Some Intriguing Invertibrates

     July, August and September are thee months of cold-blooded invertebrates here in southeastern Pennsylvania, and many of those little creatures with exoskeletons are exceptionally attractive and interesting.  This September, I've seen some appealing spiders and insects in my home area, making my nature trips more exciting and inspiring.
     I've seen a few strikingly black and yellow female garden spiders in their large orb webs hung among tall grasses or between wooden rails of a pasture fence where they wait for flying insects to become helplessly enmeshed in silk webbing the spiders produce themselves.  These beautiful spiders, that have one-inch bodies and long legs, making them more visible than most spiders, paralyze their insect victims, wrap them in silk and suck out their juices when they are hungry. 
     I've also seen a couple of handsome fishing spiders in the slow-running edges of streams in sunny, grassy meadows.  These spiders are nearly an inch long, are dark brown with two beige stripes on the tops of their thoraxes and abdomens.  These camouflaged spiders use most of their legs to anchor themselves to shoreline vegetation, but each spider extends a couple of legs onto the surface of the slow current to feel for vibrations in the water caused by insects or tiny fish.  Other kinds of spiders feel prey in their webs the same way.  When a fishing spider feels vibrations close by, it runs over the water to snare its victim and paralyzes it for a future meal.  
     American ruby-spot damselflies are about an inch and a half long and live in and around small waterways in sunny pastures.  I first saw these pretty dragonfly relatives this September, which was thrilling to me.  Males of this species have an attractive red spot at the base of each wing, giving this insect beauty, particularly when zipping about in sunlight over a clear stream lined with vegetation.  Those red spots also give this damselfly its common name.  Females spawn eggs into plant tissues at the edges of streams, and the young feed on tiny invertebrates on stream bottoms.  Adults consume flying insects.
     This late summer, into autumn, I have noticed many one-inch-long spotted lantern flies flying about here and there, and blundering onto back decks and vehicles, where they walk about, then take flight again.  These flies are attractive with dark spots on light-gray outer wings, red on each hind wing and yellow on each side of the abdomen, the lantern itself I suppose.  The red and yellow are seen mostly when these slow-flying insects are in flight. 
     These flies in all stages of their lives seem to be alert and ready to quickly leap or fly away from danger.  This species consumes vegetation and is said to be a pest on fruit, especially grapes. 
    Young lantern flies are black with white spots.  Red develops on their wings as they mature.      
    While watching for migrant birds and monarch butterflies, I sometimes see a few green darner dragonflies migrating south to avoid the northern winter.  Green darners are interesting because they zip along so rapidly, sometimes in little groups, catching small flying insects as they go.  They can be spotted almost anywhere, including away from water.
     I have noticed many lovely buckeye butterflies this summer, and into September, more, it seems, than in other years.  I mostly see buckeyes on red clover blossoms in hay fields and along country roads in this area.  But they visit asters and other flowers as well. 
     Buckeyes are attractive with brown and orange wings, with two dark, round spots that look like eyes on each of four wings.  Those fake eyes help discourage birds and other would-be predators from eating buckeye butterflies.    
     I also saw a hickory, horned devil on the ground along the edge of a deciduous woodland.  It was a six-inch, chunky caterpillar, light-green all over, which camouflaged it in the trees, had many dark barbs along its upper body and eight, black-tipped, long, orange barbs just behind its head.  All that armory discourages predators from ingesting this regal moth, also known as royal walnut moth, caterpillar.  Hickory horned devils consume the leaves of hickory and walnut trees and become beautiful gray moths with orange striping and yellow spots on their wings.
     I found an eyed elator, a large kind of click beetle, in a fallen log in a deciduous woods.  This almost two-inch-long, gray beetle has two black ovals that look like eyes on top of its thorax, again to discourage would-be predators from consuming this beetle.  This beetle consumes plant juices and abruptly snaps its body to startle birds and other predators.
     And I have seen a few praying mantises this summer, into September.  But recently I saw one fly.  That flying mantis resembled an other-worldly creature from a horror movie, or a tiny dinosaur.  With their wings and legs extended in flight, mantises appear large and monstrous.  They look like relics of the past, which all insects are.  And mantises are predatory, which adds to their fearsome appearance, especially when in flight.
     All these local invertebrates, and others, are attractive and intriguing, each in its own way.  When out during July, August and September, look for some of these interesting, exciting creatures. 
      
        

