its host plants (cycads, including the native Florida Coontie) have resulted in a dramatic comeback of this spectacular butterfly.

Atala larva on Coontie

After Fairchild Gardens, it was on to the Overseas Highway and Key West where we were to meet up with fellow bloggers UrSpo and Will along with a bunch of other friends. More to follow.

My Anti Valentine

2010-02-14T07:14:00.002-06:00

Numerous blog friends have expressed disdain for this holiday. This is for them.

Valentine Greetings from
2122 N Clark St. Chicago, IL

My Top 10 Insect Moments of 2009

2010-02-07T20:42:00.005-06:00

I did one of these last year, and have been meaning to post someting similar for 2009. Looking back, it was a great year for working with insects! My top 10 insect moments are:

10. Watching blowflies and carrion beetles help decompose a deer carcass.

9. Checking out Becker's White during the spring bloom at Anza Borrego State Park in California.

8. Witnessing Allegheny Mound Ants and Edward's Haristreaks in Michigan and releasing Karner Blue butterflies in Ohio during the Imperiled Butterfly Conservation and Management workshop hosted by the Toledo Zoo.

7. Tiger hunting in the City of Chicago.

6. Photographing Karner Blues and Dusted Skippers in the dunes and swales of northwest Indiana.

5. Photographing the endangered Miami Blue at Bahia Honda State Park in the Florida Keys.

4. Getting much better photographs of tiger beetles at Willcox Playa.

3. Photographing grasshoppers and tiger beetles (and a diamondback rattlesnake!) with FC in the wilds of Pure Florida.

2. Doing a whole lot of butterfly conservation.

1. Photographing Raja Brooks Birdwings, and a whole bunch of other exotic insects, in the Cameron Highlands of Malaysia.

Camembert on a Winter Saturday

2010-02-02T08:21:00.008-06:00

What better way to spend a very cold winter weekend than by making cheese? I love the fact that even a fairly involved cheese like Camembert has such simple ingredients: milk, bacterial culture, mold culture, rennet, and salt. I've previously blogged about the milk that I use for this cheese. This milk requires planning ahead, as it's only available every other week. I order the milk on a Monday, and pick it up a week later. Then I need to keep it in the fridge until the following weekend, because the process takes too long to do in the evening when I get home from work. It's about 8 hours start to finish- though this is mostly long periods of letting it sit, interspersed with brief bouts of activity.

The bacterial and mold cultures do a lot of complex things to the milk (including imparting a lot of the good flavors that will be present in the cheese). I use two species of mold in my Camembert, Pennicillium candidum and Geotrichum candidum. Together these will help form the rind, particularly the white, powdery coating on the outside of the cheese. The rennet is a solution of enzymes, that include a mixture of enzymes that degrade proteins. They clip the long molecular chains of casein, the primary protein in milk. When this happens, the casein transforms from a fairly spherical form to a more linear chain. These chains do not stay in solution well, but form a gel-like semi-solid network. That's the curd. The milk in the photo above has already been converted into curd.

Traditionally, rennet was a mixture of digestive enzymes obtained from the lining of a cow's stomach. I use rennet obtained from a fungal source, so my cheese is OK for vegetarians.

When the curd first forms, it's a single custard-like mass in the pot. I use a long knife to cut it into cubes. Most recipes then involve a period of very gentle stirring. As the curds are stirred, the shrink and give of liquid- that's the whey.The curd cubes become progressively less fragile through this process.

When the curds are ready, I let them sit for a few minutes and settle to the bottom of the pot. This lets me pour a lot of the whey off of them. I ladle the curds into plastic molds. The molds have open tops and bottoms, and small holes all over the sides. As the curds sit in the mold, more liquid is given off and drains awhey (sorry). The curds knit together into a solid mass. For five hours, my role in the process is to flip the molds over hourly. At the end of this time, the rounds of unripe cheese are unmolded, lightly salted, and moved into a wine chiller for aging.

I had my first ever molding failure on this batch. The upper right round of cheese fell apart during the first flip. It will still be good, but I won't serve it to guests (more for me!). This cheese will be ready in about 4 weeks. I wish I had been able to start this batch two weeks earlier in the milk purchasing cycle. Unfortunately, I will not have any home made cheese ready to take with me when I go down to Florida late next week.

