Wildlife Wednesday, June 2015

Posted on June 3, 2015 by Tina

What a wild month May was for Central Texas. Heavy rains caused severe and deadly floods in a number of cities and smaller communities in Texas, including my own. Along with the bad, some good happened too: in most areas of Texas, the drought of these past eight years is declared “over”. The downside, of course, is that the drought ended with massive rain “bombs” which exacted a high cost in lives and property. So far, 27 people are confirmed dead, with several still missing. The property damage is estimated at least $27 million.

I’ve continue to hear that 35 trillion gallons of water fell on Texas in May. While I’m not quite sure how that’s measured (buckets?)–it’s a lot of rain. Here in Austin, the official rainfall total was 17.59 inches for May, compared the the “normal” of 4.37 inches.

Yup, lots of rain.

Texas weather is dramatic, to say the least. As National Public Radio’s Texas reporter extraordinaire, John Burnett, stated in one of his stories last week about the disastrous Texas floods: It seems to affirm a quote attributed to a meteorologist in 1927. Texas is a land of perennial drought broken by the occasional devastating flood.

Wildlife perseveres through it all though. Native flora and fauna have developed mechanisms to thwart, or at least, mitigate, nature’s challenges, be it drought or flood, and all other things being equal, will recover–in time.

Early in the month, there was plenty of wild and honeybee activity on native blooms in my gardens. I fear that some of the ground nesting native or wild bees that live in and around my garden were flooded out, but mason and wood nesting bees continue, mostly unmolested, by the rains. There will probably be a dearth smaller metallic, sweat and other ground nesting bees for a time, until their populations rebound. My gardens will be ready for them when the next generation emerges.

I identify bees (and other insects and birds, for that matter) by visually comparing my photo(s) with an example found on a legitimate website like bugguide.net or The Jha Lab of The University of Texas–assuming I can find a photo, that is. Then I research whether the critter-of-choice photographed elsewhere visits the same or similar plant species–or if there’s any related information on feeding or behavior. I usually confirm with at least one more reference, if possible. If I can draw a connection, either by physical similarity and/or behavior, to what I’ve seen in my gardens, combined with information gleaned on scientific websites, I feel reasonably confident about my identifications. As I’m only just learning about the multitudes of native bees in Texas (300-plus species), keep in mind that my identification of wild bees are worth what you paid for them. Come to think, that probably holds true for most of the insects I name.

You’ve been warned.

This is a Miner Bee, Perdita ignota, I believe. During the first weeks of May, several crawled around the Engelmann or Cutleaf Daisy, Engelmannia peristenia, blooms, ending up covered in pollen–which is typical of the way bees, especially wild bees, cross-pollinate so efficiently.

I haven’t seen any adults for a couple of weeks and because these particular bees ground nest, I’m guessing that some nests were flooded out with heavy rain. Poor bees.

I like the sharing of flower-space between this very tiny bee and the Ladybird Beetle (one of the good guys).

But there’s an unwelcome visitor to the neighborhood in the guise of the Spotted Cucumber Beetle. These beetles certainly chomped their share of petals and leaves recently, which I’m not thrilled about. Squishing is my preferred method of destruction (yes, I wear gloves!), but honestly, they’re pretty quick-n-crafty, therefore uncatchable.

I think the bee on the flower left of the “Native Bee” label is a Minor Bee, but the tiny bee on the right is a mystery. It might a wasp or even a fly. But the body form looks bee-like to me: wider body, not so skinny, and no dangly-wasp legs. I’m sticking with a Teesny Bee ID.

I witnessed these two Ceratina ssp., Small carpenter bees, in the process of making more bees.

Blush.

After the untangling and with full pollen sacs, the female will have placed the eggs in wood or maybe masonry, then closed off the opening by packing with pollen and soil so that the eggs can hatch in privacy and protection. The larvae will develop as they eat the pollen, but it might be a while for the next generation pollinates and nectars–and creates more of the same.

In between rainstorms, this Eastern Carpenter Bee, Xylocopa virginiana, visited the Barbados Cherry.

