2013 Winter Solstice Bug Hunt and Count

Whew!  It's a lot of working trying to find buggies in the scorching winter weather we're having here in SoCal.  Didn't quite get to the count on the 21st . . . sorry traditionalists (which btw includes myself)!  Yesterday and today have been in the 80s with a dry Santa Ana wind blowing.  Typically I get some out of the ordinary bug sightings in any season with a strong wind.  I guess when you weigh that little you get blown around a bit. Not this time, really, as the count is full of the usual suspects:

SPIDERS:
Lots of funnel web spider webs in evidence, and I saw three of the spiders, Hololena curta, outside their funnels.

Found 2 very small orb weaver spiders.
Possibly metepeira.
Under some bark chunks were 2 Under Log Spiders, appeared to be male and female just hanging out;
and a very tiny tan spider attacking a smallish beetle larva.  The tiny spider ran around the larva, then jumped on it apparently biting judging from the reaction of the larva.
Near some small decorative desiccated mushrooms:  1 very tiny jumping spider not seen in this lovely mushroom photo.

1 whirligig mite, Anystis baccarum, found running around in circles.  Have you seen how fast they are?
So a lot of arachnids without much identification.

ORTHOPTERA:
1 greybird grasshopper, Schistocerca nitens, adult male.

2 bush katydids, Scudderia furcata, 3rd instar nymphs, this one hanging out on the senna artemisioides which is just coming into bloom.  Flowers of all types are these guys' favorite foods.

TERMITES:

Or at least evidence of them in the woodpile.  Yikes.

BUGGIES:

1 black scale insect on a thick fennel stalk.  See the semi-circular marks on the stem near the insect?
Looks like the movement of the insect made these marks in Slo mo.
Aphis nerii, oleander aphids, by the 100s on two colonized plants.

1 Green leafhopper.
1 myrid plant bug of the all-black persuasion.

NEUROPTERA:
2 Green lacewings, Chrysopa sp.

HYMENOPTERA:
Grrrr.  There are still 100s of the neighbor's ants, possibly one of the so-called field ants.  I'll call them Formica parkwayii var: Cameronsantos for now.  Despite our efforts to poison and dissuade their colony, they continue to pour out from under our neighbor's house, march down our driveway an on into the parkway jungle where they travel several houses down and climb trees in search of honeydew and sap.  It wouldn't annoy except they climb onto me when I step out of the car at night, then wait until I'm comfy to bite me.  And they stink mightily of ant.
Only 4 honeybees, Apis mellifera, were out perusing the rosemary, acacia and lavatera flowers when I was looking.

LEPIDOPTERA:

Ding ding ding!  The adult butterflies were the stars of the count this year.
At least 3 separate cloudless sulfur, Phoebis sennae floated past my line of vision.
2 cabbage whites, Pieris rapae.
1 mourning cloak, Nymphalis antiopa, flew by in the top of the elm tree . . . hopefully laying eggs.
1 monarch, Danaus plexippus, seen flying and 1 that had recently eclosed under the cold-stressed leaf of the night blooming cereus.

FLIES:
Last but never least.

1 syrphid fly, Eupeodes sp. attracted to a basket
1 green bottle fly, Lucilia sericata resting on a leaf.
2 muscid flies of undisclosed persuasion doing what muscid flies do.
.

Slim pickings, like last year.  It's ending up to be our driest year on record here, with no predictable rain in sight.  Oh wait.  The Old Farmers' Almanac sez:

 DECEMBER 2013: temperature 54° (avg.); precipitation 2" (1" above avg. north, 0.5" below south); Dec 1-5: Rain, then sunny, cool; Dec 6-10: Heavy rain north, showers south; cool; Dec 11-15: Rainy periods, cold; Dec 16-21: Rainy periods, some heavy; cool; Dec 22-31: Clouds and drizzle, cool north; sunny, turning warm south.

JANUARY 2014: temperature 53° (1° below avg.); precipitation 8" (5" above avg.); Jan 1-3: Clouds and occasional drizzle, cool; Jan 4-10: Heavy rain, then sunny, chilly; Jan 11-14: Heavy rain, mild; Jan 15-16: Showers; Jan 17-19: Heavy rain, mild; Jan 20-24: Rainy periods, cold;Jan 25-27: Sunny, cool; Jan 28-31: Rainy, cool.

We, the plants, the birds and the buggies and the publishers of the Old Farmers Almanac can only hope.

