Palps

Palps

This afternoon Gracie and I were startled on our walk. We saw our first turkey that I have seen in our woods. To be fair, I think it was more startled than either of us. It let out a weird sound and flew about 15 feet. Then it proceeded on foot away from us at…

Jumped the gun…

Jumped the gun…

I was a bit hasty in deciding that the scales on the Snowberry Clearwing had just turned transparent. As I discussed with Suzanne in the comments in the Hemaris diffinis post, it appears the scales did just fall off. Here is my evidence. So my conclusion is that at least three different species of moths…

Hemaris diffinis

Hemaris diffinis

What a nice breeze on this morning’s walk. We saw a bumblebee on nightshade and then I spotted Hemaris diffinis (a moth) further into the woods next to a patch of Coralberry. I was excited to see it sitting still! Coralberry (Symphoricarpos orbiculatus) is a host plant of the Snowberry Clearwing! On first glance when…

Microscope confirmations

Microscope confirmations

Yesterday I brought home several specimens. When you are in the field with others, they stop and look at different things. So I needed to use the dissecting and the compound microscopes to just to see what we had and to confirm. Thank you prairie friends for your observations! Articles: Meet the White Tern, a…

Before dawn…

Before dawn…

I left the house before dawn, but I did not start the exploring until the sun had been up for a half hour. It was pretty nice at the grasslands this morning. A breeze would have been welcome. But none was too be had ’til we got a slight breeze on the way back to…

Solanum dimidiatum

Solanum dimidiatum

I have been looking for a hornworm on the nightshade Western Horse Nettle (Solanum dimidiatum) for a number of years. I have yet to ever see one on any of the Solanums except for a tomato plant. Have any of you? But I have found interesting insects from Colorado Potato Beetles to Soybean Loopers and…

Sweet sixteen…

Sweet sixteen…

Today’s post will conclude Thursday, July 1st outing. We found four different ferns, bugs, fungi, and plants on that day. Always wonderful to get out on the grasslands. The holiday is over and it is back to work. Oh wait, every day is a work day and/or a day off for those of us retired….

Along the creek…

Along the creek…

We made it down to the creek. It was a pretty creek, but not a creek where you could easily walk along the water’s edge. We only went down to the actual creek one time. But that ended up being a good thing because we found several cool plants up above. It seems we got…

Happy 4th!

Happy 4th!

So the visit to the grasslands on Thursday was great as usual. The only thing that would have made it better would have been a breeze, but since we go really early it is not too bad. It started out on the roadside to hunt for a plant. I didn’t find it, but maybe it…