That’s quite a load, eh? There’s something comically cute about bees carrying pollen–I always smile when I see full pollen pantaloons, whether on my honeybee gals or native bees. And I wonder, How does she fly with that mass of pollen?

I guess she rests at some point. As I watched and photographed her, she was vibrating along the plant, near an open bloom. Native bees shake or vibrate to induce the flower to release pollen.

I think this one, sipping nectar at Purple Coneflowers, is a another Eastern Carpenter Bee, though her coloring is a little different.

Most of the carpenter bee species I’ve observed in my gardens are black with stripes or black with puffs of yellow, here and there. This gorgeous, shiny black bee (or maybe fly?) is pure, glistening black.

I couldn’t find a fly which meets this description, so I’m hazarding a guess at another carpenter bee species type. There are differences in coloration between males and females (on their faces) with carpenter bees, but, I’m stumped about this one. Any ideas? Fly or bee? Bee or fly? Shall we take a vote?

It doesn’t matter all that much to me because all pollinators are welcome in my garden.

The Syrphid Flies continued their love affair with the Engelmann or Cutleaf Daisy in my back garden.

Syrphidae, also known as Flower Flies, are great pollinators and are beautiful garden visitors. They come in a variety of color combos, but his yellow and brown is the one that I see most often and alights long enough for photographs.

Because of that, they are my favorite of the Syrphidae.

This fetching Long-legged fly, in the family Dolichopodidae, rested on the large leaf of a non-native Sunflower. Such a pretty fly, its metallic green color mirrors its chosen plinth.

Green Lacewing, Chrysopidae, insects are a personal favorite of mine.

So graceful and fragile looking, they are garden beneficials in larval and adult form. The larvae eat spider and insect eggs, as well as aphids. The adults feed on nectar and pollinate, as well as, adding crunch to their diet by consumption of smaller insects and eggs.

An influx of the Four-lined Beetle, Poecilocapsus lineatus, proved a problem in my garden this past month, especially on the foliage of the Cutleaf Daisy. The Four-lined Beetle is handsome in its suit of red-to-yellow stripes, but I don’t like what they do to MY plants.

These true bugs feed on foliage, sucking the juice of leaves, causing this stippling.

Other insects with sucking mouthparts cause discoloration to or rotting of foliage. Not friends to the garden, that’s for sure.

The butterflies and moths are making a comeback after the floods and ready for summer action, as witnessed by this Little Yellow, Pyrisitia lisa, feeding on a Four-nerve Daisy, Tetraneuris scaposa.

I used to see these interesting pollinators, Snowberry Clearwing Moth, Hemaris diffinis, frequently in my gardens,

…but they’ve been scarce in the drought years. I was tickled to watch this one and hope to see more of them through the summer months.

This Little Brown Grasshopper-thing, (actually, two different ones), have tooled around the Winecup, Callirhoe involucrata.

I gave up identifying this guy/gal–there are too many different grass and leafhoppers to narrow down an identity. I have one or two other things to do, you know. Whatever it is, I love the powder-sugar sprinkling of pollen grains and appreciated their cooperation for the photo shoot. The photo above doesn’t show damage on the Winecup, though the one below does. What I don’t know for certain is whether it was the grasshopper who was the villain or whether the grasshopper was in the wrong spot and at the wrong time, where the botanical crime was committed..

As for avian visitors, May was no slouch in that department.

During fall migration, I saw a male American Redstart, but due to his fast movements through the trees, I never got a good photo. I did, however, enjoy observing him for a day or two, before he headed southward. This female or immature male American Redstart, Setophaga ruticilla, flitted through my trees and shrubs for a week or two this past month.

There were several, actually and I think they’ve headed north–I haven’t seen any of these warblers in the last couple of weeks. I look forward to their return in September/October.

Finally, I was charmed by the antics of this Gray Catbird, Dumetella carolinensis, helping himself to my Brazos blackberries.

I feigned annoyance at his or her thieving, but I don’t mind wildlife sharing the garden bounty. I had a bumper crop of blackberries this spring and where this particular vine is located is an ideal spot for Gray Catbirds: it’s a tangle of various shrubs, including the blackberry vine, which provides shelter and respite. And blackberries.

