Today’s Ramble was led by Dale Hoyt.
Here’s the link
to Don’s Facebook album for today’s Ramble. (All the photos in this post are
compliments of Don, unless otherwise credited.)
Today’s post was written by Dale Hoyt.
Today’s Focus:
Learning to identify some kinds of pollinators (for participation in the Great
Georgia Pollinator Census, Aug. 23, 24.)
35 Ramblers met today.
Announcement:
Lauren told us that August
23 and 24 are the dates for the Great Georgia Pollinator Census. UGA and the Bot Garden will be
participating. The Nature Ramblers will
be contributing to this citizen science effort.
The August 22 Nature Ramble will be a dry run/learning experience to get
the Ramblers ready for their participation. Details
of the census are available at this link. The guide can be downloaded and
the census sheet printed. Participation is voluntary and can be done in your
own garden or a public place like the State Botanical Garden. Registration is
not necessary.
Today’s reading:
Catherine read a passage from The Naturalist’s Notebook: Tracking Changes in
the Natural World Around You by Nathaniel T. Wheelwright and Bernd Heinrich
What is a naturalist?
By naturalist, we simply mean
someone who is attuned to and enthusiastic about the natural world. A
naturalist can be a newcomer to nature or an expert in the science of
ecology. What makes natural history a bit different from ecology (a field
of biology sometimes defined as “scientific natural history”) is that
naturalists unabashedly blend firsthand knowledge of nature with a personal
affection for it that goes beyond science. In the words of writer Richard
Mabey, natural history is “a meeting place for wild life and human
feeling.”
If you enjoy collecting
seashells, pressing flowers, or keeping a list of the birds that you have
identified, you are already a naturalist. If you experiment each spring
with where and when to plant your vegetable crops, if you are curious about the
different insects feeding in your garden, if you can recognize the songs of
frogs calling in a nearby pond, you are already a naturalist.
 |
| A Cicada (L) and Luna Moth (R) (click to enlarge) |
Show and Tell: Avis brought us a deceased cicada
and male luna moth. All of us have heard cicadas but surprisingly few have
actually seen an adult. One species produces that deafening chorus you hear for
a short period of time after sunset, while other kinds chorus during the day.
Today’s route:
We headed straight to the Herb and Physic Garden and then to the Freedom
Plaza. The usual social hour followed at
the Café Botanica.
Today’s Ramble was a little different from our usual. We
hoped to find examples of each of the eight categories of insect pollinators
being counted in the Great Georgia Pollinator Census:
Bumble Bees, Honey Bees, Small
Bees, Carpenter Bees, Wasps, Flies, Butterflies/Moths
and other insects.
Note: Don and I do our best to identify the animals we find on our rambles, but often we can’t get all the way down to the species level. I think it’s better to not pretend that we know more than we do and be honest when we just recognize something at the level of order or family. If you think we have mis-identified anything please let us know.
Identification tips
Bumble Bees
smaller
than Carpenter Bees.
Very
fuzzy.
Black
and yellow in color.
Amount
of yellow is variable.
Top
of the abdomen is fuzzy, with short bristles (not smooth and shiny like a
Carpenter Bee) .
Usually
spend a lot of time at a flower before moving on.
 |
| Bumble Bee; notice how fuzzy both the thorax (yellow part) and the abdomen (black with yellow spot) are. (click to enlarge) |
Honey Bees
Smaller
than Bumble Bees and not as fuzzy.
Not
black and yellow.
Abdomen
with yellow, orange or tan cross bands that alternate with black cross bands.
Pollen
baskets on hind legs, noticeable when carrying a lot of pollen.
 |
| A Honey Bee looting nectar. A Carpenter Bee cut a slit in the base of the blue flower to get access to the nectar. The Honey Bee is taking advantage of the easy entry to the nectar source. (click to enlarge) |
Small Bees
Any
other kind of bee smaller than a honey bee.
Variable
in size and color.
Some
have body parts that are metallic green.
 |
| Sunflower Bee (click to enlarge) |
 |
| A small halictid bee (Family Halictidae) (click to enlarge) |
 |
| Another unidentified small bee. (click to enlarge) |
 |
| Unidentified small bee with lots of pollen. (click to enlarge) |
 |
| Unidentified small bee showing the mass of pollen collected on its belly. (click to enlarge) |
Carpenter Bees
Very
large, our largest Bee.
