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Northern Europe this flew in through my window. I know it's a type of wasp but it's the biggest one I ever saw. It didn't even buzz. it "rumbled". Just from the sound I knew there would be trouble. 
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Jun 8, 2019 21:12
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Katt posted:Northern Europe this flew in through my window. I know it's a type of wasp but it's the biggest one I ever saw. It didn't even buzz. it "rumbled". Just from the sound I knew there would be trouble. That’s a hornet/bålgeting (Vespa crabro). Can seem fearsome but they are harder to provoke than regular wasps/yellowjackets and about as venomous.
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Jun 9, 2019 00:00
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Neofelis posted:Some Finnish bugs. Looks like you found the infamous large pine weevil! Very pretty weevil imo but also considered a pest in forestry as it ring-barks spruce and pine seedlings en masse following clear cuts.
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Jun 9, 2019 00:28
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Falukorv posted:That’s a hornet/bålgeting (Vespa crabro). Neat! I thought they existed mostly in the south.
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Jun 9, 2019 04:14
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we've got european hornets in massachusetts, too. they're an invasive species, but I think they're one of the ones that has acclimatized to the local flora and fauna and don't overwhelm everything? We get them inside at work a lot and they're absolutely terrifying because while they are really chill for hornets, the thing that makes them go super unchill is losing control because, say, a giant industrial fan pointed directly at me just sent them tumbling out of the air right at me. I much prefer them to yellowjackets though, they don't actively come right at me out of nowhere.
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Jun 9, 2019 04:28
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Captain Invictus posted:we've got european hornets in massachusetts, too. they're an invasive species, but I think they're one of the ones that has acclimatized to the local flora and fauna and don't overwhelm everything? We get them inside at work a lot and they're absolutely terrifying because while they are really chill for hornets, the thing that makes them go super unchill is losing control because, say, a giant industrial fan pointed directly at me just sent them tumbling out of the air right at me. I much prefer them to yellowjackets though, they don't actively come right at me out of nowhere. I just had to wiki them. They mostly just eat garden pests as well as smaller wasps (big plus) but they also eat bees which is bad and a bee hive that is struggling with disease or parasites run the risk of being wiped out by hornets.
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Jun 9, 2019 04:37
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Falukorv posted:Looks like you found the infamous large pine weevil! Very pretty weevil imo but also considered a pest in forestry as it ring-barks spruce and pine seedlings en masse following clear cuts. Thanks! The name sounded familiar and I noticed I had identified one myself last year, so I guess they're quite common here.
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Jun 9, 2019 13:15
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Katt posted:I just had to wiki them. They mostly just eat garden pests as well as smaller wasps (big plus) but they also eat bees which is bad and a bee hive that is struggling with disease or parasites run the risk of being wiped out by hornets. Most of the time the overall impact of hornets on bee hives are minimal (especially compared to pesticides, mites and lack of flower diversity), at least in our part of temperate Europe. Hornets eat flies above all else and only occasionally hunt bees, in most cases trivial numbers compared to the total hive population.
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Jun 9, 2019 13:49
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Falukorv posted:Hornets eat flies above all else how can we get some of these heroes down here in the virginia swamp also, this is my annual reminder that if flying bugs are a problem for you indoors you should get a bug-a-salt, they rock
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Jun 9, 2019 13:53
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Falukorv posted:Most of the time the overall impact of hornets on bee hives are minimal (especially compared to pesticides, mites and lack of flower diversity), at least in our part of temperate Europe. Hornets eat flies above all else and only occasionally hunt bees, in most cases trivial numbers compared to the total hive population. From what I recall the situation is the reverse in Japan, perhaps in other places.
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Jun 9, 2019 21:04
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Went to see the Brood VIII cicadas today! They seemed to be winding down- didn't see any larvae emerging, although the loudest action seemed high up in the woods out of sight. Very chill and easy to handle. Not sure if different species, or a date gone poorly.  One of several very bright green little bugs on one plant- and goons know this one? Near Pittsburgh, PA. 
