Slugyard

Canada Geese Chicks

Mike — Fri, 17 May 2013 16:25:21 +0000

Last week we saw this Canada Geese family grazing along the banks of the Willamette River. According to The Sibley Guide to Bird Life & Behavior, male and female geese often stay together for life, and some one year old geese actually return to their parents after nesting season for a while. They have strong family bonds.

Newly hatched geese don’t need their parents to feed them. They are already able to feed themselves, as you can see above.

Also, like other water ducks and geese, they are covered with a down coat. Other than the black beak, they don’t resemble their parents much at all.

The male goose was being especially protective while we were watching them. He was keeping a sharp eye on us and…

…he was constantly contracting and extending his neck in our direction. I took this as a threat! But what were the geese so afraid of?

The entire 3rd grade in my son’s school! What a treat we had on the class hike through Maddax Woods.

Hunter in Salal

Mike — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 12:00:13 +0000

This Salal plant (just past the Lady Fern) sits next to our front path. Today my wife noticed something sitting in it (those are her legs!).

A snake! Most likely a Northwestern Garter Snake. Garter snake colors are extremely variable and this one looked beautiful to me.

These snakes like to eat slugs and worms which are plentiful in my yard. I prefer to design shelter for predators than to spread poison to control the slugs- you can see that a lot of the Salal leaves have holes in them, so I need some help.

As I got closer with my camera the snake stuck its tongue out!

At first I thought it was trying to threaten me. But after taking a peek in Passionate Slugs & Hollywood Frogs by Patricia K. Lichen I learned that the snake is actually just gathering information about me! Its tongue traps chemicals in the air and it then sticks the tongue back in its mouth and into a sensory organ that helps it understand what it is smelling and tasting.

I dared to get a bit closer but it quickly disappeared into the brush- hopefully finding some more slugs to eat.

Leafhopper on Oceanspray

Mike — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 23:46:32 +0000

I found a Blue-green Leafhopper on my Oceanspray shrub.

Leafhoppers eat leaves and excrete honeydew just like aphids- though I haven’t seen any ants farming these colorful insects.

Yes, that big white thing with the black dot in the middle IS an eye. Strange, huh?

This is the whole Oceanspray shrub (with Salal and Meadowfoam in the foreground). I pruned it hard during the winter and it is exploding this spring- more Leafhopper habitat…

Ant Farmers Return

Mike — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 12:00:39 +0000

One of my Peony plants is getting ready to bloom which brings out the ants! Ants like the taste of peony buds just before they bloom. Once the flower opens the ants tend to disappear. Apparently an old wives’ tale (debunked by the Heartland Peony Society) says that peonies NEED ants to flower. Not true. Nor do the ants hurt them- they are just there for a drink. Let them be.

Here’s a bud on one of my rose bushes. See the insect under the bud? My first Aphid of the year- I’m less excited about these critters, but I never notice them do any real damage to my plants. Besides, I know Hoverfly larvae and Ladybugs will start appearing soon to gobble them up.

This is one of my Highbush Cranberry plants. And no, the leaves aren’t supposed to look like that. They are folding over themselves which tells me that something might be living underneath them…

More aphids! But this time the aphids aren’t alone. What else is there with them?

Ants- of course. Ants also like to drink honeydew that the aphids excrete (fancy word for poop or pee) after feeding on the plants. So, the ants farm the aphids! Even though a few of the Highbush leaves are wilted, most aren’t. I’m still OK with letting the aphids remain so I can watch this cool farm in action.

Root Maggot Fly?

Mike — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 03:18:26 +0000

This fly was standing on a leaf in my garden today. It was smaller than a House Fly and I wasn’t sure what it was.

Any thoughts? My best guess is a Root Maggot Fly (family Anthomyiidae) based on this photo on BugGuide. If so, this fly probably feeds on nectar. When it was a larva it would have fed on plant roots as its name suggests.

Snail Gathering

Mike — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 17:25:53 +0000

This Violet plant is growing all over my yard. I usually rip it out since it reseeds and spreads VERY quickly. This one was actually growing on the edge of my front yard path. As I bent down to rip it out I noticed something in it.

