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 […]
damselflies
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 […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Out of the Water and into the Sky
Mayflies on the Van Duzen Getting a late start, I made my way down to the river after the sun had gone from the canyon. I noted many tiny flying insects 6 inches on either side of the water’s edge. A spotted sandpiper (Actitis macularius) strolled up the minute beach pecking here and there as […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
HumBug: Damsels vs. Dragons
At a party I was recently asked the difference between damselflies and dragonflies. Although close relatives (order odonata) that live very similar lives, there are some differences. Both groups spend the majority of their lives as aquatic larvae breathing water. They are all hunters but with varying specialties. Some hide in the detritus in the […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Dragonflies, Daubers and Friendly Moths
Dragonflies remembered Sometimes it takes a little excursion to get back home. A fond memory from childhood was watching eight spotted skimmer dragonflies (Libellula forensis) over the little creek at my great aunt’s and imagining them as World War I fighter planes in dogfights high overhead. I didn’t know their names or what their aerobatics […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
HumBug: Bugs While You Wait
When the lady at the tire store said it would be 45 minutes before my car was ready, I said, “Thank-you,” and headed for the door. On the way into the parking lot, I ‘d spied a drainage ditch that meanders through Fortuna. It was choked with willows, Himalaya berry vines, Queen Anne’s lace, and […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
On the Wing
Damsels in fall The unseasonably warm and dry weather seems to be allowing some species of insects to linger later in the year than I’ve seen before. Among them are two damselflies. I checked my archives and this is the latest date in the year I’ve ever noted either the rubyspot or California spreadwing (Archilestes […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
HumBug: Damsels in Fall
The unseasonably warm and dry weather seems to be to allowing some species of insects to linger later in the year than I’ve seen before. Among them are two damselflies. I checked my archives, and this is the latest date in the year I’ve ever noted either the rubyspot or California spreadwing (Archilestes californica). I […]
Posted inNews
HumBug: Water Babies
One of the most remarkable things about many insects is their ability to completely change their lifestyles through the process of metamorphosis. Like us, the most primitive insects start out as small copies of their adult parents. Their lifestyle will be the same throughout their entire lives as to where they live, what they eat […]
Posted inNews
HumBug: Bugs at the Refuge
After dropping off 20 years worth of household hazardous wastes, I rewarded myself on the way home (camera in hand of course) with a stroll through the Humboldt Bay National Wildlife Refuge. The neatly laid out and maintained gravel paths offer a great place to relax and soak up a bit of nature. There were […]
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HumBug: Neglected Damsels
Whenever I give a talk on dragonflies, I point out that there are two subgroups to the order Odonata. The dragonflies (anisoptera, which means “same wing”) and the damselfiles (zygoptera meaning “different wing”), which I am told refers to the sizes and shapes of the front and hind wings. I guess because they’re bigger and […]
Posted inNews
HumBug: Tourists
Two years ago in early June I got a “County Record” to my name. That’s what Odonata Central calls it when you are the first to report sighting a particular species of dragonfly or damselfly in a given county. You send in an identifiable photograph, the place and date. They evaluate your photo to assure […]