Short nature walk reveals a summer of quiet activity

I hadn't written in our “Cabin, Sweet Cabin” memory book yet this summer, so one hot and humid day I decided to observe some butterflies and record them for posterity. Our neighbors have beautiful flower gardens and we have a hill full of daisies and cone flowers along with flowering hostas. Besides, it's a great outing for our wonderdog; Sammy. 

 

Butterflies are beautiful; watching them always brings me joy and puts a smile on my face.  Many people don’t realize butterflies only usually live 2 to 4 weeks. They use their feet to taste food, are always on a liquid diet, and use their long proboscis to drink nectar from flowers. Butterflies are cold blooded, so on hot days they have the energy to be very active; they always slow down their breathing at night–a process for which they use holes in their side called spiracles. Butterflies make up a family of 18,000 species across the globe. They come in several different sizes, just like a pizza–large, medium and small. 

 

It was a banner observing day with little wind. I watched two swallowtail butterflies in the large category, one “black” and one “tiger.” If you wish to hunt their caterpillars, you'll find them in gardens on carrot tops and parsley. I observed many butterflies in the medium category, including a number of monarchs and painted ladies. These butterflies are known to migrate: Monarchs travel an astounding 3,000 miles to Mexico. A viceroy butterfly mimics the monarch: it looks just like them except it’s smaller. A fritillary was a rare find; a red admiral, decked out in bright red and black, was gorgeous. There were many yellow sulphurs to observe along with cabbage whites. I watched them seeking nectar on flowers, and a big group of them congregated on a dried-up mud puddle, they were gathered together seeking nutrients and minerals. Finally I observed a couple of butterflies in the small category. Blues and hairstreaks are stunning and charming, both the size of your thumbnail. 

 

Since I was observing action on the flowers, I couldn't leave out the pollinators, the insects who give us beautiful flowers, the bees. There were several active honey bees and a great number of bumble bees of all sizes. Bumblebees are fuzzy characters with yellow and black stripes. They don't make honey and live in a hive like the honey bee. Their nest sites are holes and cavities in the ground. 

 

Coming back up the driveway I decided to check out some bushes for some insects not so joyful and beautiful: grasshoppers. Grasshoppers are plant eating insects and we all know they have powerful hind legs used for jumping long distances. Grasshoppers have superior hearing. They have special ear organs located on the sides of their abdomen called tympana. 

 

I found a bunch of red legged hoppers and spooked one big grasshopper coming up our gravel driveway. They are brown and black and fly great distances quickly. The Egyptian grasshopper is one of the largest, and very hard to capture. 

 

It's a good thing that raptors, that is, songbirds, along with many other birds eat large numbers of grasshoppers. 

 

My observation took me down to the lake to look for some dragonflies. Everyone is familiar with this 3-inch, fast-flying predator who hovers like a helicopter, and even flies backwards or sideways in search of mosquitoes, flies and gnats. I observed a variety of different size dragonflies; this insect spends most of its life underwater as a nymph eating aquatic life, including mosquito larvae. 

 

The damselflies, related to dragonflies, are thin and slender, needle-like, and 1 to 2 inches in length. We have a population explosion of them this year at the lake. They are everywhere, friendly, and come in brilliant metallic colors, blues, greens, yellows, reds, and orange. I've been observing them resting on my floating bobber, and fishing pole when fishing down on the dock. 

 

My evening walk with Sammy brought my last entry for the memory book to a wonderful, fall conclusion. I saw a woolly bear caterpillar crawling across a pile of leaves. The caterpillar is covered with dense, stiff bristles that are rusty red, brown, and black in color. This special caterpillar will bury its body deep under the leaves, and with a special antifreeze in its body, survive the winter. It wakes up in the spring and eats plant pieces and greens. It spins a silk cocoon, pupates, and emerges as an adult, yellow-tan, Isabella tiger moth. 

 

On a side note, this has nothing to do with insects, but a question I’ve been pondering, if a strawberry in your container has mold on it, do you throw it away along with surrounding berries, and eat the others? What about a loaf of bread with mold on a slice? Throw just that piece, or the whole loaf? The choice is yours!!