Iliniwek Village State Historic Site, July 13

Mosquitoes!
Unidentified Syrphid

Red-spotted purple
Little yellow
Dainty sulphur
Monarch
Eastern tiger swallowtail
Hackberry emperor

Blue dasher
Wandering glider
Unidentified damselfly

Gray catbird
Mourning dove
Carolina wren
Northern flicker

There for about 1 hour. Hiked to the long house with a stop to follow the damselfly for photos. And a stop for mosquito photos which was harder than expected. I collected 3 to key out - with 1 ant as bycatch.

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Eastern amberwing
Baskettail
Common whitetail
Widow skimmer
Eastern pondhawk
Fragile forktail

Silver-spotted skipper
Pipevine swallowtail
Dainty Sulphur
Little yellow
Orange Sulphur
Hackberry Emperor
Red admiral
Common Buckeye
Cloudless Sulphur
Monarch
Azure
Variegated Fritillary
Duskywing
Pearl crescent
Least skipper
Eastern tailed-blue

Velvet ant
Robber flies - Proctacanthus hinei, Efferia
Moth fly
Mydas fly
Bee fly
Whirlygig beetles
Planthoppers - Metcalfa pruinosa (Citrus Flatid Planthopper)
Treehopper
Water striders

Robin
Eastern kingbird
Indigo bunting
Baltimore oriole
Cardinal
Bobwhite
Red-headed woodpecker
Mourning dove
Flicker
Canada goose
Catbird
Mockingbird
Orchard oriole
Chipping sparrow
Downy woodpecker
Blue jay

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Cuivre River, June 29

We headed here hoping for a Striped Hairstreak, but none so far. Probably at least 50 Pipevine Swallowtails nectaring at purple coneflowers.

Pipevine swallowtails
Eastern Tiger swallowtail & black female
Cloudless sulphur
Little yellow
Snout
Pearl cresent
Azure
Wood satyr
Painted Lichen moth
Eastern tailed-blue
Least skipper
Silver spotted skipper
Great spangled fritillary
Monarch
Question mark
Silvery checkerspot
Celery webworms

Clubtails
Pondhawk
Widow skimmer
Eastern Amberwing
Slaty skimmer
Common whitetail
Baskettail
Blue dasher

Damselflies - several species unidentified right now.
Moesta

Louisiana waterthrush
Carolina wren
Turkey vulture
Nuthatch
Flicker
Yellow-billed Cuckoo
Great crested flycatcher
Robin
Phoebe
Catbird
Bobwhite
Pewee
Chat





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Cole County, May 27

Hackberry emperor
Least skipper
Orange sulphur
Red admiral
Azure
Monarch
Monarch caterpillar
Little wood-satyr
Polygonia
Dainty sulphur
Gray hairstreak
Great spangled fritillary
Giant swallowtail
Spicebush swallowtail

Dun skipper
Zabulon skipper

Bird-dropping moth
Moon-lined moth
Geometrid

Eastern pondhawk
Green darner
Black saddlebags
Spangled skimmer
Common whitetail
Twelve-spotted skimmer
Blue dasher

Lestes
Bluet
Citrine forktail
Eastern forktail

Bee fly
Crane fly
Syrphid fly

Spittle bugs
Giant water bug

Six-spotted tiger beetle
Firefly
Checkered beetle

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Orange sulphur
Common buckeye
Azure
Dainty sulphur
Little wood-satyr
Polygonia sp.
Monarch

Twelve-spotted skimmer
Common whitetail
Green darner
Eastern pondhawk
Possible Comet darner
Forktail
Black saddlebags
Blue dasher
Widow skimmer
Spangled skimmer
Slaty skimmer
Gomphidae
Baskettail

Lixus
Click beetle
Firefly

Spittlebugs
Bee fly

I also saw a Brown Thrasher bring nestling droppings from the nest and drop them into a pond.

White-eyed vireo
Baltimore oriole
Eastern kingbird

Chipmunk

On Saturday, I saw a Brenthia in Boone County.


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I watched what I think was a Common Whitetail emerge just after noon on a somewhat cooler day than we've been having. I'll edit this post later to add details and a photo.

Sightings:
Red-banded hairstreak
Common whitetail
Backswimmers
Water striders
Fragile forktail
Eastern forktail
Springwater dancer?
Zabulon Skipper
Painted lady
Red admiral
Multicolored Asian Lady Beetle
Cucumber Beetle
Publilia concava with ants
Carpenter Bee
Syrphid








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Sightings

Citrine forktail
Green darner
Black saddlebags
Eastern forktail
Lestes
Baskettail
Common whitetail
springwater dancer
Blue corporal
Monarch
Question mark
Red hairstreak
Red-spotted purple
Painted lady
Red admiral
Peck's skipper
Juvenal's duskywing
Orange sulphur
Backswimmer
Giant water bug
Whirlygig beetles
Water striders
Ants & aphids
Six-spotted tiger beetle





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Taking photos of a female Pipevine Swallowtail laying eggs on the pipevines growing in our yard. Pipevines in bloom.


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Lots of green lacewings flying around on this warm, sunny day.


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Spring Sightings

Water Striders, Eastern Comma, and plasterer bees in cental Missouri on 3/18. Flies at bait on 3/19. Forsythia blooming on 3/23. Dung fly (Scathophagidae) photo from 3/19 at http://donnabrunet.com/pages/stock/flies/scathophagidae.html

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Antlion

On February 23rd, I noticed what appeared to be a freshly dug antlion pit in the colony by our front door. It was very small - only about 1/2" across. I'm guessing that it was formed on either the 18th or 19th when it warmed up to the low 40s.





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I photographed a blooming Ozark Witch Hazel shrub on Thursday.