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Jun 10, 2019 02:15
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Moved away from Pitt just before the hatch and emergence, was disappointed. Thanks for sharing a pic at least!
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Jun 10, 2019 02:27
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CaptainSarcastic posted:From what I recall the situation is the reverse in Japan, perhaps in other places. Yeah but that’s a different species of hornet. I was only referring to the European hornet. Up here in Scandinavia we call all of ours “hornets” since they are the only species of hornet present. Japan has an even larger subspecies of the already massive Asian hornet and those guys (or rather gals) can really devastate bee hives. Not scared of euroepan hornets but Japanese hornets would scare the poo poo out of me if I ever ran into one. There’s also the Asian predatory wasp (also a hornet) which is very adept at hunting European honey bees and has become invasive in Europe, currently spreading through the Iberian peninsula and is well-established in most of France. Was introduced accidentally in Bordeaux in 2005 (via import of chinese ceramics probably) but is now all over the place. See them frequently in summers nowadays when visiting family in Portugal. It is very pretty, a small comfort perhaps. How it effects wild bee populations is less known than the impact on honeybees which makes it a threat to beekeepers.  On average slightly smaller than the native European hornet but a much more formidable bee-killer. Falukorv fucked around with this message at 02:45 on Jun 10, 2019 |
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Jun 10, 2019 02:34
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Speaking of hornets, how many native Vespa species are there in the US?
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Jun 10, 2019 02:47
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Falukorv posted:Speaking of hornets, how many native Vespa species are there in the US? None. Vespa is an old world genus.
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Jun 10, 2019 02:52
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Speaking of honey bees and the critters that love them... Last month I spent a week down at the coast of northern New South Wales (I live in Armidale, up on the tablelands), helping a colleague with some pollination research. I stayed right next to a gorgeous beach and that whole week I got out and about as much as I could.  13 May 009 by Martin Brummell, on FlickrThe main pollinator (probably*) of the blueberry crop at this commercial operation is managed European Honey Bees.  13 May 010 by Martin Brummell, on FlickrA fly hanging out on a leaf. I very often see flies sitting on sunny leaves, and they seem to defend their little territories from other flies. This is a side-project on a side-project on a side-project, so if somebody else wants to launch an actual study and "scoop" me I won't mind. What's up with these flies?  13 May 011 by Martin Brummell, on FlickrOne of the blueberry fields. The netting is to keep out birds that would eat the berries. This netting, unlike some I've seen, does not tend to capture birds - other mesh sizes tend to tangle birds, and some apple orchards I have seen are just surrounded by dead birds. The white thing on a bush on the right is a bag around a branch with a flower we've marked on it, part of the research involves looking at what gets into flowers when insects are excluded.  13 May 012 by Martin Brummell, on FlickrThe bees sometimes bounce off the netting, but they can get through easily enough. This one was resting for bit, she flew off a few minutes after I took this.  14 May 003 by Martin Brummell, on FlickrDog on the beach. I can recommend an excellent Airbnb near Arrawarra Headland if anybody is thinking of visiting that area. Just gorgeous. * Pollination is complex, and simple measures of things like number of visits to a flower by different species is not a good predictor of actual pollination, i.e. production of seeds & fruit. Like many other producers who are growing pollination-dependent crops, Australian blueberry growers often contract the services of commercial bee hive operators, and at this large operation there are clusters of hives set up near or within most of their fields. They also have hives of stingless bees (I need to look up the species, haven't done that yet), but not as many. My colleague did some fairly intensive insect surveys the week before I got down there and said she found like two wild bees (as in, two individuals, not species, though these were two different species in this case). Honestly it was kinda weird how low the diversity of insects within the fields was. The pest management practices of this producer are probably the real explanation, but we haven't explored this yet - that will be a big part of my research project here, but there are commercial considerations and a working relationship between us and the producer - so far, so good, but we need to negotiate some things before I can start measuring what is ending up on the plants. Certainly they're spraying herbicides (almost certainly RoundUp) to control weeds, and they've told us they target particular pest insects (there's a moth species that they worry about) when they detect an outbreak, but they don't (they say) spray routinely.
