What’s In My Backyard? Meet the neighbors: Oak Rough Bulletgall Wasp Look at the young oak tree in the photos. All of its branches are covered with strange hard bumps! If you look closely, you may notice small round holes on the bumps. These bumps are called galls and they are the work of the …
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What’s In My Backyard? Meet the Neighbors: Mockingbird For the introduction to this series, see here This robin-sized gray bird lives up to its name. An adult mockingbird may know as many as 200 songs! These birds imitate the songs and calls of many other birds. Mockingbirds like to sing so much that sometimes they …
What’s In My Backyard? Lake Friends: Muskrat For the introduction to this series, see here Meet the muskrat! When is a rat not a rat? When it is a muskrat! These aquatic animals are rodents but they are much more closely related to voles and lemmings than to rats. Muskrats are adapted to life in …
What’s In My Backyard? Projects: Tracking For the introduction to this series, see here It is winter or early spring. The ground is covered with snow or mud and the weather is quite cold. There are no insects or flowers, many birds have migrated to warmer areas and there doesn’t seem like there is much …
Moths and Porch Lights Part Two For the introduction to this series, see here You may remember that we explored attracting insect to porch lights. I shared pictures of some of my interesting visitors. Today I would like to post a little update with pictures of some recent visitors to my back porch light. As …
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Meet the Neighbors: Red Sunflower Seed Weevil For the introduction to this series, see here Meet the Red Sunflower Seed Weevil! These little beetles have long snouts that look like straws. You might imagine that they suck liquid like you do with a straw. In reality, the beetles have chewing mouthparts at the end of …
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Meet the Neighbors: American Coot For the introduction to this series, see here American Coots, sometimes called mud hens, will only be your neighbor if you live in the right neighborhood. You need to live by a lake or pond because they never go far from water. These birds are not related to ducks. They …
Meet the Neighbors: White-bowed Smoothwing For the introduction to this series, see here Farmers and gardeners like things that eat aphids. Sometimes they even buy packages of ladybugs or aphid-eating wasps to help control aphids. Many people do not realize that there are many other insects that eat aphids. The white-bowed Smoothwing is one of …
Meet the Neighbors: Twelve-spotted Skimmer For the introduction to this series, see here. This beautiful dragonfly is a mosquito-eating machine. The larvae live in ponds and lakes and are carnivorous, eating almost anything they can catch. One thing that they eat a lot of is mosquito larvae. The adults are excellent hunters. One of their …
Meet the Neighbors: Sooty-winged Chalcoela Moth For the introduction to this series, see here. You probably know that most moths lay eggs on plants. Then the caterpillars eat the plants before turning into adult moths. Maybe you have heard of moths laying eggs on fur or grain. You probably do not think of moths eating …
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