I didn’t expect to see a lot of insects but it was sunny today so I went for a walk along “my” stretch of the Van Duzen River. I saw exactly two flies, a lone wolf spider and some flying things too tiny and far away to identify. I did see a couple of creatures […]
Anthony Westkamper
Posted inLife + Outdoors
HumBug: Best of the Bugs
After almost five years doing a weekly blog it had to happen. With rainy, cold weather and the fact that over the last several years I’ve already written about most of the noteworthy entomological subjects hereabouts, this week I didn’t see any new critters worth photographing or writing about. So I think I’ll do what […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
HumBug: Preserved for Posterity
I recently did something I haven’t done in a long time. I went looking for glow worms in my backyard. Locally I’ve found them to be amazingly common in the leaf litter beneath our local redwoods but lately they had been absent from our usual haunts. This time though, I was greeted by at least […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
HumBug: Revisiting Old (Poisonous) Friends
Back on Oct 2., 2016, I posted an article on the infestation of western black widow (Latrodactus hesperus) spiders at the Carlotta Post Office. Just this week my wife and I had occasion to visit the area again. Guess what? As we strolled along the walkway directly in front of the post office, I nearly […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
HumBug: Late Butterflies, Hornets and Moths
A quick walk along the Van Duzen River turned up one each variegated meadowhawk and shadow darner dragonflies neither of which allowed me to get close enough to get a photo. It’s OK, I have hundreds of shots of the meadowhawk and dozens of the shadow. We got glimpses of a California sister butterfly, a […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Not What it Looks Like
A harmless imposter Being the local “bug guy,” I was recently asked about a spider that looked “almost exactly like a black widow” but lacked the distinctive red hourglass on the underside of its abdomen. This is a spider with which I am very familiar. They were nearly everywhere where I grew up in Pacifica, […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
HumBug: Spiders at School
I recently did some walkabout lectures at a local middle school. The format was to walk around the campus for about 45 minutes and discourse on the various organisms we encountered. I did this six times with different groups. Aside from the stationary trees and plants, the organisms we encountered most reliably were the little […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
HumBug: An Innocent Imposter
Being the local “Bug Guy” I was recently asked about a spider that looked “almost exactly like a black widow,” but lacked the distinctive red hourglass on the underside of its abdomen. This is a spider with which I am very familiar. They were nearly everywhere where I grew up in Pacifica, California. I hadn’t […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
HumBug: Ashes and Dancers
While I was doing a bit of outside work atop a ladder, several tiny chalk white dots flew with slow grace. They often appeared almost magically as they meandered through shafts of sunlight and then disappeared into the shadows. They were out of range of my cameras and I was too busy to investigate. The […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
HumBug: Late Bloomers Get All the Action
Flowers being few and far between lately, nectar-sipping insects are also scarce. A few straggling rabbit brush plants concentrate relict butterflies, having completed their reproductive cycle living out their lives on instincts alone. I saw five species today, only two of which allowed me to get close enough to take their pictures. Tattered wing margins […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
HumBug: Fall along the River
There are next to no flowers blooming now. Most adult insects have lived out their lives, their eggs and larvae sequestered in anticipation of winter. The showiest life is along the river. The large body of moving water moderates the temperatures and many species employ this time of reduced predator numbers to complete their lifecycles […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
HumBug: Hello, Handsome
While moving firewood, I happened on a small beetle with an interesting pronatum. Its orange thorax was flared outward. A quick look up in Pacific Northwest Insects showed me it was a handsome fungus beetle” (Aphorista lactus). I’ve never seen the words “handsome” and “fungus” in the same sentence before. No accounting for taste, I […]