Look
like a large Bumble Bee.
Top
of abdomen not fuzzy; smooth, shining black.
 |
| A Carpenter Bee on Spotted Beebalm. (click to enlarge) |
 |
| Carpenter Bee – the abdomen is dark and shiny. (click to enlarge) |
 |
| Carpenter Bee nectaring on Mountain Mint. Notice the dark, shining abdomen. (click to enlarge) |
Wasps
Various
sizes.
Many
have narrow, thread-like waist.
Others
lack the long waist.
Not
fuzzy; move rapidly from flower to flower.
 |
| A scoliid wasp; these parasitize scarabid beetle larvae. (click to enlarge) |
 |
| Large Red Wasp (click to enlarge) |
 |
| A Mason Wasp; builds a clay jug and provisions it with paralyzed spiders. (click to enlarge) |
 |
| Great Black Wasp hunts katydids and crickets, stings them and carries them to its nest, a burrow dug by the wasp herself. She lays an egg on the paralyzed prey and seals the burrow. The larva eats the prey. (click to enlarge) |
 |
| Unidentified wasp (click to enlarge) |
Flies
Example:
House Fly.
Many
flies hold their wings horizontally and pointed backward, with the wing tips
further apart that their point of attachment, like a swept-wing fighter jet
plane.
Some
kinds of flies that visit flowers can hover in midair like a hummingbird.
These
“hover flies” look like bees or wasps – they have black and yellow crossbands.
They
are bee-mimics but have no stinger
They
visit flowers to eat pollen
 |
| A Bee Fly, family Bombyliidae. Bee Flies are usually fuzzy while Hover Flies are usually not fuzzy. (click to enlarge) |
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| A tachinid fly, family Tachinidae. Tachinids are very bristly. Their larvae are parasitic on other insects. (click to enlarge) |
Butterflies/Moths
You all know what
butterflies look like. This category includes Skippers.
 |
| A Tiger Swallowtail nectaring on Joe Pye weed. (click to enlarge) |
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| A Skipper, a type of usually small butterfly. (click to enlarge) |
 |
| Another Skipper in a typical basking pose (hind wings held horizontally, forewings held at a small angle above the back). (click to enlarge) |
Other insects
You
may find other kinds of insects on or near flowers. These may be true bugs,
beetles or other insects that are not known to normally pollinate flowers. For
example, Dragonflies may perch on flowers but they are not there for the pollen
or the nectar.
Bonus insect: Don noticed that the leaves of an Elm tree were being eaten and found the culprit: an Elm Sawfly larva. Sawfly larvae look a lot like caterpillars, but are related to the wasps, bees and ants of the insect order Hymenoptera. The caterpillars are feeding on the softer tissue between the veins in the Elm leaves.
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| Feeding by the Elm Sawfly larva is confined to the leaf tissue between the veins. (click to enlarge) |
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| Here is the culprit, the Elm Sawfly caterpillar. (click to enlarge) |
SUMMARY OF OBSERVED SPECIES
|
Robber |
Family |
|
Basil |
Ocimum |
|
Mint |
Mentha |
|
Bee |
Hemipenthes |
|
Bumblebee |
Bombus |
|
Rosemary |
Rosmarinus |
|
Syrphid |
Family |
|
Eastern |
Papilo glaucus |
|
Joe |
Eutrochium fistulosum |
|
Small |
Hymenoptera: |
|
Great |
Sphex pensylvanicus |
|
Eared |
Rudbeckia auriculata |
|
Sunflower |
Svastra obliqua |
|
Double-banded |
Scolia bicincta |
|
Spotted |
Monarda punctata |
|
Eastern |
Xylocopa virginica |
|
Large |
Sphex habenus |
|
Asian |
Harmonia axyridis |
|
Tachinid |
Diptera: |
|
Halictid |
Hymenoptera: |
|
Large |
Hymenoptera: |
|
Elm |
Cimbex americana |
|
Elm |
Ulmus sp. |