Obligatory Spider Post

It's Halloween and what can be scarier than a real live spider . . . NOT.

Actually Mr. Cardui is afraid of spiders.  I think he doesn't trust them.  This particular one, a spotted orb weaver Neoscona crucifera, has built her web on the north facing side of the prunus caroliniana hedge for weeks, positioning herself in the center of the web right about eye-level to an unusually short blogger.  For some reason, yesterday afternoon she had moved two of the web anchors and enlarged her web so it now spanned from the hedge to the house, a distance of about 12 feet.  Mr. Cardui blundered face-first into web as he was putting away parts of his scary troll costume from the weekend's festivities.  Ironical, isn't it?

These spiders are out on the web during the day; this one scurried up to the center of the bridge thread of her web to survey the damage . . . the bottom anchor in the middle of our driveway was severed, and then the spider-fearer detatched the anchor to the house as well to discourage the spider from building web where people like to walk.  It worked.  Late last night I checked to see where she was: in the center of a beautiful new perfectly flat and shining web on the north side of the prunus hedge just about eye-level to flashlight-wielding bug nut.

Here is the orb weaver's web from a couple days ago, glowing in the sun.  It's interesting how this one has an bend in it; the spiral is not all in one plane.  Maybe this was a repair job on a partially damaged web.

Happy Halloween and don't let the spiders scare ya.

I watched your masked face
--too huge to eat-- ruin my web
and you said Oh ick.

Pupae Predation : (

Leaf-fattened we marched,
then outwardly quiet hung,
still.  Snap of wren's beak.

Bewick's wren is a small but mighty predator of insects.  Of the seven nymphalis antiopa pupae on the front of my house, two have survived the hunger and sharp eyes of the birds through the twelve days (so far) since pupation.

Purple

Ruellia brittoniana, Mexican petunia

I was warned: "Weed-like,
invasive, rampant. "  But come

October: purple.

Lazy

Holiday + sun
make me lazy. Hamburgers
don't help much either.

Mid-summer images from last summer:
Fiery skipper (Hylephila phyleus) rests on a broom corn leaf.
Bush katydid (Scudderia furcata) nymph strolls in the sun on my porch.

Hope you enjoyed your 4th of July!

Is This Snail-y Enough for You?

Breaking records breaks
news: 10 seconds of snail-face.
I can only ask

Why?

Thanks for this story to Garden Rant and HuffPo, two sites I enjoy reading very much.

Rat Races

We name what we know
and don't know in human terms.
What else can we do?

Daylight Savings: Why?

1. Alarming voices
at five a.m. Sports Weather
News: This is stupid.

2. Be gone, Mark Kriski!
Your weather comes so early
this Monday after.

3. The cell phone's face says
9 a.m.; although my face
begs to differ.

4. Small tyrant hand, cause
of exquisite pain today:
Daylight Savings Pain.

5. Atomic clock runs
slow; bio clock's whacked out too.
Cause: Spring Forward Bug.

Summer Solstice

The sun creeps snail-like
to its bright summit; maybe
I should estivate?

Tomorrow or Today

I wrote this tomorrow because there is no time like the future for knowing what was best to do today. Tomorrow I knew this mourningcloak butterfly emerged at sunset and so I made sure I walked out the door in time to see it clutching its pupal shell as its chocolate wings expanded and dried in the evening air.

Tomorrow there were plenty of these butterflies, not so common at all in the recent past around here, flying through looking for mates or rivals in the thick sunny space over my driveway. One of these was this butterfly, the one that came out this evening gloriously perfect until a rival male rammed it with a soft yet audible full-body blow. Or, one of these was this butterfly that emerged this evening a virgin until she rose with the winning male in a spiraling dance over the melaleuca clouds then settled with him on a branch to mate tomorrow. Tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, or the day after that, eggs ensue and the case of the mourningcloak butterflies continues as long as there are elm trees with leaves, and sunshine to warm the wings, and nectar or tree sap to eat and high places to perch, and just enough luck or camouflage to evade enough of the predators.

The day before yesterday a predator made a meal of another mourningcloak pupa that had sheltered on the siding of my house 14 days ago, leaving behind the last abdominal segment, the hook and the silk pad. The camouflage of the pupa, designed to look very much like tree bark, didn't work here against the bright new blue of my house. If I had posted this on Sunday but still written it tomorrow I could have been forewarned to take action to protect this too-obvious pupa from harm and so might have celebrated two butterfly emergences on Earth Day. But a very large percentage of butterflies are by nature destined not to make it. Then some more are done in by actions of humans. Was I to blame for the death of this one by choosing to paint the house such a bright and shiny blue? By washing away the disguising pattern of dirt, webs and bird poo? Next time the chenilles march the wall will be duller as the diminishing suns and seasons pass by, and dirtier as the spiders and birds do their worst. Next time if a caterpillar chooses my house siding . . . well, who knows? Can we really learn from experience or is nature at once too vast and too seemingly random to anticipate?

