Caught Cicada

This banded argiope, one of the common orbweavers has got super lucky; it has caught a cicada in its net. The poor cicada was still struggling when I noticed it.

I took this photo in September but the quality is disappointing. My camera bit the dust earlier in the summer and the camera on my phone just isn't up to snuff.

Grasshoppers

Red-legged Grasshopper (Melanoplus femurrubrum)

Going for a walk in the long grass yesterday, every step I took, a couple of these fellows jumped out of my way. Usually they are quite hard to photograph but this lady obliged me while she was sunning herself on a log. You can tell she is female by the tapered abdomen and the tips of her ovipositor. A male has a rounded tail. Perhaps she didn't mind me taking her picture because she was partially blind. Her left compound eye looks quite deformed.

When reviewing the photographs at home, I was amazed at how completely covered in fine hairs she is. These insect hairs are called setae. Even her well armoured head and thorax are covered in fine hairs. These setae provide the sense of touch to the insect even though she is covered in a chitinous exoskeleton.

I find the mouthes of insects to be their strangest parts. I rarely am able to get a good look at what is going on down there. The antenna like palps around the mouth of this grasshopper have the greatest "ick factor" for me. I'm used to antennas; they sort of make sense as great big external nostrils, but four extra external tongues for tasting and manipulating food is four too many.

As I walked along I saw a couple of grasshoppers almost fall prey to a banded argiope. Unfortunately for the spider I spooked him and he broke off wrapping up his meal and went back to guard the center of his web. This allowed the grasshoppers time to disentangle themselves and make their escape. Below are a couple of other predators of grasshoppers: the only black and yellow garden spider I've seen all year and a great black wasp. The light reflecting off the wings of the great-black wasp was much bluer in person.

Black and Yellow Garden Spider(Argiope Aurantia)

Great Black Wasp(Sphex pensylvanicus)

On the Basswood

Red-banded Leafhopper (Graphocephala coccinea)

These pretty red and green plant bugs are only about 5mm long so they often go unnoticed even though they aren't terribly shy or uncommon.

Jagged-Ambush Bug (Genus Phymata)

I wish all my insect pictures were in focus like this. Jagged ambush bugs are cooperative subjects.

Japanese Beetle(Popillia japonica)

I didn't notice this guy had some friends with him when I took the picture

Banded Argiope(Argiope trifasciata)

There are very few orb-weaver spiders about. A couple of seasons ago the tall grass was full of them; this is only the second I've noticed this August. I wonder what has changed, or if it just goes in cycles.

I find the structure of this spider's web quite interesting; not only does it have the zig-zagged stabilimentum below it like the black-and-yellow garden spider, it also covers the central area of the web in a very fine, almost transparent, film of silk.

An orbweaver with dinner

Banded Argiope (Argiope trifasciata)

A few weeks ago I realized that I hadn't seen any orbweaver spiders in the tall grass this year. In previous years you had to be careful where you walked in case you bumped into a Black-and-yellow garden spider's web but this year I haven't seen a single one. I have finally found a few other orbweavers though. I've notice 4 Banded Argiopes in the 2010 bushy area. Above is a picture of one of them making a meal out of a grasshopper.

The white flowers in the picture are Hoary Alyssum. It is quite common this year as it does well in dry conditions. It has 4 petals (like all other plants in the mustard family) but they are so deeply notched they seem like 8 petals. It is an invasive weed from Europe. For the longest time I didn't know what it was called and couldn't find it in my Wildflowers of Ontario guide or online, but today I finally identified it (thank-you Google Images).

One ant's final minutes

Dwarf Spider (Subfamily Erigoninae)

The other day I decided to watch an ant to see what it was up to. It seemed to be just wandering around: it would go up one grass stem, cross over to an intersecting blade; go down the new blade only to go back up another blade. I suppose it was looking for food to take back to the nest but it only spent part of its time at ground level in the debris. What was it looking for when travelling the grassy high road above the ground level? I think the answer might be: "safety", for only a couple of minutes later when travelling along a twig at ground level the little guy was caught by a small dwarf spider.

It happened so quickly, I didn't realize what I had just seen before the poor guy was a goner. He got caught on a strand of sticky spider silk and quick as a flash the tiny spider ran out from its hiding spot and administered its poison. The spider and ant were evenly matched, but the ant while retreating from the advancing spider had got further tangled up in the spider's web. After the first brief battle the spider retreated and let the poison take effect. Every minute or so it would come back out from hiding to see how much fight was left in the poor fellow and then go back to its shelter to let the poison do its job. About 5 minutes after the initial battle the little ant had ceased to struggle. The spider came back out, used its silk to bind up the ant and then slowly dragged it back to its lair.

As a size reference I later measured the snail shell at the bottom of the above picture to be 7mm wide.

Grasshoppers galore but where are the Orb Weavers?

Red Legged Grasshopper (Melanoplus femurrubrum)

In August, every step you take through the long grass causes a wave of grasshoppers to hop away from you. Grasshoppers are just everywhere and in the late summer they are one of the most prominent animals around. The other animal I expect to encounter about this time of year are the Orb Weavers, particularly the Black and Yellow Garden Spider (Argiope aurantia). There should be dozens sitting prominently in the middle of large webs spanning gaps in the vegetation, but this year I haven't seen a single one. Where have all the Orb Weavers gone?