Happy Squirrel Appreciation Day

2010-01-21T07:05:00.003-06:00

It's Squirrel Appreciation Day. Celebrate accordingly.

Really Metallic Wood Boring Beetles

2010-01-14T07:51:00.005-06:00

How about another post that links archaeology and entomology? While in New England for the Christmas and New Year's holidays, Leon and I took an afternoon in Boston to visit the Museum of Fine Arts. One object in particular caught my eye. This necklace was excavated by the Harvard University-Museum of Fine Arts expedition to Giza. It was found in the coffin of Impy, who was the chief royal architect during the reign of Pharaoh Pepy II. Pepy II ruled from about 2278 BCE to about 2184 BCE, and is thought to have been the longest ruling king in ancient Egypt. The piece caught my eye because the oval gold pieces around the outer edge of the necklace are in the form of buprestid (metallic wood boring) beetles.

In which I pretend to be an archaeological entomologist

2010-01-09T22:18:00.011-06:00

Shortly before Christmas, I was contacted by everyone's favorite gay archaeologist, Homer. He was working a dig in Tucson and had been uncovering artifacts from the 1890s. One of them was an old can that contained a bunch of dirt mixed with insects. If he sent me a sample, would I be willing to try to identify them? Ever up for a challenge, I said yes. A few days later, a vial of dirt mixed with insect parts arrived. I dug out some equipment and got to work.

Leg

The sample contained a bunch of fragments from what appeared to be a fairly large kind of beetle. From the size, color, and location, I had a pretty good idea right away what I was working with. The leg fragments (femora and tibiae only) were the first big clue. The tibia (straight, narrow section above) is about 6.5 mm long and the femur (the more oval secction) is about 7 mm long. They come from a pretty big bug. The metallic green coloring is distinctive. There were what looked like fragments of ribbon of the same color. These were sternites, the ridges of the abdominal segments.

Sternites

The sample also included a number of oddly shaped plate-like structures that were not metallic green. These were pronota. the pronotum is the dorsal covering of an insect's thorax.

Pronotum

By this point, I was pretty sure that I was working with parts of a biggish scarab beetle called a fig eater (Cotinis mutabilis) . They are bright green with a metallic luster below, and are green and brown with a matte luster above. I have several in my collection, including a couple collected right in Homer's back yard. When I compared the legs and pronota to those on my mounted specimens, they matched beautifully.

Cotinis ~~mirabilis~~ mutabilis
The pronotum is just towards the head from the pin

Cotinis ~~mirabilis~~ mutabilis showing the metallic green underside

Fig eaters range from Texas to California and south into Mexico. In the Tucson area they are a common species and fly from July to September during the summer monsoons. As their name implies, they eat fruit, especially if it's overripe or fermenting. I wonder if they had not entered the can to find fruit or fruit residues inside. Something was probably attracting them to the can, since I found so many remains. I recovered 18 pronota from the sample, which means that there were at least that many beetles in the can at one point.

In Which I Shoot My Universe

2009-12-27T20:57:00.011-06:00

Steve's blog suggests that he is out of town. Who will take over his efforts to document the beauty of Cape Ann for the blogosphere? Guess I'll have to step in. As is our wont, Leon and I drove around Cape Ann just after Christmas.

We begain at White Beach. A small nor'easter was winding down. The surf was decent and the wind quite high. Rain early in the trip limited photography, and the low tide kept the surf from being as spectacular as I would have liked.

We saw ducks off of the Magnolia shore, but the low tide and wave action kept them too far off shore to see well.

At Eastern Point, the wind kept us off the breakwater

Waves kept crashing over the rocks. Gale force winds made it difficult to hold the camera steady. I had hoped to see purple sandpipers here, but if they were around, they were further down the breakwater.

We did see them over at Bass Rocks. Photography conditions were generally poor today- however bad weather often means that harlequin ducks are just offshore at Marmion Way in Rockport. They were!

Over at Halibut Point we saw the strangest water creatures of the day. Surfers in a nor'easter off of a very rocky shoreline are a sign of complete insanity.

