Today it seemed appropriate to remember the Irish
poet Seamus Heaney who died a couple of weeks ago, so Dale Hoyt read one of his
poems. (Note: The flax-dam in the poem is a pond in which the stems of Flax stems are placed in the
water to rot, releasing the fibers that were used to make linen. Many Irish towns had such flax dams.)

Death of
a Naturalist

All year the
flax-dam festered in the heart

Of the townland;
green and heavy headed

Flax had rotted
there, weighted down by huge sods.

Daily it sweltered
in the punishing sun.

Bubbles gargled
delicately, bluebottles

Wove a strong gauze
of sound around the smell.

There were
dragon-flies, spotted butterflies,

But best of all was
the warm thick slobber

Of frogspawn that
grew like clotted water

In the shade of the
banks. Here, every spring

I would fill
jampotfuls of the jellied

Specks to range on
window-sills at home,

On shelves at
school, and wait and watch until

The fattening dots
burst into nimble-

Swimming tadpoles.
Miss Walls would tell us how

The daddy frog was
called a bullfrog

And how he croaked
and how the mammy frog

Laid hundreds of
little eggs and this was

Frogspawn. You
could tell the weather by frogs too

For they were
yellow in the sun and brown

In rain.

Then one hot day
when fields were rank

With cowdung in the
grass the angry frogs

Invaded the
flax-dam; I ducked through hedges

To a coarse
croaking that I had not heard

Before. The air was
thick with a bass chorus.

Right down the dam
gross-bellied frogs were cocked

On sods; their
loose necks pulsed like sails. Some hopped:

The slap and plop
were obscene threats. Some sat

Poised like mud
grenades, their blunt heads farting.

I sickened, turned,
and ran. The great slime kings

Were gathered there
for vengeance and I knew

That if I dipped my
hand the spawn would clutch it.

We planned to focus on butterflies again today,
but it was cool when we began, not a good sign for butterfly activity.
Butterflies prefer hot, sunny weather, so we left the parking lot with low
expectations. But with so many sharp-eyed participants it wasn’t long before we
found lots  of interesting creatures.

NOTE: All photographs following were taken by Don Hunter.

Click here to see more of Dan’s great pictures. 

At an arbor on which Blue Passionflower (Passiflora caerulea) was growing someone
spotted a number of orange and purple caterpillars — the larval stage of the
Gulf Fritillary (Agraulis vanillae).
Several of these were large enough that they were probably close to
metamorphosing into the next stage, the pupa (called a chrysalis in
butterflies).  And, sure enough, another
sharp-eyed person spotted an empty chrysalis attached to the arbor itself.

Golden Garden Spider on web

Then we noticed a large orb web suspended at
the back of the arbor and, at the center of the web, a large yellow and black
spider — a Golden Garden Spider (Argiope
aurantia). 

The center of the web has a distinct band of
silk called a stabilimentum. The
function of this structure is unknown, but one hypothesis is that it warns
birds of the presence of the web. The stabilimentum reflects UV light and birds
have the ability to see in the UV part of the spectrum. They may avoid tangling
up their feathers if they can see there is a web ahead and swerve to avoid it.

Yum, yum!

Someone asked if I would throw a fly into the web, to see what
would happen. Lacking a fly, I threw one of the nearby caterpillars into the
web. There was no immediate response, probably because the caterpillar did not
struggle. When I shook the web a little the spider rushed over and, after a
moments hesitation, began to sheath the caterpillar in silk, finally hanging it
in place on the web.

A spidery sack lunch.

There were gratuitous remarks to the effect
that you can’t take the child out of the man, but these were ignored.

And then Donna spotted the trophy of the day:  A spherical, brown thing the size of a golf-ball
suspended by a network of silken thread from leaves at the edge of the spider’s
web. This was the egg case of the Golden Garden Spider!

