jeffersonashby's Favorites

Just for interest, added cycad seeds being sorted . Nobody seems to know who brought them in or where they came from, but many of the seeds have similar holes, similarly empty. None of our cycads have cones now, so thinking this beastie came in with the seeds.

Kleinmond wasper of wasps

Our yellowwood paper wasp nest was visited by a stranger. She inserted her ovipositor into each cell and then flew off... No sign of our resident wasps while the attack took place. Today they were back on their nest as usual... There is an interaction on its way.

After I eventually collected the nest I was surprised to observe two completely different wasp species appear, I've loaded them here:

- larger species
- smaller species

Most people have a strong dislike for flies but many, like this one, are quite colourful and completely harmless. Flat-footed Flies, named for their enlarged and flattened hind feet, are quite small (this one is only 4 or 5 mm long). They can often be found on foliage along forest trails where their larvae feed on nearby fungi. This is one of my favourites and the entomologists who first described it must also have had a fondness for it---Callomyia is Greek for beautiful fly and venusta is from the Latin for charming.

Lindneromyia flavicornis male. Rock Creek Park, Washington, DC, USA.

Keys to Platypeza flavicornis in Johnson 1923. The current valid name for this species is Lindneromyia flavicornis according to diptera.org.

Melanistic Song Sparrow. Singing male, ID'ed as Song Sparrow by song, and similar face pattern (visible in photo though muted due to melanism). The bird was also associating with a standard-issue SOSP, possibly a mate.

A scrappy expanse of silky refuges and capture webs littered with body parts of previous victims. When preferred prey is entangled, the female spiders emerge from their 'nests' and overpower it by grabbing its extremities. In this case, a wasp https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/9319446.
Presumably they inject venom because after a minute or so the prey stops struggling. Then they snip it out of the web and carry it into one of several 'nests' or refuges.
Unwanted prey, often beetles (see https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/9319435 ) are also killed but sometimes left in the web, uneaten. Ants, in this case, Maranoplus ( https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/9319390 )scavenge around the periphery of the webs, feasting on unwanted beetles or other left-overs.

Black-throated gray warbler X Townsend’s Warbler. Shows yellow beyond lores and eye; white eye crescent; yellow wash on throat and belly; fine striping undertail coverts; olive back. Likely first fall female

The white eye crescent?

Observed in birdbath and foraging.