Down by the parsnip

There is only one patch of wild parsnip in any of the naturalization areas. Three, 6ft tall plants are in the 2010 planting area by the raspberries. In one respect it is a bit like the Mara river on the Serengeti: it is a very convenient spot to photograph the wildlife.

Typocerus velitinus (Banded longhorn)

Orthops scutellatus (Carrot Plant Bug)

Brachiacantha ursina (Orange-spotted Lady Beetle)

Depressaria pastinacella (Parsnip Webworm Moth)

Podisus nymph (Spined Soldier Bug)

Polistes fuscatus (Northern Paper Wasp)

Cosmopepla lintneriana (Twice-Stabbed Stink Bug)

Eupithecia miserulata (An Inchworm)

Misumena vatia (Goldenrod Crab Spider)

A mystery caterpillar

This last caterpillar is a bit of a mystery. It is all over the wild parsnips and behaves much like a parsnip webworm. Even though it has quite distinctive markings I wasn't able to find it in the bug guide or elsewhere on the web. It is probably the caterpillar for some small, nondescript moth.

A Curious Jumping Spider

This little Jumping Spider was initially quite camera shy. It hid from the camera; at first it backed away from the camera keeping the elderberry stem between it and the camera; then it backed up into the whorl of small leaves at the top of the stem. I continued to take pictures of it and after a while it decided to come out and investigate what this strange animal with the very large eye was.

Perhaps I'm anthropomorphizing the little spider too much, but I can't shake the impression that the little guy was curious about the camera and came out to take a better look. With those two big eyes it is so much easier to empathize with Jumping Spiders than it is with other spiders and bugs.

Northern Crab Spider

I came across this beautiful little green spider yesterday evening as i was out inspecting the 2011 trees. The light was very poor so I didn't catch much of the detail of this little guy but you can make out the unique pattern on its abdomen. The bug guide identifies him as Mecaphesa asperata one of the crab spiders. Crab spiders are camouflage specialists, they don't spin webs, instead they hang out in likely locations, such as flowers, where insects are likely to land and then just wait for the insects to come to them. I must say, I don't expect this guy fooled too many insects. He doesn't blend in well with a dead red maple twig.

Starbellied orbweaver catches a ladybug

Here is a close up of a starbellied orbweaver eating a spotted lady beetle. The starbellied orbweaver has a uniquely bumpy abdomen. Below you can see the buff coloured abdomen with its spikes. It looks a bit like the end of a stick, which I suspect is a bit of defensive camouflage as when it noticed me it stayed at the branch tip and tucked its thorax and legs down so all you see is its wood coloured abdomen. This species creates a regular web however the one I spotted only had a few web fragments left.

Thin legged wolf spiders

Here is a closeup of one of the common small brown spiders scurrying over the grass. I believe it is a type of wolf spider of the genus pardosa, pardosa moesta being the most likely in the bugguide.net. These little guys, are about 6mm long and according to the info are spiders who do not spin nets. Instead they hunt for food through the long grass. Female wolf spiders carry their egg sack as they hunt and when the eggs hatch they let their offspring ride the back of their abdomen until they are old enough to fend for themselves(See Spiders of Ontario).

One mystery is where all these small spiders spend the winter that they are so ready at the first warm day in spring to go out hunting.

Squirrel tracks in snow

It is really starting to look like spring out there, at least on the south side of the berm. I even saw some small spiders crawling over the grass yesterday. I've been meaning to make a post on squirrel tracks in snow similar to the rabbit tracks post but I held off in hopes of getting a picture of a squirrel actually visiting the berm area. Frustratingly the squirrels haven't obliged. So before spring gets much further here is a picture I took earlier this winter of a squirrel's track he left as he hopped through a fresh dusting of snow.



Here is a photo I took last week of the north side of the berm. It is still winter on the north side and you can see the tracks of a dog, a squirrel and a rabbit running up and down the berm. You can clearly see the tracks the rabbit made as it ran up the hill (on the right). It puts its front paws one after another. The middle tracks are from the squirrel as it hopped through the fresh snow. The squirrel planted its front feet beside each other as it bounded over the snow. The tracks of the back feet are almost on top of the front feet prints leaving a much more compact set of tracks.

There haven't been that many squirrel tracks on the berm behind Kelvin this winter. There isn't much to eat except a few crabapples and I suspect the squirrels are mostly hanging out in backyards getting a free lunch at a bird feeder. I've been on the lookout for a squirrel or squirrel tracks along the berm for over a month, ever since I found squirrel remains where some predator caught himself a meal. There haven't been any squirrel sightings and few tracks. I've concluded that squirrels have been only infrequent visitors to the berm area. Rabbits have visited even less frequently, the above tracks being the first I've noticed heading towards the top of the berm in a long while.

Bluejay in flight

I was taking a picture of the trees when a blue jay flew over my head. Blue jays often travel in small family groups and as I had seen the one, I was not too surprised when I caught the second in frame.