Holiday Creations

2009-12-25T21:35:00.006-06:00

I've been working for some time now for cheese to accompany me home for the holidays. This is the first year that I have been able to create a cheese flight for Christmas Eve. I began a blue cheese way back last summer, a Gouda around Labor Day, and a Camembert just a few weeks ago. I was especially eager to try the Gouda, as it's the first one that I have made with the Guernsey milk (verdict: better, but still not what I'm looking for).

The Flight (l-r): Karner Bleu, Gouda, Camembert

Chilmark Girl gave me a beautiful porcelain tray for my birthday. It set the cheese flight off nicely.

Jan Hagels

I made Jan Hagels again this year- a perennial favorite (the link will get you to the recipe)

Th Sally Lunn bread came out much better than last year.

Today, Chilmark Girl was typically adept in creating a Christmas feast featuring herbed rack of lamb. I've only been home a few days, and have already eaten far too much. I hope all of my readers have had a fine day.

Media Madness

2009-12-23T11:11:00.001-06:00

I'm not happy withthe headline. Otherwise OK.

Sssnake Sssurgery

2009-12-17T13:33:00.006-06:00

Connie, one of our corn snakes, managed to get herself into a bit of a pickle. We're still investigating how she got herself inside of the tag in one of our volunteer's shirt.

She couldn't move herself forward through the tag, because it was too narrow. Her scales prevented her from backing out. As you can see in the photo above, she was wedged pretty tightly in the tag- so tightly that her eyes had started to bulge.

I was called to bring my small pointy dissecting scissors. I usually use them to clip small pieces of butterfly wings when I need them for DNA analysis. They were perfect for this job. Jamie did the cutting of the tag. I did photo documentation (apologies for the quality- these were done with my cell phone).

Just another day at the office. All ends well.

Dragonflies of the Malay Peninsula

2009-12-15T21:57:00.010-06:00

Work has been intense the last couple of weeks, hence my lack of posts. I really wanted to get one final post of photos from Malaysia up. Throughout my trip, I was astonished at the beauty and diversity of dragonflies that I saw. They were everywhere, even in really urban spots like Penang.

Neurothemis fluctuans

Family Coenagronidae, possibly Enallagma sp.

Green Skimmer (Orthetrum sabina)

We saw dragonflies in nearly every color of the rainbow, however red was particularly well represented.

In the mangrove forest

Near the hot springs
(Possibly Trithemis kirbyi)

I don't know what most of the species were, perhaps Amila will stop by to help with identification. My favorite sighting was at the tea plantation.

I really enjoyed the dragonfly viewing and photography, even though I didn't see the two species I most wanted a look at on this trip: the Dawn Dropwing (Trithemis aurora) and Neurobasis chinensis. Guess I'll just have to go back some time.

Random Bits from Thanksgiving Week

2009-11-28T19:14:00.007-06:00

I've been getting caught up from all of my travels. Unfortunately, I did not quite succeed before we plunged headlong into the holiday season.

Nearly a year ago, I blogged about my first attempt to make blue cheese. What I never said later was that it was a complete bust. A couple of weeks after I started it, it had become nasty and slimy. A few months later, I tried again, with much better results. This time I used the good milk (raw milk from Guernsey cattle), and that made all the difference. I opened the first of two wheels for Thanksgiving and was pleased with the results. The cheese still needs a bit of work. The humidity in the cave was a bit too low while I aged it. I think that I can easily fix that. The flavor is surprisingly good, so I'm optimistic for future attempts at this cheese. I started another batch last weekend.

Last weekend we also had our annual seed mixing party. This year, we did not gather quite so many species, and a lot of the seeds were already cleaned, so we finished very quickly.

Thanksgiving was to have been a quiet affair for just Leon and I. At his request, we had ham instead of turkey. The day before Thanksgiving, Adam posted on his Facebook page that he and his partner Andy would be flying from Tucson to O'Hare the next morning and driving up to their farm in Wisconsin. This would take them a mere 2 minutes from our house. We had them over for pie (and some of the blue cheese). Although they were not able to stay nearly as long as we would have liked, it was great to get to see them both. Two minutes after they left, I realized that we should have gotten a photo.