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Jun 10, 2019 09:46
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Honey bees aren't going to be very good at pollinating blueberries. Vaccinium flowers require buzz pollination, which honey bees aren't physically capable of doing. All blueberry growers around here use bumble bees instead.
Mak0rz fucked around with this message at 14:08 on Jun 10, 2019 |
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Jun 10, 2019 14:00
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 Snapper and slider buds.
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Jun 10, 2019 15:22
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/\/\/\ Nice! I can never get close to turtles, they drop into the water as I'm swinging the camera up. Mak0rz posted:Honey bees aren't going to be very good at pollinating blueberries. Vaccinium flowers require buzz pollination, which honey bees aren't physically capable of doing. All blueberry growers around here use bumble bees instead. Yup, that's what the literature all says. No bumbles in Australia (except Bombus terrestris gone feral in Tasmania) and the local bigger bees that *might* be capable of buzz pollination are not in the blueberry fields. Somebody is pollinating the blueberries, though, and the only other visible candidate are the stingless bees.  14 May 039 by Martin Brummell, on FlickrThis one was on a wattle bush at the edge of a blueberry field. We also found them among the berries, and we captured a few to examine the pollen they're carrying by watching for one to enter a blueberry flower (they're tiny, much smaller than a honey bee), and grabbing her in a small vial when she started to come out. The honey bees are also helping to raise the next generation of spiders!  14 May 046 by Martin Brummell, on FlickrI'm *pretty sure* the wrapped prey is a honey bee. The spider is a St Andrew's Cross spider (Argiope keyserlingi), and her horde of babies had recently hatched. I didn't even see the fly hanging out dangerously close to the spider's mouth until I looked at the pictures on my computer, days later.  14 May 048 by Martin Brummell, on Flickr 14 May 050 by Martin Brummell, on FlickrDoes anybody know how (if?) a spider feeds her young after they hatch?
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Jun 11, 2019 04:53
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ExecuDork posted:
Some species feed themselves to their young when they hatch, otherwise they just leave straight away.
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Jun 11, 2019 07:32
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 My new baby wheel bug friend
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Jun 15, 2019 13:04
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/\/\/\ Nice! More critters from around the blueberry fields. Part of what I was doing there was just acting as an assistant for my colleague, which meant I had time to shoot macro photos while she was keeping her samples organised.  14 May 012 by Martin Brummell, on Flickr 14 May 013 by Martin Brummell, on Flickr 14 May 015 by Martin Brummell, on Flickr 14 May 016 by Martin Brummell, on Flickr 14 May 017 by Martin Brummell, on FlickrThis guy (from the eyes, pretty sure he's male) just sat on my clipboard for about 5 minutes while I was writing down notes about the wildflowers we'd found.  14 May 019 by Martin Brummell, on FlickrThis odd little guy was very slowly chewing along a blueberry leaf. There are moths that play dress-up as caterpillars, aren't there?  14 May 021 by Martin Brummell, on Flickr 14 May 023 by Martin Brummell, on Flickr 14 May 026 by Martin Brummell, on FlickrBoth honey bees and stingless bees seem to love this grass tree, which is interesting because this plant is pollinated by wind, not by insects. Another colleague recently published a really good review paper about wind-pollinated plants with regular visitors of typically-pollinating insects.  14 May 029 by Martin Brummell, on FlickrThis little spider was headed up to get in on that pollinators-visiting-grass action.  14 May 030 by Martin Brummell, on FlickrThrips  14 May 035 by Martin Brummell, on FlickrA male midge. His feathery antennae were finer than the resolution of my camera, making nailing focus very difficult.  14 May 042 by Martin Brummell, on FlickrAnd for the curious, this is what blueberry flowers look like. The open flowers are about 1cm long.  14 May 020 by Martin Brummell, on FlickrSorry for the big photodump
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Jun 16, 2019 11:11
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never apologise for posting the critters they're good critters
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Jun 16, 2019 12:26
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 Yep, those dragonflies were bangin' on my head alright.
