IBCM

Caution: If you are UrSpo, you may want to exercise caution when scrolling through this post. Other arachnophobes may also wish to exercise caution.

IBCM Participants at the University of Florida Natural Area

Greetings from the departure lounge at JFL International Airport. I'm awaiting my flight to Hong Kong and on to Malaysia. I have no idea what Internet access will be like from my Hotel in Penang. I plan to take lots of photos, and look forward to blogging about my trip.

I'm just back from the second installment of IBCM, the Imperiled Butterfly Conservation and Management Workshop. The first installment was last July at the Toledo Zoo. This week we were in Gainesville, Florida at The McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity. In addition to lots of lectures and demonstrations, we were treated to a tour of the Center and some visits to local natural areas.

Compactor Shelving at the McGuire Center
Each tray is full of pinned butterflies and moths


A tray full of pinned Arctiid moths


Dr. Tom Emmel shows the group a mounted series of Xerces Blues (Glaucopsyche xerces) This speces has been extinct since about 1940

We had several opportunities to visit the McGuire Center's Butterfly Rainforest.

Anartia sp.


The Clipper (Parthenos sylvia)
I hope to see this species in the wild in Malaysia

The workshop included visits to the University of Florida's natural area, and Morningside Nature Center in Gainesville. Both of these are restored Longleaf Pne habitats. I felt a bit like cedrorum as I visited the siets. Neither is home to Red-cockeaded Woodpeckers, but they were both lovely natural areas.

UF Natural Area
The wooded section in the background has not been burned.


Our host Jaret at the Morningside Nature Center

I got a few invertebrate photos at Morningside

More Signs of Spring

Through much of last weekend, sandhill cranes filled the skies on their northward migration up to Wisconsin. A friend once aptly compared their bugling calls to the sound of a Canada goose trying to warble.


The first crocus of the year have appeared outside of my window.


A jumping spider showed up on my breezeway. And the weather has been getting warmer and warmer. Tuesday was gorgeous- sunny, breezy and in the mid 70s. This weather invited another sign of spring- the annual prescribed burns on our prairies, woodlands and wetlands, including Bluff Spring Fen.


The Fen adjoins a cemetery. There was a burial on Tuesday morning, so we started in a remote corner of woodland in order to avoid disturbing the funeral. This is a section where the herbaceous layer has been coming back well following seeding. Because it's remote, it often goes unburned and we were starting to lose the progress we had made. It burned reasonably well, and I'm very glad that we got to it this year.




Did I mention it was breezy? The up side is that things burned extremely well this year. The down side is that this was the most physically demanding burn that I have ever participated in. It's now two days later and I can still feel the effects of the exertion. I was on flapper duty. In the photo immediately above, you can see Stuart (tan shirt) holding a flapper. It's a square of rubber on the end of a wooden rake handle. You flap it onto the flames to help confine the fire to the areas that you want burned. The breeze made the fire reluctant to die down when flapped. We worked very hard all day long, and I did little photography as a result.


Later in the afternoon, Rick (far right) ordered pizza- which was delivered right to the cemetery. It gives a whole new meaning to the Tombstone Pizza brand. What do you want on your Tombstone?

It was a good burn. It was wonderful to get to spend such a beautiful day outdoors in natural surroundings rather than at the office. Still, I'm glad it's over.

Caribbean Blue

The good ship Summit. Our cruise ship seen from above the town of Rosseau, Dominica

As I type this, I’m sitting out on the stern deck of a cruise ship accompanied by a rum punch, watching the island of Grenada recede behind us. We departed about a half hour ago. Don’t hate me.

Our adventure began on Saturday. We got up before dawn for the airport run, and both departed Chicago and arrived in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on time. We went directly to the cruise ship, so I haven’t had any time in Puereto Rico yet, though we will get a day of that at the end of the trip.

Orient Beach, St. Martin

We awoke Sunday morning in St. Martin. Plans to do a somewhat cheesy package tour caled "Spend the day aboard a pirate ship’ went awry. Instead, we took a taxi to the beach. I’ve been to St. Martin once before- it’s beautiful, sunny, and everything you’d associate with the Caribbean. I took a walk along the beach and saw some really pretty forktail damselflies- but only got a so-so picture.

Damselfly (Ishnura sp.) on Orient Beach

Lunch was interesting because I got to try a kind of food I’ve never had before. Someone (of Spo and Someone) got curried goat and let me have a bite. I did not regret my decision to get the jerk chicken wings and conch fritters.

After lunch, Spo and Someone went shopping. Leon went back to the shiop to read. I did what I do best. There was a hillside covered with cactus scrub and thorn bushes near the cruise ship terminal. I went exploring for arthropods. There were giant orb-weaving spiders there. They were quite pretty, the largest being about two inches across (the leg-span, not the body). I, of course, thought immediately of Urspo.

Obligatory giant spider shot for Urspo

This insect adventure had me seeing lots of sulphur and blue butterflies, and a really cute (but completely camera shy) hairstreak butterfly. It’s also the source of the greates frustration of the trup to date. Remember my shopping list? The blue-singed grasshopper can be found on St Martin. Yep, I saw it. I didn’t even just see it- I caught one. Had it in my net and everything. It escaped as I was attemting to transfer it into the jar. I haen’t been quite right since then.

The sun is sinking lower in the sky. My glass is just about empty. The Caribbean Sea bleow me is indigo blue, peppered with frothy whitecaps. Life is so good, that I think I’ll wait until later to post about our stop at Dominica.

Antilles Pintkoe

Rodger has inspired me to expand my tropical shopping list. This is the Antilles Pinktoe tarantula, a species endemic to the Lesser Antilles. This photo is from the National Zoo's web site. Typically the abdomen and legs of this species are redder. They are quite beautiful and I would really love to see one.

Hugs to UrSpo.

Update: Now that I've had my fun with Spo, I'll give one bit on additional info. Although this species is endemic to the Lesser Antilles, its endemism is actually much narrower than that. It's found only on the island of Martinique. As we will not be stopping at that island on this trip, neither I nor Spo stand much of a chance of actually encountering one. I'm sure that I have now made myself the target for some sort of retaliatory action in the upcoming week.

Toilet Spiders -Take Deux

So I did the debunking of the toilet spider urban myth gig. Turns out, I was interviewed by host Don Wildman for the webcast portion of The History Channel's Cities of the Underworld. The piece will not be posted on The History Channel's website until January or February. I'll post a link when it becomes available. The interview was a lot of fun- very different than anything I've done before. We did multiple takes of things (a large number in some cases). Don was great to work with. He has a great self-deprecating sense of humor. At one point between filming, he was joking about the difficulty in maintaining his very deliberate unshaven look. My response: "nice scruff."

In addition to the debunking, we looked at some of the other creepier critters that we have. I hope that the stuff with the hissing cockroaches gets in because the host was definitely grossed out by them. It was pretty funny.

Some days I particularly love my job.