Nassella and the Cats

Nassella tenuissima (Mexican feather grass) is grown in my garden for its fine texture, beautiful seed heads that glow when backlit, and wonderful movement in the slightest breeze. The neighborhood cats (the ones that never leave their owners' yards) favor this plant as a bed. After repeated cat naps, the clumps of grass become squashed down, pretty much eliminating the previously mentioned positive qualities of the plant. At this point, it is good to cut back the Nassella, pull out any dead portions, and start over. That is, short of caging the cats.








Is N. tenuissima invasive? It self-seeds readily in the garden; often found growing in pavement cracks as shown here. It is also very easily pulled out. On the other hand, given the prodigious amount of seed it produces, very low percentage of those sprout in the garden. Maybe combing and discarding the seed before it ripens would cut down the self-sown numbers even more.

Hilltopping with the Humans

Another good place to walk is the Laguna Coast Wilderness Park, though we must oxymoronically drive there to walk, on an early Sunday the bugs and the plants and the fresh ocean air were worth it.

We parked our vehicle at gate 6, and proceeded to follow Laurel Canyon Trail, a pleasant stroll through grassy meadows, past sandstone outcrops and caves, punctuated by plenty of beetles crossing the path. The trail then begins to climb to an ultimate lovely overlook of the San Joaquin Hills Tollway to one side and the trail leading on to the other, a short spur that dead ends at a tee: the way back or the way up.

As usual, Mr. Cardui wanted to go up and so we continued a short way to what turned out to be high ground, the top of a ridge from which the rest of the park falls gently to the ocean. We felt a definite difference in the air as we crested the hill, the ocean breeze flowing up and cresting over the top, then mixing with the slightly warmer, staler air on the land-ward side of the rise. Granted, this high point is only 875 feet in elevation, but even we humans--sensory dullards that we are--could discern a difference, an ecologic advantage maybe to being at the top. At the very least we could tell the hilltop was a special, maybe even sexy, place.

My eyes started to see insect movements in the California sagebrush (artemisia californica) there at the top and, what do you know? The shrubs were loaded with crane flies rising into the morning sunshine. As I moved in close for a photo, I noticed a metallic green thing, then another, another, good grief the sagebrush was full of them, too. These are beetle larva of genus trirhabda, a group of leaf-eating beetles that is as hard to identify to species from the larvae as it is hard to pronounce. According to this citation at bugguide, trirhabda beetles tend to exclusive feeders, and so the plant they are feeding on helps with the ID. In this case Artemisia californica narrows the choices down to 5: t. nitidicollis, t. pilosa, t. sericotrachyla, t. confusa, or t. luteocincta.




We hope to return to this particular hilltop to see if the adult trirhabda are there, but also because it felt so good up there.

Hilltopping is a behavior exhibited by many types of insects, primarily as a way to find mates but also take advantage of easy prey, and possibly lay claim to some sexy territory to live in. Check out Bug Eric's post on his observations of hilltopping in Tucson.

E-Closure on Pupa Story

Back on March 7, we found a mourning cloak pupa on our patio that hadn't attached to a vertical surface, and had it's final shed still attached. On the advice of Cindy to not give up on this pupa, I rigged it to a stick on a shoebox so it could hang vertically in a more or less natural way. Cindy recommended using spider silk which would be sticky and elastic and a completely natural way to hang the pupa. The day I was doing this was windy and it was hard to gather the silk and maybe just maybe my fingers are too clumsy. Anyway, I decided to unravel some fine hemp string and used a strand of that, plus a few tiny dabs of white glue to keep it all in place on the stick-on-a-shoebox. I made sure to only apply the glue to the area where the string crossed the old caterpillar molt, not the pupa itself.

For the record, the pupa wriggled like its life was in peril when I handled it, so I knew the creature (half-caterpillar, half-butterfly) was still with me in this endeavor to give it the chance to fly.





So the pupa hung there across its shoebox of fate until yesterday about 10:00 am. We were having a yard sale, and I was dashing inside to get more coffee, when I noticed with a startle that the butterfly had eclosed; quite recently by the crumpled look of its wings. The wings unfurl, and the butterfly tests its proboscis, over the next photos taken within 1/2 hour. By the end of the half hour, a drop of meconium was passing.











Next morning the butterfly was still there. You can see the stain of meconium on the floor of the shoebox, then the beautiful fully unfurled Nymphalis antiopa waiting for the moment to fly, about 1:00 in the afternoon. The next time I looked, it was gone.











Not sure if this butterfly perched on our truck is the one, there are so many of them cruising the yard and especially the melaleuca tree which is in bloom.








Thanks, Cindy, for your encouragement to give this one butterfly its chance. It turns out to be a very good year for mourning cloak butterflies.

Scenes from a Friendly Planet

So Earth Day was yesterday, but no worries: we now celebrate Earth Week according to retailers such as Lowe's, Walmart, and Office Max! Not only am I late with my earth day post, I missed the boat and failed to line up Sunday to get my free reusable shopping bag from Target, brought specially for all of us from China on a non-carbon emitting cargo ship, NOT. Anyway, since earth day is everyday because really, how could we ever avoid the earth and all its evidences, ramifications and processes since we live on, are supported by and are surrounded by it, I will go ahead and post this celebration of my tiny slice of earth, which in my opinion is better than any heaven, in no particular order:



























Ootheca waiting for emergence
Young assassin
The passion and the aphids
Pupa in a pavement crack
Man hoeing weeds
Calandrinia grandiflora little bud
Lizard in a pink enamel basin
Raindrops reflecting on cactus
Spoons!





Unknown insect on African daisy #1
Male grasshopper contemplating artichoke
Mexican fairyduster pods
Bird poo on milkweed flowers
Beetle emergence holes on a gourd





Fennel feather duster sprout
A tomato
Raindrops on blue (or isn't it purple) hibiscus
A weedy passion vine climbing a fence
Finch (lesser gold)





Wren doing what wrens do best
Chunk of aloe and a drop of water
Sedum + concretion
Tiny katydid nymph meets Phlomis
Glowing leaf



Boat shape fraxinus leaf of the yellow persuasion
Aloe in bloom
Katydid walks on a sea of lavender cotton
A wren and a plane
Pelargonium carnosum blossom





Bird (lesser plastic)
2 artichokes
Cilantro leaf
Crabgrass seedling and shoe