Late but not forgotten

2012 Winter solstice bug count was performed on 12/21/12 shortly after the world did not end.

We are happy to be able to finally get around to reporting the findings here.

Thank you for your patronage.

8th Annual Winter Solstice Bug Count

Ye doggies, I've been doing this for 8 years now?  Time flies when you're geeking out over bugs.
Anyway, it was a clear and cold middle of the day on the solstice and these were my finds:

ARACHNIDS--8 Legs!
1 labyrinth orb weaver, Metepeira [labyrinthea?]

These gals are so cute with their huts made of local-sourced building materials!












1 very small, shiny brown jumping spider.

6 Funnel web spiders mostly hiding in their lairs in the cracks on my porch ceiling, Hololena curta.

1 Anystis baccarum, predatory mite aka whirligig mite.  I interrupt this recitation to clarify that this count does not by any means purport to be an exhaustive nor complete inventory of the buggies on my estate.  Seeing and recording just the one mite running crazily over and under the concrete birdbath in the front garden merely indicates that the species Anystis baccarum is represented, albeit thinly, in the fauna on this particular day.  Probably there are many more of them . . . somewhere.  Or, their eggs.  And that goes for all species listed here . . .
Lots of Aceria granati, pomegranate leaf curl mites.  I haven't yet solved this pest problem on my poor poor pomegranate tree.

HEMIPTERA--Suckers, hoppers and true bugs!

100s mealybugs adult and nymphs on the pittosporum and Juan's aeonium.
Lots of pittosporum psyllids on, what else?, pittosporum.
1000s Aphis nerii, oleander aphid, covering the nearly bare stems of the milkweed plants.  Winged and wingless forms were both plentiful.

10 or so scale insects on the fennel.  Often the ant colony that lives under my neighbor's parkway strip sends troops north along the gutter to this fennel plant to harvest honeydew from the scale ranch they operate here.  This day no ants were at work in the fennel, however.
3 small black-ish leaf hoppers, maybe Scaphytopius sp.

Just One of each of the following true bugs:
small milkweed bug, Lygaeus kalmii; 

LARGE milkweed bug, Oncopeltus fasciatus;
and pirate bug,Orius tristicolor.

NEUROPTERA--Lacewings!

1 Lacewing egg and 1 adult green lacewing, Chrysopa sp

ORTHOPTERA--Jumpers!

1 bush katydid nymph, Scudderia furcata

LEPIDOPTERA--Flutterbys!

1 monarch adult, and 15 larvae, Danaus plexippus.

Some of the caterpillars are dark-looking.  Are they infected with OE parasites?  This website describes some findings that suggest caterpillars that are dirty-looking, have indistinct stripes or malformed "antennae" could be signs of infection.  Other sources agree that monarch caterpillars are normally often darker colored in winter so they absorb more heat from the sun.  It would be nice to know.
7 Stigmella rosaefoliella mines on rose leaves . . . Rose leaf miner.  This is a first observation of this in my garden.  The mines, which are remarkably similar in shape to each other, are the result of the feeding of moth larvae.  Here is an image of the moth.

DIPTERA--Flies!
1 Green bottle fly, Lucilia sericata.
3 Flesh flies of some sort, Sarcophaga sp.
10 Syrphid flies, Allograta obliqua.  These guys are so attractive, and it's nice to see them on the job parasitizing aphids.

And, several to many different types of unidentified flies.  One of these looked lot like boatman fly, but wasn't.

HYMENOPTERA--Stingers!

100s of ants.  Still don't know what species these are.  The typical worker is larger than an Argentinian; has reddish thorax and darker head and abdomen.  They stream from and back to the colony entrance under my neighbor's parkway into our yards and trees.  Often they climb onto my foot, and end up biting me.  They smell strongly (to me) of ANT.
3 Apis mellifera, honey bees.  This one is nectaring at the one red buckwheat (eriogonum grande rubescens) flower unseasonably available . . . Why?

Where did all of them go that were swarming the willow wattle just a few days ago?
1 Paper wasp, polistes exclamans.

Quite a few empty nests of same or similar.

BEETLES!
Ladybirds that is.
1 spotless ladybird, Cycloneda sanguinea.

1 Asian ladybird, Harmonia axyridis.

8 undifferentiated ladybird pupae

and one ladybird larva that appeared to be consuming another.

