Busy exploring

My lack of blogging is not due to lack of material. Rather, we've just been too busy soaking up summer with outings and adventures to sit down and type about it.

Here are some photos from our adventure last week at Poe Valley State Park.

Roo & Doodle on the nature trail. A one-mile loop, we spent three hours(!) hiking it at an observant child's pace (read: very slowly), soaking up all that there was to see and experience.

The view of the stream. Here we discovered two different salamanders, watched water striders, threw rocks and sand and sticks, and thought deep thoughts about streams and clouds and their connectedness.

Bee petting, yet again. This little bumblebee worker was licking salt from our fingers, and Doodle was eager to oblige.

...not that I have any idea where she gets her fondness for bees.

Well, I've done it...

...I've added another bee-petter to the world. Sorry Mom. It couldn't be helped. I mean, they're just so cute and fuzzy!

Does it help if I tell you this is a male carpenter bee? He can't sting.

No, doesn't help? What if I tell you she was giggling here about his buzzing tickling her? No?

But look at his face! So cute! Totally makes me want to pick him up and snuggle him. And Doodle feels the same way.

Peponapis!

Peeking in zucchini flowers the other morning, J discovered some visitors.

Awww, bee bums.

Oh, hello there, lovelies! Sorry to disturb your breakfast. Please resume coating yourselves in pollen - the flowers do so appreciate your efforts. Carry on! I shan't bother you much longer.

We have squash bees (Peponapis sp.) visiting our potted zucchini plants here in the back yard! The larger bee in the photos is a Peponapis male, and the smaller one is a sweat bee of some sort (Halictidae, probably Lasioglossum sp.). I was very happy to see these beautiful squash-loving bees zipping into our blossoms. Now if only the zucchini plants would set some female flowers we could get some zucchini out of the deal.

I spy...

Last weekend J and I were sitting in the yard, watching the kids and enjoying a mellow morning. I looked up at one of our oak trees, the diseased one with a butt rot that seems to still be fairly healthy so far. Looking at just the right angle I saw something.

Look closely. See anything?

I looked closer, I changed angles. J pulled out the spotting scope and set it up across the street. Yes! I was right! We have...

...a feral honybee colony in our tree! I am very excited and hopeful for these ladies, and will keep an eye on them over the summer. Yay honeybees!

Andrena

These little holes have started appearing in our yard, much to my delight.


Hello, darlin'! Please make yourself comfortable in our rock patch. I hope you won't mind if the kids and I sit and watch your comings and goings over the next few weeks. We think you're very interesting. I'll try to keep the little fella from walking on your nest holes. We're excited to get to know you, Andrena.

Anyone home?

Now that it's March (woohoo!) I find myself thinking about warm spring days, with the lovely plants and neat critters who will soon be emerging from their winter slumber.

spider lair?

And so I found myself one sunny afternoon peering into the ends of shrub stems, wondering who had made their home in each stem and when they might emerge.

Come on out, little critters! I've got a whole new insect fauna to learn here, and I am antsy (heh heh) to start!

GBBC

The Great Backyard Bird Count a couple of weekends ago was fun. It was nice to devote time to observing birds in our yard. I wish I could have gotten out to see more habitats, but we did make it to Millbrook Marsh for a quick Friday afternoon foray. Below are the lists of birds I saw in our yard (no new ones), and at the Marsh.

Our yard:
American Crow
Black-capped Chickadee
Tufted Titmouse
White-breasted Nuthatch
House Sparrow
White-throated Sparrow
Dark-eyed Junco
Northern Cardinal

Birds at Millbrook Marsh:
Mallard
American Crow - there are TONS of crows in our area right now. TONS. As in campus has been shooting of fireworks to discourage crows from roosting and pooping on everything. I saw hundreds flying over in the hour before sunset that we were outside.
Black-capped Chickadee
American Robin
Red-winged Blackbird

I'm excited to get outside more as it warms up. Less snow means it'll be easier for Roo to walk on his own while we're outside (his snow boots are cumbersome and he falls a lot, so I carry him a lot). Roo walking/running means at least some of the time I'll have two hands free and could, in theory, bring binoculars along on an outing with the kids to squeeze in a little more birding. Depends on the bees though; they definitely take priority and I'm very ready to get out and start learning the Eastern apifauna around here. Come on Spring Beauties! I'm ready to see some Andrena!