Anyway. Earth Day is everyday so of course it doesn't matter that today was tomorrow or even the Sunday just past. We still ponder whether to put the orange peels into the green waste or the cans with labels into the recycling. We still doubt whether our fair city actually sorts and recycles the stuff anyway. Butterfly populations ebb and flow; this year is a good one for mourningcloaks especially but also others. I've seen clouded sulphurs, painted ladies, giant swallowtails, cabbage whites, fiery skippers, funereal duskywings, tiger swallowtails and monarchs, and it's just April. Wow. Is that a good thing or is it a manifestation of population or phenological shifts due to climate change? Tomorrow we will know, and maybe know what to do today about it. For now, cheesy haiku ensues.

The grievance once went:
4/20? 4/22?
and carbon piled up

The argument runs:
My product's greener than yours
while glaciers dissolve

Talk does continue:
as species lose their cases
and the earth spins on

Crane fly time dissident

my time measures in
days; won't live to save daylight
by killing an hour

Funky Little Dance of Frustration

I noticed a mantis waving her forelegs back and forth and side to side across this small galvanized watering can that hangs as a decorative thing on the north side fence of my place. I mean, she was doing this for the longest time, jerking her legs around I guess trying to gain a hold on the surface. She could have easily gone around--there are vines and strings and fence boards and all kinds of stuff lots easier to grab onto. But instead she persisted in this annoying funky dance that made me reconsider my opinion of these mantises as graceful, perhaps even thoughtful, masters of their environment. Sheesh, get a grip, I found myself thinking. Then I noticed her right eye appeared to be damaged. Maybe her vision was impaired and caused her ungraceful and unproductive movements. Anyway, she eventually got out of her funk and found an easier way to go around the metal can.

One and a half eyes
can easily lead six legs
with a little luck

Equinox

The abacus clicks;
day into night equals one
halfway through the fall.

Spicy Stink Bug

A pretty little green stink bug nymph, probably Nezara viridens, is seen here feeding on the ripening but still juicy seed pods of Coriandrum sativum, commonly called coriander or cilantro. As the herb's pungent smell wafted into my nose while I hovered over this little scene snapping photos, it occurred to me the smell is not dissimilar to that of the stink bug. While never noncommittal about stink bugs, I have remained neutral on the subject of cilantro as an edible; it's OK in guacamole or burritos, but I could also do without it. The plant is nice to grow in the garden, as it attacts huge numbers of syphid flies and small bees to the delicate heads of flowers. It freely reseeds itself, so you'll have no worries about having more cilantro next season. That is unless you, like some others scattered across the globe, hate cilantro. Apparently the taste of this herb, compared to soap, stinkbugs and several things less clean, is offensive enough to prompt haters to pen haikus of hate.

I offer my cheesy but humble haiku here:

Stink bug nymph feeds on
tender cilantro seeds. Oh!
Acrid irony!

Cheesy Bee Haiku

one belly held sweet
nectar, two legs brought pollen
home by two wings, once

Origami animated

Beetles have evolved hard forewings as a protection to the flight wings. This enables them to use environments (such as under leaf duff or in the soil) as adults without damaging the wings. But, this advantage is balanced by the need to retract the much larger flight wings under the elytra in an organized and repeatable way.


I was watching this ladybird beetle for awhile, as it flexed its forewings (the shiny red elytra we recognize these beetles by) to reveal its flight wings in various stages of unfolding. The wings have no musculature and so the questions arises, how do they unfold . . . and refold, for that matter. The flight wings are constructed of veins connected by panels of thin cuticle, and it turns out, some rubbery protein (resilin) strategically positioned in flexible joints. The resilin gives durability to the folding areas, and also stores energy from the actual fold to power the unfolding process. The resilin also functions in flexing of the wings during flight. (Haas, Gorb, and Blickhan).






As I watched this ladybug, it was clear that bending of the abdomen is part of the mechanism that initiates the unfolding. Finally, the little truck fully extended both wings and took off from a branch tip into the wide world of the aeronautically and origamically gifted.

Small red truck becomes
airborn origami far
beyond human reach

solstice haiku

as we inch across
our small sunfilled world you stop,
then swing toward autumn