I hope your gardens benefited from wildlife visitors this month and that you will join in posting for June Wildlife Wednesday. Share the rare or mundane, funny or fascinating, beneficial or harmful critters you encounter. When you comment on my post, please remember to leave a link to your Wildlife Wednesday post so readers can enjoy a variety of garden wildlife observations.

Happy wildlife gardening!

Hope Dashed

Posted on May 31, 2015 by Tina

Astrud the Cat loves Green Anole lizards. She watches and chases them, always hoping to catch them, if she can.

This lucky anole knows he’s safe–at least from this feline, if not from birds or other predators.

Astrud is probably disappointed that there’s a screen between Mr. Green and herself. But she’ll be more disappointed if she misses seeing other anoles from garden bloggers during Wildlife Wednesday, this coming Wednesday, June 3rd. Astrud and I are looking forward to lots of posts about wild things in the garden–flitting, flying, creeping, and crawling–whatever wildlife visited or moved in–please share photos and stories.

June 3rd, Wildlife Wednesday–Astrud loves to watch.

Bee Mama Missive: Bees–They’re What’s For Dinner

Posted on May 28, 2015 by Tina

Paraphrasing an advertising tagline from the American beef production industry, I think Bees-they’re what’s for dinner is applicable to the Summer Tanagers, Piranga rubra, who are visiting my garden. In the last month, I’ve observed at least three different Tanagers flitting around my back garden.

You’ll have to excuse the photos–I’ve yet to take a clear pic of any one of these stunning birds, but the male is pure bright red, the female is yellow, and the red/yellow combination is an immature male. I have no idea where they’re nesting, but these eye-poppers breed in Central Texas and surrounding areas west, south, and eastward during summer.

When I first saw the birds, all three over the course of a weekend, I was baffled about why they were landing only on the house side of the Shumard Oak tree and nowhere else in the garden. They’d land in the tree, hop from branch to branch, moving constantly. Occasionally one would flit to the Retama tree or, more likely to the electric/cable wires adjacent to the Shumard. Eventually each bird would fly back to the neighbor’s tree, or beyond, which is the direction they always come from. I couldn’t figure out what they wanted from that particular spot in the Shumard. The Husband mentioned off-handedly, “Maybe they eat bees.”

Really? The birds and the bees? One is the hunter and one is the prey? I checked the Cornell Merlin phone app while I was watching the Tanagers that Sunday afternoon and Summer Tanagers are, in fact, bee and wasp eaters. The Tanagers were landing in the Shumard just above where the honeybee hives are located.

Who knew?

Indeed, I’ve watched them fly into the flight path of my honeybees, swooping in, then banking off sharply as if they caught something; I assume the brilliant hunter flew off to an unseen spot to eat. I’ve witnessed an immature male Tanager flutter just above a Purple Coneflower, where a native bee was hard at work nectaring. The Tanager hovered briefly, then seemingly decided that maybe honeybees were more easily picked off for a meal and he flew away.

At about the time that the Tanagers were making daily, or nearly daily, appearances, I also realized that both of our honeybee queens were dead. I’m not sure what happened to the queens, as they were dutifully laying eggs at the beginning of spring. We might have accidentally rolled them during a hive check (probably) or, they might have simply died or were so weak that the worker bees decided to replace them–that happens. The previous weeks, as part of my spring beekeeper management, I’d conscientiously destroyed queen cells (that the girls insisted upon making), in order to quell their desire for procreation. I did such a good job that the ladies were left without their leaders.

Beekeeping is hard. Especially when the beekeeper doesn’t know what in hell she’s doing.

So I found myself in a bit of a fix: two dead queens, which means two dying hives–and Summer Tanagers gobbling honeybees on a regular basis. Even without the hunting birds, the bees are doomed if I don’t requeen both hives, and the Tanagers assure that inevitability sooner, rather than later. What to do? A quick check on the Beeweaver Apiaries website showed that they were sold out of queen bees until June.