Haleakala

Subalpine zone, Haleakala National Park

One of our last days in Hawaii J and I took a daytrip with the kiddos up to Haleakala National Park, the big crater in the middle of Maui. We wanted to see a wild Sandalwood tree (J's Master's thesis study organism), some Silverswords (plants native to Hawaii, some of which are endangered), and some Nene (Hawaiian Geese). We struck out on the Nene, but found some introduced Chukar near the top of the crater. I grumbled a little about the chukar, as a guy had pointed us to the trail saying "There's some Nene right over there!" Oh well.

The sandalwood was everything J had hoped, and even had some bracken fern (his PhD study organism) growing up and out of it. We stopped and botanized in the subalpine zone, where I would definitely spend more time given the opportunity. We saw some Vaccinium (Hawaiian huckleberries), a bunch of neat leguminous shrubs, and even found a cute yellow-faced solitary bee!

cute little male solitary bee!

The silverswords were beautiful, especially in the near-barren alpine zone where they grow. The visitor center at the top is just short of 10,000 feet elevation, and you can see everything from up there. We could see the ocean all around the island, and some of the nearby islands. It was beautiful. I'm glad we decided to head up country because we got to see some beautiful areas and explore some ecosystems that are very different from the beach.

On the long, winding drive up the mountain we saw some hitchhikers with longboards and helmet-cams, and realized they had just done something like this:



We totally would have picked up the guys just to hear their story, but with the carseats and kiddos we didn't have room for them. Bummer.

A little farther up the mountain we saw another pair of guys coming down on their longboards. Looked a little scary, but definitely a rush. The road is perfect for this; it's nice and smooth, long, well maintained, and low traffic. I'm under orders from my mom to not tell my brother about this.



Pretty amazing, don't you think?

Sting meme

I'm not usually one for passing around cheesy blog memes, but I really liked this one - Things That Have Stung Me. As a lover and researcher of bees, I felt this was right up my alley. So here are the rules:
List all the things that have stung you. Bites don’t count.
Pass the meme to 3 or more other bloggers you suspect have also been well-zinged.

Bees:
Apis mellifera (honeybees) - once on my foot as a kid, once on my neck as a too-curious undergrad who got a little too close to a hive. Itchy, fair amount of swelling.

Lasioglossum sp. (sweat bees) - accidentally closed my hand while this little bee was lapping up sweat from between my fingers. Minimal swelling, a little itchy.

Halictus sp. (also sweat bees) - same as above.

Nomia melanderi (alkali bees) - when walking around in nesting aggregations where we estimated there were hundreds of thousands of these bees, occasionally one will fly up your shorts or between your shirt sleeve and arm. These stings puffed up a fair amount, and itched A LOT 2-3 days post-sting. Got probably 8 stings in two days.

Osmia sp. (mason bees) - surveying bee communities, I caught three bees in my net but only saw two. This was the third, and when trapped between my a vial and my hand, it took the reasonable action of stinging me. Sting site puffed up fast, but only itched for a day.

Wasps:
something unknown - once stung my collarbone in grade school, once stung me in the armpit my first day of bee surveys. If you can avoid it, don't ever get stung in the armpit. It swells up like a $%#*@& and leaves you with a puffy, floppy under arm swollen nearly past your elbow for about three days. Miserable.

Ants:
again, ID unknown - somewhere in the North Dakota badlands I stood on an ant nest, getting a fair amount of angry ants up my pants. I proceeded to scream, throw my net, quickly drop my pants, and swat furiously until the stinging/burning sensation was gone.

Now, here are people I would like to know about:
FunEllen - a fellow bee researcher.
Lindsey - did her time in bee field work.
Olivia - has probably caught thousands more bees than I have, and can ID them all to species.

Let's see those sting stories, ladies!

Daydreaming of summer

Found on Flickr here.