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Jun 16, 2019 14:30
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If you go ever canoeing/tubing/etc. down a peaceful river, my favorite game is to see how many dragonflies will sit on me at once. I think my personal best was 6, with 3 species represented
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Jun 17, 2019 03:46
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i like nice words
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ExecuDork posted:/\/\/\ Nice! I can never get close to turtles, they drop into the water as I'm swinging the camera up. Yeah turtles are one of the more difficult animals to photograph since they appear to have super senses, but sometimes I get a good shot  He looks so grumpy 
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Jun 17, 2019 12:31
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vaguely posted:never apologise for posting the critters
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Jun 19, 2019 02:45
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Discovered outside the back door this afternoon, on a tiny ledge under the porch roof. Most likely a dove egg. No nest, no parents I’ve seen. :/
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Jun 19, 2019 04:41
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Mister Mind posted:Discovered outside the back door this afternoon, on a tiny ledge under the porch roof. Most likely a dove egg. No nest, no parents I’ve seen. :/ Maybe it was laid by a rabbit back in April and you didn't notice until now.
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Jun 19, 2019 05:24
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Doves are pretty stupid about nests and parenting. Don't feel too bad about it.
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Jun 19, 2019 13:59
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Off on and over the last 20 years doves have tried to make nests in my apartment's garage, but the pipes along the ceiling are too far apart. They'll spend a few weeks bringing in nesting material only for it to fall onto the cars, or the ground. Sometimes I'll find a broken egg. 
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Jun 19, 2019 16:48
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Last summer we had a dove build a nest in our gutter. During a rainstorm. Stupid loving bird
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Jun 19, 2019 17:02
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my cat is norris posted:Doves are pretty stupid about nests and parenting. Don't feel too bad about it. Yeah, I’ve found broken eggs in the cement and looked up and around, and...nothing. Good job not going extinct just yet, guys. 👍
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Jun 20, 2019 21:27
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I found a nest where a pigeon tried to kick a dead nestling out of it... into the corner the next was tightly wedged into. They can sometimes have funny personalities, but they're so, so dumb.
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Jun 21, 2019 00:26
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mourning doves were the last of the fat birds to figure out how to eat from my squirrelproof birdfeeder, and the pigeons and collared doves don't even come around anymore. I gained a lot of respect for grackles because they developed this really rad move where they slide down the pole like a fireman and then reach out and grab a sunflower seed without actually touching the feeder
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Jun 21, 2019 00:38
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I had a Bird seed ball hanging outside my kitchen window. One day the ball eventually starts rising slowly until it vanished. I went outside to see what was up and two crows had pulled it up onto the roof by the string and were now eating it.
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Jun 21, 2019 04:39
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Katt posted:I had a Bird seed ball hanging outside my kitchen window. One day the ball eventually starts rising slowly until it vanished. I went outside to see what was up and two crows had pulled it up onto the roof by the string and were now eating it. That owns - corvids are awesome. I've been making friends with the scrub jays at my new place, and have already worked out with one of them that if it lands on the tree outside the front window I will come out and put peanuts in the tree for it. It's getting pretty comfortable with me.
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Jun 21, 2019 05:06
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More from around the blueberry fields 15 May 008 by Martin Brummell, on Flickr 15 May 009 by Martin Brummell, on Flickr 15 May 010 by Martin Brummell, on Flickr 15 May 012 by Martin Brummell, on Flickr 15 May 014 by Martin Brummell, on Flickr 15 May 017 by Martin Brummell, on Flickr 15 May 018 by Martin Brummell, on Flickr 15 May 019 by Martin Brummell, on Flickr
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Jun 22, 2019 10:19
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something weird about this one leaf
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Jun 22, 2019 20:12
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Today I encountered a false widow spider and her many many many many little spiderlings. No pictures, just wanted to share.
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Jun 23, 2019 00:38
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