Two more spider signs were observed, the webs
of the Spiny-backed Orbweaver (Gasteracantha
cancriformis) and the egg cases of a Basilica Orbweaver [?] (Mecynogea lemniscata). The eggs cases of
the latter species are long chains of cases suspended from silken “clothes
lines.” The web of the Spiny-backed Orbweaver has characteristic silk
supports — stretches of thin  silk
alternate with thicker, fuzzy silk. This is characteristic of this species, so
if you see such a web you don’t have to see the spider to know who made it.

Ed found a Clouded Skipper (Lerema accius) basking in the morning
sun on a yucca blade. When skippers bask they orient themselves so that they
are maximally exposed to the sun and open their hind wings almost horizontally,
while opening their fore wings only about 30 degrees. This posture is thought
to increase the area exposed to sunlight and hasten the warming process.

Motion just below the skipper attracted out
attention: an American Chameleon (Anolis carolinensis)
was out looking for dew. As we watched it licked the surface of the yucca leaf.
This is the way in which anoles get water. If you ever keep one as a pet you
must spray the plants  and the glass of
the cage each day. Placing a dish of water in the cage won’t work; the anoles
don’t know how to drink from a container.

Someone asked about anoles changing color. The
American Chameleon is not a true chameleon. It can only change from green to
brown and vice-versa. They are usually green when foraging in vegetation and
change to brown when cold. But they also become green when frightened, as when
they are handled.

On some goldenrod flowers we found two interesting insects, a
small group of true bug nymphs, colored black and red (are these UGA bugs?). Consulting
bugguide.net, these seem most similar to the Florida Predatory Stink Bug ( Euthyrhynchus
floridanus).These, as the common name implies, are predators and this would explain
why they were found with a dead Scoliid wasp.

The scoliid wasps are
interesting. They are parasitoids of the grubs of scarab beetles that live in
the ground. (A June bug is an example of a scarab beetle.) They dig into the
ground to find the grub, sting it and then lay an egg on it. The egg hatches
and the wasp larva feeds on the paralyzed grub. The adult wasps feed on nectar.

A “long-horned” grasshopper

Nearby we discovered a
long-horned grasshopper, so-called because its antennae are longer than its
body. It is a member of the family Tettigoniidae in the order Orthoptera. This
family is sometimes collectively referred to as “katydids.” Others
restrict the term “katydid” to tettigoniids that mimic leaves. 

A “short-horned” Grasshopper (missing the jumping legs)

Later we discovered the nymph (an immature stage) of a “short-horned”
grasshopper. Its antennae are much shorter than its body. It is a member of the
family Acrididae in the order Orthoptera.

Wow! An hour had gone by and we
had barely gone 500 feet!

Pausing at an arbor supporting the vines of a hop plant we noticed that some of the leaves were extensively damaged and surrounded by silk webs. This was due to the activity of caterpillars. Some species protect themselves by enclosing their food plant in silk webbing, preventing parasitic wasps from gaining access. Many of the silk webs had been abandoned but others had small caterpillars covered with white fuzz. These are undoubtedly moth larvae, but I don’t know what kind. 

Someone did spot a chrysalis hanging among the hops. Again consulting bugguide.net when I got home, I was able to identify it as the pupal stage of the Eastern Comma (Polygonia comma), an Angle-wing butterfly. You can see in the photograph a feature commonly found on butterfly chrysalids — bright, metallic spots. No one understands what function these have, but they certainly are decorative.

BTW: The hops that develop on the hop plant resemble the fruits of the Hop Hornbeam tree. That’s the origin of its common name.

At the flower beds toward the
other end of the garden we found some active butterflies. We caught and examined a Fiery Skipper (Hylephila phyleus), Gulf Fritillary, Red-spotted Purple (Limenitis arthemis astyanax) and Sleepy
Orange (Eurema nicippe). Some of us also saw a Buckeye (Junonia coenia),
Cloudless Sulphur(Phoebis sennae),
and female Tiger Swallowtail (the dark form) (Papilio glaucus).

After which we retired as usual for
conversation and snacks at Donderos’.

Dale

–