HumBug Online

Spring is on the way. I saw my first trillium bloom of the year, and the daffodils and stone fruit trees are in full bloom. The last few sunny days have brought forth pollinators. I think it's kind of a chicken-and-egg problem. The flowers get pollinated by bugs. If the flowers aren't open the insects starve. If the flowers open and there are no insects, they don't get pollinated and don't set seed. The balance has been honed over millennia and everything works out. My rosemary is being serviced largely by the hirsute bees of the family anthrophora.
These fuzzy, stocky bees are a bit larger than honeybees and are quick, nervous fliers. They are “solitary bees,” which means they don't have workers maintaining a nest. Each female burrows into the ground, lays eggs and sets out provisions for them. After reaching their adult phase, they go on alone.

A quick trip to San Francisco a few weeks ago, when that was still possible yielded familiar creatures. At a rest area we saw at least three California tortoise shell butterflies frolicking in the sun. There were western box elder bugs on one of the picnic tables. They suck juices from box elders, maples and other trees.

Lacquering a dowel, I found half a dozen tiny beetles waiting for the chance to entomb themselves in the artificial amber. These are sap beetles. They are usually minute like this one, and different members of the family (nitidulidae) feed on various things including rotten fruit. Some years ago my strawberry patch was infested with a different species which are known to carry fungi on their legs which they introduce into the fruit, hastening its decay.

I had to remind myself it's still winter as I watched a mourning cloak (Nymphalis antiopa) and two smaller orange butterflies flutter by, too high and fast to get a photo of. The orange specimens were most likely rustic anglewings but there are several other locally common species which overwinter as adults, emerging on warm winter days. Painted ladies and tortoise shells, to name two.
Biology and entomological texts say this “strategy” gives species practicing it a jump start over others which spend the cold, barren months of winter completely dormant as eggs, larvae or pupas.

Walking along the road, I saw my first two milkmaids (Cardamine californica), the daffodil bulbs my friend gave me last fall, are starting to put up leaves and the pussy willows are budding out. They are all welcome reminders, spring is still in our future.  Despite the coolness of the day, there were quite a few small wolf spiders and a few unidentified flies sunning themselves on rocks near the river.

With rainy cold days suppressing entomological activity it put my assertion that there's always, ALWAYS something interesting to find outdoors to the test. So, camera in hand, I went looking.

The weather forecast said it would snow down to 1,000 feet elevation, so it was indeed cold out and there was very little activity above ground. But a quick tip of an old cinderblock showed three denizens often found there: a centipede, a Jerusalem cricket and a ground beetle.
These centipedes (Scolopocryptops gracilis) often exhibit maternal protective behavior.

There have been five major mass extinction events in the fossil record. Some folks claim the human race is causing the sixth right now. Dumping massive amounts of greenhouse gasses, saturating the world with never before seen chemicals and introducing all manner of non-native species willy nilly are touted as the major causes. 
I have a different perspective. As population inexorably increases, loss of species diversity is directly driven through the conversion of wild lands to agricultural lands necessary to support the increasing number of (human) mouths.

Some experts assert that the most common lifestyle in nature is that of parasitism. (Read Rachel Nuwer's interview with ecologist Kevin Lafferty "Parasitism is the Most Popular Lifestyle on Earth" for more on this.) The world of arthropods is no exception. I've mentioned before that mankind's deadliest opponent in nature is the synergistic combination of mosquitoes and the diseases they carry.
Our native species aren't vectors for the worst of the ailments but, locally, ticks can and do carry Lyme disease, which came to mind when we found a blood engorged female on our bed after the dog spent an evening there.