Bits Of Nature

The last time I wrote I asked for suggestions on what to name my story. I was up against my self-imposed deadline and I didn’t have a name. I knew if I let it rattle around in my head long enough I would come up with something and that’s what happened. Since I asked you twice (once in the beginning and once at the end) what I should do with all of my left over photographs, I decided I would title it What Am I Gonna Do? And then I got some great title suggestions from some of you. Life’s Bugs and Name That Bug were two, but the one I liked the best was submitted by that beautiful younger sister of mine, Phyllis. Bits of Nature, she suggested. 

What a great title! And I have the perfect place to use that title too. We will use it now, on this one, because it is the perfect name and the perfect answer to what to do with all my extra photos. 

These are damselflies. 

Damselflies fold their wings back along their body whereas the dragonfly holds its wings out to the sides. Many species of damselflies are sexually dimorphic. Isn’t that interesting!

“Yeah, okay, but I don’t know what that means,” you say.

I know, right! I didn’t either. I had to look it up. So let me save you the trouble. Sexually dimorphic means that boys and girls look different beyond that fact that they are boys and girls. And this happens quite often in nature, I just didn’t know there was a name for it. A good example of sexually dimorphic would be in the world of birds. Male pheasants are bigger than females and get lots of pretty, brightly colored  feathers. 

There is still trumpet honeysuckle blooming.

Heart shaped leaves. Chinese yam, maybe? If it is, it’s invasive.

Elderberry.

I think this is a plant disease of some kind and it’s on wild grapes.

Squirrel. It’s the same one. First feeding then mid-jump as he ran away.

This tree gets flower bells on it. I know that this looks like the flower of the persimmon tree, but I’ve never seen any persimmons on this particular tree.

Bull thistle with lots of sugar on it. Okay, it’s not real sugar, not sugar like you and I know sugar, but the bugs think it’s sugar. We call it pollen. 

Next we have a bird and because of his distinctive markings, I could identify him as an Eastern kingbird.

This is a rush but I don’t know which one.

Soldier beetles on some kind of a milkweed. I only call it a milkweed because I picked a leaf and it exuded a white sap, but after searching for it on line for a while, I couldn’t find it. 

Moth mullein. Did you know that this was once considered an invasive plant but now it is naturalized? Plants or even animals are classified invasive when they have adverse or harmful effects on native plants and animals.

Colorado has moth mullein listed as a noxious weed. That’s the same as invasive.

How about one more cool fact about moth mullein, can you stand it?

Although there are not many things that this plant is good for, it has long been known to be an effective cockroach repellent. 

Redheaded woodpecker on a light pole. 

Oh my goodness. The rain came down fast and hard. Look at the splash of the truck ahead of us!

This little ladybug has got something all over him — her? I don’t know if he was in the pollen of some flower or another or if some predatory insect has laid eggs on him. I know that happens sometimes! Mostly with bees and spiders, although I suppose it can happen elsewhere in nature. 

This is that milkweed flower again. The flowers don’t open very far.

Redwing blackbird. Hey! I know a couple of birds!

Even the poison ivy gets sweet smelling flowers on them!

The girls and I interrupted someone’s lunch. This is a turkey vulture snacking on a ‘tired’ possom (and I know you don’t want to see the possom!)

Speckled kingsnake. No, I’m not scared, he’s dead. 

I spent quite a while trying to decide if this is a dustywing or a cloudwing and decided I can’t decide. They look very similar to me. 

You know… the bugs see us. This guy watched me the whole time. It’s just a beetle of some sort.

This is a jumping spider and after chasing him around for a while, trying to get a picture of him, he turns around and faces me. This is his take that camera and shove it look.

I don’t know what this is either but it smelled so pretty and the ants were all over it!

The first ripening of the raspberries. Ginger ate this one! She likes berries of all kinds whereas Itsy doesn’t really care for berries at all. 

On our walking routes is a couple of mulberry trees too. The purple splatters on the road were my first indication that the berries were ripe and even though there are no low branches that I can pick berries from, Ginger finds enough ripe ones that the cars miss or laying in he grass along the road.

Getting swallowed up by the tree!

I saw these things hanging from a little bush and after taking a picture I decided to open one up to see what was inside.

 It was only after snapping a photo or two of the filaments inside that I realize there was a colony of small red ants living in there and boy, were they upset! I put the halves back together and set it in the grass.

Fungi - fun guy!

A bumbler with crown vetch.

  I don’t know if this guy is a fly or a bee so it makes it hard to find out what he is. 

Sometimes my internet searches leave me frustrated. I Googled small black fly/bee with long antenna and pill bugs came up in the search. So there is a lot of garbage to weed through and sometimes I don’t have the patience. 

This guy is a sensitive brier or catclaw brier. It is in the mimosa family. Plants that belong to this genus are capable of rapid movement and the leaves will fold up when touched. The brier part comes in because it’s covered entirely in hooked barbs. 

Ladybugs. Do you know that there are over 500 species of ladybugs in North America! And a hard shell over the wings is called an elytra (elle-tron)?

Fleabane. That’s a small daisy type flower and I suspect that the bug on it is a ladybug nymph. 

Now this guy! You might think he’s some kind of a grasshopper and in a way he is. 

This is a baby katydid. They go through stages called instars where they shed their exoskeletons until they reach adulthood. 

“What’s the difference between nymph and instar?” you ask.

Well, at one time I thought there was a difference but all I can find in my Google searches today is that the two words are synonyms.

I don’t know what this is, but maybe when the flowers open I’ll be able to find out.

Another day, another redheaded woodpecker.

Although this road looks like it’s out in the middle of nowhere, it’s actually just off the Strip. With a narrow strip of woods on one side and the lake on the other, it feels like country to me. 

See the cluster of white flowers on the right? I knew what they were before I got there. 

They are beardtongues. They get that funny name because someone thought the flowers looked like open mouths with fuzzy tongues.

This is another in the Idontknow classification. It’s a bush and the flowers are little and smell nice.

♫The birds and the bees, ♪ the flowers and the trees. ♫♪

The lake side of the dam as seen through the trees. 

This is actually wild onion with a vine growing around him. Although it does look like wild garlic, the stems are much taller, the heads are larger and they come on a little bit later than the garlic. All of that plus they smell and taste like onion!

He’s watching me.

The little pearl crescents are pretty.

I hesitated to post another photo of a pearl crescent because I just posted one earlier in the week. I don’t see them every time I go out but I do photograph them every time I see them, which leads me to ask:

Do you get tired of seeing the same subject, whether it be flower or bug or critter, do you get tired of seeing it more than once? 

Hmmm. I wonder what message he’s trying to get across.

Well guys, this has gotten me about halfway through the photos that I want to show you — and we won’t talk about the weeks worth of photos still sitting in my camera.

What do you think?

Let’s call this one done!