Maybe I'm jaded, but this count seems like slim pickings compared to years past (well, the cannibal ladybirds and rose leaf miners were exciting . . . ).  Did the weather have anything to do with that?
The average high and low temperatures for Dec the past 4 years recorded at our nearest CIMIS station (75--Irvine):
2012 high 62.8  low 44.7
2011 high 65.5  low 40.8
2010 high 64.6  low 44.7
2009 high 67.1  low 45.9
would seem to indicate this solstice about average.

But closer examination of the daily data reveals we had a freeze or near-freeze the two nights preceding my bug count.  We know that freezing temperatures (or in our case, the lack of them) effects pest insect population spread.  Could two nights of just barely frost have a noticeable effect on insect activity in my garden?

2011 Winter Solstice Bug Count

Drum roll . . . a little late but not forgotten, the sixth annual AIBYY winter solstice bug count post.

I did the count on two consecutive days straddling the astromonic solstice, the 21st and 22nd of December. Both days were sunny and relatively calm compared to strong winds we had been experiencing.  According to CIMIS the daytime high temperatures were in the low 60s both days with night lows around 40, that is in Fahrenheit.  So a typical southern California winter's day.

First, a note about temporal accuracy in the bug count.  I was tempted to include a large female adult orb weaver spider, Neoscona crucifera, in the count.  I saw her on her web high over the strawberry tree on 12/20; a rarity this late in the year.  Next day a fresh web was still draped over the garden path but no spider there to be counted; and she hasn't been spotted since.  Likewise but conversely, the mantis that arguably is the star of this year's count was present and counted on the 21st, but has not been seen since; possible her dead body fell from the fence into a bunch of leaf debris which was raked up on the 23rd just in time for the holiday weekend.  If a presumption of death on both counts were true, what is the significance of a mantis living one winter day longer than an orb weaver?  If the presumed deaths did not occur and the creatures were simply not available be seen . . . well I never said I see everything there is to be counted, but I count (or at least estimate) and report everything I see:

ARACHNIDS
Lots of spider mites on the mint and the lippia graveolens.
1 tiny orb weaver, possibly Neoscona crucifera but too small for me to ID
1 predatory mite, Anystis baccarum.  They cruise around on wood surfaces looking for . . . something.
? Pomegranate leaf curl mites, Aceria granati.  There is still leaf curl evidence on the pomegranate, but not sure whether the mites are still kicking.
7 Funnel web spiders, Hololena curta, sheltering under my front porch.

INSECTS
Some evidence of pittosporum psyllids (fresh waxy strings, curled leafs, shiny honeydew) among lots and lots of old damaged leaves covered in sooty mold.
7 colonies of Aphis nerii, all wingless
5 colonies of unidentified aphids on fennel, all wingless
2 leafhoppers of the green persuasion
1 glassywinged sharpshooter adult, Homolodisca vitripennis,

1 Creontiades rubrinervis, small nymph
36 to 40 Oncopeltus fasciatus, large milkweed bug, on cactus and buddleia but not on milkweed.  25 of these were recently hatched, aggregated on a buddleia tip.
1 green stink bug, Nezara viridula, immature
9 green lacewing eggs, Chrysopa sp.

4 Kaydid nymphs, Scudderia furcata

20 or so small green thrip-shaped items that scurried out of the gerber daisy disk when I disturbed it.
1 California mantis female, Stagmomantis californica

1 Cloudless sulphur (Phoebis sennae) floated overhead among the tecomara blooms,
1 Monarch (Danaus plexippus) joined in the floating in the sunshine.
21 monarch butterfly eggs on the milkweed and
1 tiny just hatched caterpillar of the same species.
2 unidentified larvae living inside gerber daisy flower disks
5 Fuller rose beetles, Pantomorus crevinus.  All found on the feathery cassia curled up among flowers.
100s of ants.  These ants seem to live on or near the bronze fennel and tend the aphids living there.  But they also stage forays down the parkway, across the sidewalk, up the driveway, and into the soil of my neighbor's yard.

35 honeybees, Apis mellifera, mostly working the cape honeysuckle but also a few on the willow wattle.
1 polistes wasp of unconfirmed species
2 syrphid fly adults, species unknown

1 green bottle fly, Lucilia sericata
lots of no-see-ums, small flies around my face
10 lavatera leaves with fresh serpentine leaf mines, evidence of Lyriomyza trifolii

NON Arthopod
1 very small garden snail, Helix aspersa

Happy Belated New Year and Bug count

Time to box up the lights and ornaments, and finally get the Bug Count post posted.  As is my habit, the count is posted on the actual day of the survey, 12/28/10.