This past Thanksgiving weekend has been warm and sunny and as you can see in the above picture many of the trees still have green leaves. We've had a frost, but not so hard a frost that it has killed the insect life. There are still grasshoppers in the long grass and there are still wasps hanging about. The other day I had to beat a quick retreat when I removed a mulch circle from a tree and realized there was an entrance to a wasp's nest underneath it. I don't see too many garden spiders about anymore though. In late August it is hard not to get tangled in their webs when walking in the tall grass, by late September they are quite rare.

More Orb Web Spiders

Here is a Banded Garden Spider (Argiope Trifasciata) and a Cross Orbweaver (Araneus Diadematus) The picture of the Cross Orbweaver was taken in low light conditions so you can't see the white cross she has on her back (I thought it looked a bit like a bumble bee) but you can see here lovely web. I hope she didn't mind the flash too much. The Banded Garden Spider is a cousin to the Black and Yellow Garden Spider which is much more common around here (see earlier entry).

Black and Yellow Orb Web Spider

Walking through a late summer meadow one of the most common things you find are the webs of the Black and Yellow Garden Spider (Black and Yellow Argiope). These guys are pretty conspicuous. The web is a nice regular spiral design hung from tall shrubs or weeds. These big guys are easy to spot as they sit out in the middle of their web waiting for a grasshopper to get caught. The one above was about 2inches across with the thorax about as big as a large raspberry. I wouldn't want one of these guys crawling on me so I have to be careful to avoid walking through their webs.

The purple vetch is going to seed now with the goldenrod and queen anne's lace at their prime.

Insectivores

It was nice short sleeve weather this past weekend. When I went out and visited the berm the insects were out but so were the insectivores. There were many small dark brown spiders scurrying over the grass. I'm not sure if this type of spider creates a web but I did notice the grassy slopes were practically covered in thin strands of silk. The late afternoon sunlight shimmered off the gently swaying strands as the light breeze caressed the grass.





At this time of year there is also a light brown spider that likes to cast a tangled web from the tips of the highest twigs on the saplings. I suspect they might also be responsible for the strands covering the grass. I wish I could identify these common spiders, the internet is of limited use when you ask it what is that light brown spider I saw on a twig today?





On Sunday I went out for an evening walk along the berm. It was a pleasant evening and the road traffic was quiet. Towards dusk as I was walking towards the Newhaven gap, I heard frogs croaking from across the road where there is a bit of a marshy area in the experimental farm. Then I noticed something flutter over my head and realized there were bats flying around. I crossed over the berm to exit at Newhaven and saw even more bats flying around the small glade at the end of Newhaven. So all in all I saw arachnid insectivores, mammalian insectivores and heard amphibian insectivores. A good showing from the insectivores.

Bugs are out

So I walked through the square on Wednesday to check out the meadow vole damage. It was the first nice warm day in a long while. Before that we had had about a weak of weather that rarely got much above freezing. The snow was gone but the ground was still frozen. But nevertheless there were a multitude of little black spiders hopping and scurrying over the long grass. I saw about 2 for every step I took. The spiders were limited to the long grass, and when walking over the mowed areas no spiders were evident. I also saw a small fly so insect life has definitely come back to the field for a new year.

There was surprisingly little rodent damage to the trees in the square. None of the trees look like they are toppling over and I didn't see evidence of girdling by mice. It was a totally different story on the west side where the new trees got severely hit by either the rabbits or the mice. Any tree that didn't have plastic protecting around the trunk looks to be girdled.



I didn't visit the north side of the berm as winter still had a hold there.

A late summer field

Well the goldenrod is out with a few clumps planting their yellow flags in the square. The yarrow and trefoil are still in bloom with the occasional fleabane, and purple vetch still out. The grass has mostly toppled over to form a messy mat over which you can walk. The insect life has grown numerous with plenty of truly large yellow and black orb spiders hanging out at the centre of their webs. The grasshoppers are quite large though not numerous. I saw yesterday a clump of large metalic japanese beetles mating all over a rasberry bush. There is a wasps nest in the square. The wasps are living in the ground and the only evidence of their nest is a small patch of disturbed earth in front of their wasp sized hole in the ground. The wasps were entering the hole every couple of seconds so it must be a fairly large colony.

As for mammal predators, I have seen a couple of different cats hanging out in the area in the past week. I didn't see any active hunting but one was spending time in the tall grass of the square. Yesterday I also saw a young coyote less than a kilometer away at the intersection of huntclub and woodroffe, it was broad daylight and he didn't seem to mind too much being watched. He eventually lopped away down the road.

Early Spring

It's not supposed to be this warm at the end of March. This year the big thaw must have been around the first half of March. There wasn't that much snow to melt and the ground is now fairly dry. Dry enough to kneel on the ground and not immediately have wet knees.

It was shirt sleeve weather today when I went over and visited the berm. The buds were starting to swell on the maples, alders and populars. I saw a few sluggish house flies hanging out on the twigs of the sapling maples. I also saw a couple of spider webs with tiny spiders sitting in the middle of them.