JUNE!! My hives won’t make it to June. I emailed the owner, whom I met last year, explained my predicament and she took pity on me, or more likely, my hapless honeybees. She immediately ordered two queens sent, via UPS, on an overnight shipment to me. Beekeepers stick together and help each other.

The queens were to arrive on a Thursday and when they didn’t as expected, I shifted into sleuth mode to discover where my queens were stranded. UPS claimed that the package was delivered to my address at 9am. I wasn’t home at that time, but Bee Daddy was and there was no delivery of queens or anything else. I combed the neighborhood on my bicycle, searching for a misdelivered queen bee package. I received some odd looks from neighbors when I explained what I was looking for and that proved interesting. And weird. I won’t go into the details about what I did to find the package of bees, but the queens and their attendants were misdelivered that morning to an address that was one number off of mine and about ten houses away.

Yes, I made a formal complaint to UPS.

The hives were requeened and new bees are hatching as I write–there will be plenty of honeybees for the Tanagers to eat.

WAIT A MINUTE! That’s not why I have honeybees! I have honeybees so they can pollinate my gardens and the gardens around the neighborhood. I have honeybees so that I can enjoy and share their incredible honey. I DON’T have honeybees so the Summer Tanagers can hunt and eat them.

But hunt and eat they do. One of my bedroom windows is just above where the hives are located. One morning recently, I opened the window to a gorgeous male Summer Tanager, perched in the Shumard, gazing hungrily down at the hives. He was so intent on snagging a bee for his breakfast that he didn’t notice my movement at the window.

This past Sunday morning, my little Astrud cat was staring at something as she sat on that window sill, as she often does.

Can you see him through the less-than-pristine screen? The Tanager is poised on top of Scar (one of my hives). The beautiful avian scamp flew downward for a second, likely to the entry board of the hive, then flew back to the top with his prize: a honeybee in his beak for lunch. He mangled my beloved little bee and deposited her down his gullet–while perched atop the hive. That takes a certain amount of impertinence.

Additionally, I have mixed emotions about witnessing the effrontery.

Do I mind the Tanagers hunting the bees? No, actually, I don’t. I do feel a little sad about the hardworking foragers, toward the end of their lives, being snarfed down by the gorgeous feathered fiends. And having hives readily available is tantamount to shooting fish in a barrel. After all, it’s not even like the Tanagers have to hunt that hard. The hives are right there and the bees are coming and going constantly, with no thought to their own personal safety–the health of the hive is what drives them.

Meanwhile, the Tanagers have found a pretty sweet deal.

In targeting my honeybees for the benefit of their tummies, the Tanagers won’t decimate my hives. Yes, they’ll kill some and if they’re around all summer, many. But the honeybees are in much more danger from pesticide or herbicide use on a plant they might forage from than they are from the Summer Tanagers. I don’t garden with chemicals, but the bees forage within a three-mile radius–who knows what they take nectar and pollen from? The Tanagers will kill some bees, but they won’t cause either of my hives to collapse because of harmful chemicals. The balance of prey to predator won’t be disturbed–as long as all other factors remain relatively equal.

Ahem. Good beekeeping practices are part of that equation.

So I’m welcoming the Tanagers to my garden and consider myself fortunate to observe these fascinating and beautiful birds. I don’t see them everyday. In fact, a couple of weeks passed and I didn’t see any Tanagers. Then, saw one or two for several days–hanging around the beehives, of course. Besides bees and wasps, Tanagers also eat fruit, though I didn’t see them at the ripening blackberries.

Apparently, the Tanagers have plenty to eat. Truthfully, I rather them dine on the honeybees than the native bees, since the honeybee hives are protected and have a healthy location in which they thrive. The native bees nest in and around my gardens, but they also nest elsewhere and may not always find such a tolerant and beneficent host.

Beekeeping and wildlife gardening–a tricky balance with those two, but there clear advantages with both endeavors and my garden and the surrounding environment are the winners.

I’m sure the bees are delicious to the Tanagers, but I think I’ll stick to eating honey.

Either way, bon appétit!