The day after Thanksgiving is traditionally the day we put up our outdoor holiday lights'

Both yesterday and today have been very beautiful. We went for a walk at the Fen this afternoon. We took a bag of seeds from the seed mixing party with us and scattered some prairie goodness around. Tomorrow, off to visit Gary and Gary Lee's farm to get some manure for the vegetable garden.

Jungle Strawberries. With Tea.

2009-11-22T09:54:00.022-06:00

The closeout of the Malaysian trip was a day and a half in the Cameron Highlands. They are north of Penang on the mainland peninsula. Because they are at a higher elevation (about 6,500'), the climate is pleasantly cool and less steamy than it was at sea level in Penang. The cool moist climate is perfect for agriculture. The Cameron Highlands are especially known for growing strawberries and tea. Our hotel in the highlands was called Strawberry Park. More about the tea later.

We had arrived around 8:00 at night. Some folks went out black lighting that night. It was raining so I opted to stay in. Rain usually kills black lighting very thoroughly, and I couldn't see driving an hour each way to have nothing come into the sheet. Although the experience wasn't great, reports are that it ended up being pretty good. I keep being startled by the many ways in which the tropics differ from what I am used to. I did get up early and wander around the hotel grounds before sunup. It turns out that the lights of the hotel turned it into a Malaysian version of a magic gas station, so I had a pretty good time.

Jungle trail- butterfly paradise

After breakfast, we piled into the bus and drove downhill through increasingly lush rain forest. Our goal was a mountain stream. We wandered up the banks of the stream enjoying a tropical riot of butterflies and beetles.

Tropical Skipper

The Penang butterfly house employs a bunch of folks from this part of the country to collect small number of female butterflies to use as breeding stock. They were waiting along the stream for us as guides. Several of them had obviously used the old collector's trick of peeing in the damp sand on the stream banks. Dozens of tropical butterflies flew in and began sipping salts from the sand. I got to see a Green Dragontail. I've been aware of them since I was a little boy and have always wanted to see one. I got just a fleeting glimpse and no photo- but that was enough.

A Jezebel Sulphur (Delias sp.)

Black and White Helen Swallowtail (Papilio nephelus)

Blue Triangle (Graphium sarpedon)

Not all of the beautiful insects here were butterflies (Cicindela aurulenta)

Lunch was in a small river village, and consisted of the now familiar Chinese food, including lots of seafood. After lunch, we stopped at a highland produce market.

There was lots of stuff for sale in addition to fruits and vegetables. The cut flowers were particularly colorful, though there were some questionable identifications.

Liatris- from the prairies of North America to Malaysia
But it definitely isn't lavender

And here we come to the part of the post that is especially for tea connoisseur extraordinaire UrSpo. It was now about 4:00 in the afternoon- tea time. What better way to spend it than at a tea plantation? We had the opportunity to stroll among the tea bushes, then had tea and scones with jam and cream at the tea shop. A delightful close to the afternoon.

Tea Plantation

Tea (Camellia sinensis)

Evening represented my really dumb move of the trip. We went black lighting, and it was very good. I left my camera in the hotel room. Therefore, I can only tell you about the stag beetle with the huge mandibles, or the inchworm moth that was the size of a swallowtail butterfly, or the riotously yellow and hot pink colored tiger moth that looked like a candy wrapper. They were pretty cool.

The following day, was our journey back to Penang in preparation for the return home. We spent the morning winding our way down the mountainside, getting more beautiful views of the Malaysian rain forest. We stopped along a river where hot springs at the water's edge seep into the stream. In addition to the usual stream side insects (such as dragonflies and tiger beetles) male butterflies visit this area to puddle. They are sipping salts that the hot springs deposit. This behavior is thought to help with sperm production.

The real draw here are the dozens of Rajah Brooks' Birdwing butterflies that come to puddle here. This is another species that I have been aware of since childhood and have long wanted to see. Seeing them here in this abundance was definitely the way to go. It was the perfect ending to my visit to the Cameron Highlands.

Rajah Brooks' Birdwing (Trogonoptera brookiana)

Each of these butterflies has an 8" wingspan.