Two snails! And large ones at that. I’m not sure if they mated, were about to mate, if one was trying to eat the other, or even whether they are the same species. The shells are similar, but definitely have different patterns.

I am guessing that this one is a Brown Gardensnail which was imported from Europe. Note that the whorls are on the right side, as is almost always the case with a snail.

The other one is also a righty. The black band along the bottom of the shell is confusing me a bit. Maybe it is a Brown Gardensnail. Either way, it was large!

March Flies in March

Mike — Sun, 31 Mar 2013 17:46:38 +0000

These two strange bugs were crawling on a Salal branch yesterday in my yard. I’ve never seen anything like these before.

A closer look didn’t help me much. It sort of looked like an ant to me (maybe a queen or a male?), but the antennae didn’t seem right. Ant antennae are usually bent.

The view from above didn’t help much either. The antennae here look a lot like fly antennae though. Could it be a fly?

I followed one of them while it moved around. After poking it with my camera a couple of times (by accident of course!) it started to flap its wings.

Looks like only two wings, right? Even better evidence for it being a fly. But beyond that I was stumped. It isn’t in any of my insect books. So where do you turn for a Bug ID when nothing else works? Yup, BugGuide! I posted it there and got an answer within about an hour. This is a March Fly, specifically a female Bibio xanthippes according to this Oregon State website. Interestingly, the male looks a little different- mostly because it has larger fly-like eyes.

This is the patch of Salal that I found them in. Explore your yard!

Plants and Bees with Fur

Mike — Sat, 30 Mar 2013 20:12:04 +0000

The Red-twig Dogwoods in my rain garden are beginning to grow leaves again. A small insect was sitting atop one of them yesterday.

Two things catch my eye here. First, I always forget how hairy bees actually are. This one has a full coat of fur! Second, the dogwood leaf also has a carpet of hair. Is this meant to keep it warm, or maybe discourage animals from eating it? Or possibly to keep it cool in hot weather? I’m not sure. Maybe all of these?

As for the bee, I’m not sure what specific kind this was. It was small, so it wasn’t a Honey Bee. Based on a few photos I found on BugGuide, I believe this was probably a Mining Bee. These bees like to “visit early-blooming flowers” according to Field Guide to Insects and Spiders of North America by Arthur V. Evans. They dig a vertical burrow in the ground where they lay an egg with some pollen around it.

Flower Flies Swarm

Mike — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 14:00:44 +0000

A swarm of these insects was in my backyard over the weekend. They must have “hatched” into adults someplace nearby.

What is it?

It is an Elongate Flower Fly like I posted 2 years ago. How do we know it’s a fly and not a wasp or bee? I see a few clues:

It has gigantic eyes. It is amazing how big the eyes are compared to the rest of its body.
It has two short antennae.
There is a blob (technical term) under the front of the wing. See it? These are halteres, which are a second set of wings that are very small- they help the fly balance while flying.

I’ve Never Heard of Thrips

Mike — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 14:00:54 +0000

Finds like this are why I love producing Slugyard. I was looking at my elderberry to see if the ant nest had moved again when I saw a little red thing crawling on one of the branches. It was VERY small. The branch in the photo above is probably only 3/4″ wide or so. Below is a blown-up image of the red “thing”.

What in the world? I searched and searched my books and couldn’t figure out what this was. Finally, I found a suggestion on a website and I now believe that this is a Thrip larva. Yes, a Thrip.

Some Thrips cause a lot of economic damage to crops. I have no idea if this is one of them but I tend to doubt it since no plants in the area look damaged. According to Field Guide to Insects and Spiders of North America by Arthur V. Evans, many Thrip species live on dead branches and seek out confined spaces. I would imagine that there are a lot of them living inside the hollowed out elderberry branches.

Slugyard

Canada Geese Chicks

Related posts:

Hunter in Salal

Related posts:

Leafhopper on Oceanspray

Related posts:

Ant Farmers Return

Related posts:

Root Maggot Fly?

Related posts:

Snail Gathering

Related posts:

March Flies in March

Related posts:

Plants and Bees with Fur

Related posts:

Flower Flies Swarm

Related posts:

I’ve Never Heard of Thrips