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November 20, 2009
Columbia

Sunny for a change and a high in the upper 50s. An unidentified anglewing (Polygonia) at home. Last week (can't remember the exact date) I saw a Cloudless Sulphur (Phoebis sennae).

November 8, 2009
(Boone County)

On a day with a high of 76 F and lots of sunshine, I saw a Cloudless Sulphur (Phoebis sennae) pass through our front yard while I was sitting outside reading Photo Impressionism and the Subjective Image by Freeman Patterson and Andre Gallant. Later, a Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta) found bait in the backyard. No photos because it was on the rim of a bait jar. I almost successfully moved it to a tree trunk and probably would have been successful if I had used my finger instead of trying to move it with the paintbrush.

November 2, 2009
(Boone County)

Butterflies: Cloudless Sulphur

November 1, 2009
(Boone County)

Butterflies: Cabbage White, unidentified Comma, Orange Sulphur, Monarch

October 28, 2009

Wow – another sunny day. Must be the 4th one this month!!!

I took leaf photos today, some were similar to those I took last weekend, zooming and / or rotating the camera. But I really liked this image the best – handheld 200 mm lens at a very slow shutter speed in a strong wind.

Saw a few insects during a walk on campus: Monarch, Orange Sulphur, Great Spreadwing, Red-shouldered Bug, and Syrphid Flies. The woodchuck that lives in Peace Park was out today – always fun to see him.

October 19, 2009

Sunny and high of 76. A Sharp-shinned Hawk flew over the house just before we ate our lunch on the deck before leaving on a bike ride. I wanted to get all the way to Rocheport, but we didn't have time for the whole ride starting from Columbia so we drove to McBaine and rode to Rocheport and back.

We saw a few butterflies on the Katy Trail – 2 Cloudless Sulphurs, 1 Orange Sulphur, 3 Cabbage Whites (including one at home while putting the bikes on the car), 2 unidentified anglewings, 3 Monarchs, and about 6 woolly bears.

We also saw 5 snakes on the trail. Unfortunately, I ran over one. I was looking straight down at my tire going around a beetle on the trail and when I looked up I was just a couple of feet from the snake. All in the same second, I thought “Could that be a copperhead? If I slam on my brakes I'll probably end up stopped right on top of it. Not good if it is a copperhead.” The snake was about 2' long so I just aimed for as far to the tail as possible. I don't know what happened to the snake because I couldn't bring myself to turn around and look. I did watch the snake when I hit it and it didn't react. I've had snakes really move fast and get out from in front of my bike at the last minute and this one never moved. I had about convinced myself that someone else had hit and killed the snake before me, but on the way back to McBaine the snake had apparently moved off of the trail. I hope I hit far enough back on the tail that I didn't really hurt it. With more time to think about it (and a quick look through a field guide when we got home), I've decided it definitely wasn't a copperhead. Most likely a Prairie Kingsnake.

October 18, 2009

Saw a few insects during a walk on campus; the high was 60 F this afternoon but it was 29 F when I got up this morning. A Variable Meadowhawk (Sympetrum corruptum) was flying through the white campus and a Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui) was basking in the sunlight on a sidewalk in front of Jesse Hall. I also saw several Hymenoptera: honey bee (Apis mellifera), Dolichovespula sp., and Vespidae.

Yesterday I saw an Orange Sulphur (Colias eurytheme) flying across Providence from the MKT Trail.

October 17, 2009
Not Insects

This is about fish. While eating breakfast this morning, I read “A Taste for Blood” by Natalie Angier in the October/November issue of National Wildlife.

I'm sure everyone has heard the story about the candiru – a catfish that supposedly enters the urethra of people in the water in the Amazon and Orinoco Rivers. While I had heard that it was an unusual occurrence, I didn't realize that only a single instance has ever been confirmed. (Although I guess that wasn't much comfort to the only person). What really surprised me was why the fish is supposedly confused. Candiru feed in the gills of larger catfish – which they find by the scent of urine: “fish, after all, urinate from their gills.”

October 15, 2009

Yikes! Almost 4 months since I've updated my blog. Obviously, I've seen quite a few insects this summer that I haven't mentioned. This was pretty much a horrible summer, though. My Mom fell at home and fractured two vertebrae. She went to the hospital mid-summer and is now in skilled nursing doing rehab. She's walking much better and will hopefully head home sometime. Worrying about her reduced my productivity this summer.

Some of the best insect sightings from the summer were a Vesper Bluet (Enallagma vesperum, June 4, Boone County – a lifer! But it flew off before I was able to photograph it), Imperial Moth (Eacles imperialis, June 16, Boone County), Lilypad Forktails (Ischnura kellicotti, June 17, Boone County), male and female Io Moths (Automeris io, June 29, Dallas / Laclede Counties) , Saddleback Caterpillar (Acharia stimulea, August 23, Cape Girardeau County), and Citrine Forktails (Ischnura hastata, August 26, Dunklin County).

I'll try to post a few images of those soon. In the meantime, here's a shot from this week in my kitchen. I guess entomologists are weird – we've got a large population of fruit flies (Drosophila) that have been breeding in a jar of moth bait that's been sitting on our counter for about two weeks. But instead of getting rid of them, I've been taking photos.

There were a couple of cool events from the summer. I opened a studio at Orr Street Studios, so if you happen to be in Columbia, email me and I can meet you there sometime. I don't go to the studio every day, so if someone just shows up at the studio, more than likely I won't be there. I also recently signed a contract with Animals Animals stock photo agency and got an Honorable Mention in the Visions Photography Exhibit with my shot of a Bumble Bee chasing a Monarch from a flower.

For the next few weeks, I'll be hard at work to meet a December 1 deadline for the Missouri Department of Conservation field guide to butterflies and moths.