Insects on Asters

     For two hours one warm, sunny afternoon in the middle of September in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, I sat in a planted patch of New York aster blooms on three foot stalks to see what kinds of insects were sipping nectar from those beautiful blossoms.  That clump of lovely aster flowers, each bloom being one inch across, with deep-purple petals and yellow centers, is the size of an average bedroom, and on the edge of a lawn in a tree-dotted park.  Blooming since late August, multitudes of New York aster flowers are pretty in themselves, and also attract many insects that help liven flower beds and lawns during September and into October.  And aster blooms of several kinds are the last large source of nectar for insects each autumn in this area.
     The planted patch of asters I studied was swarming with insects in competition for nectar.  Some insects on the blossoms bumped into each other in their quest for nectar, while spreading pollen from flower to flower.  
     Many bumble bees, carpenter bees and honey bees buzzed heavily from bloom to bloom and ingested nectar from each aster blossom they visited, some of the bees right where I was sitting.  But I was not concerned because I knew the bees wouldn't bother me: And they didn't.  In fact, I had the wonderful feeling of being right in the midst of the bees' activities, without disturbing them; and being exceptionally close to the beauties and intrigues of nature.
     The constant fluttering "dancing" of cabbage white butterflies and yellow sulphur butterflies among the lovely aster flowers made those insects the most visible from a bit of a distance.  After a couple of generations of both these species of butterflies that originated in Europe, they are common in this area by late summer, into autumn.  They are particularly abundant in alfalfa and red clover fields when those hay crops go to flower, adding more life and beauty to local croplands, until those hay crops are mowed.
     Hackberry butterflies and least skipper butterflies were the most common kinds of butterflies among those aster blooms.  The abundance of the hackberry butterflies is explained by a couple of hackberry trees in the park.  Hackberry caterpillars fed on the leaves of those trees until they pupated.  Least skipper larvae feed on grass before pupating into butterflies.
     The tiny least skippers are cute little critters darting about among the flowers.  And their big, dark eyes add to their appeal.
     A few each of buckeye butterflies, meadow fritallaries, silver-spotted skippers and monarch butterflies, all of which are quite handsome, sipped nectar from New York aster blossoms.  Their presence on the aster flowers is understandable because the larval foods of them all is nearby.  Buckeye larvae feed on low herbs, some of which grow in lawns.  Fritallary caterpillars eat violet leaves, which also grow in lawns.  The skipper larvae consume soybean leaves, which are in nearby soybean fields.  And monarch young ingest milkweed leaves that grow along country roadsides, in abandoned fields, and in some flower gardens.        
     Buckeyes have pretty wings, brown and orange with two fake, dark eyes on each of four wings.  Those "eyes" frighten away birds and other would-be predators on buckeyes.
     Monarchs are famous for migrating each September to California, Mexico, or Florida to escape the northern winter.  And the next spring those same monarchs start north, mate, spawn and die.  But succeeding generations continue winging north and keeping the species alive.
     While sitting among the multitudes of bees and butterflies on the asters, it occured to me that those insects are part of food chains.  Water, sunlight, soil and air are non-living elements that contribute to the growth of vegetation, including asters.  Bees, butterflies and other kinds of insects ingest the nectar of those flowers, and some of those insects, in turn, are eaten by birds and other kinds of creatures.  And other animals, including mice, bears and people eat the honey of bees.        
     It's amazing how many bees and butterflies are attracted to a patch of asters to sip nectar.  Nature in abundance always attracts me because it is inspiring.  It's then that I feel all is well with the world and there is a Being far greater than ourselves!  There's no better expression of that Being's creativity than wonderful nature, even among the works of people. 

Farmland Insect Flowers

     Early in September, several kinds of flowering plants commonly bloom along roadsides, moist ditches, hedgerows, and in uncultivated corners of fields and pastures and abandoned fields and meadows in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania farmland, as throughout much of the eastern United States.  All these lovely blooms in those human-made habitats draw attractive and interesting insects that sip sugary nectar from the blossoms, pollinating the flowers in the process; a win-win situation, as most of them are in nature.  For over an hour one warm, sunny afternoon in the beginning of this September, I saw several kinds of insects visiting pink red clover flowers and yellow goldenrod and wingstem blossoms in a corner of a field, and orange spotted jewelweed blooms, white boneset flowers, pink ironweed blooms and blue great lobelia blossoms in a moist roadside ditch bordering that field corner.  Those beautiful flowers and intriguing insects represented life in abundance where one doesn't expect to find it.
     Each flower head on red clover plants has several tiny florets in a clump.  Red clovers begin to bloom by the end of May and through summer into autumn.  A variety of pretty butterfly species sip nectar from red clover blooms, particularly cabbage white and yellow sulphur butterflies.
     Multitudes of tiny blooms on pointing goldenrod "fingers" begin to blossom toward the end of August.  Goldenrod flowers attract numerous digger wasps, which have dark heads and thoraxes and rusty-red abdomens.  Digger wasp larvae consume June beetle larvae in the ground, pupate there and emerge from the soil as attractive adult wasps.
     Wingstem stalks grow up to six feet high, have drooping, yellow petals on each bloom and small ridges on their stems.  Bumble, carpenter and honey bees, digger wasps and several kinds of butterflies visit wingstem blossoms.
     Reaching a peak of blooming early in September, the overwhelmingly abundant spotted jewelweed blossoms grow on bush-like plants that reach four feet tall.  Each flower is shaped like a one-inch cornucopia and dangles from a long stem like jewelry.  Jewelweed blossoms are visited mostly by bumble and honey bees that push their way into the blooms to sip nectar.
     Jewelweeds are also called touch-me-nots because their small, green seed pods spring open when touched by animals and people, which shoots their seeds a few feet from the parent plants.  Seeds not eaten by mice and small birds sprout the next spring.
     Each boneset plant bears several flattened clumps of tiny blooms.  Those flowers attract digger wasps, and smaller kinds of butterflies, including skippers and pearl crescents.
     Ironweed grows up to five feet tall and has several blooms in August and September.  A variety of attractive butterflies, including monarchs and tiger swallowtails, flutter among these flowers and land on them to ingest nectar.    
     Great lobelias have blooms on two-foot tall stems.  Bumble bees are the insects most likely to enter them to consume nectar.
     But bees and butterflies that visit the flowers of these plants are not the only members of their vast class of animals to feed on flowering plants in human-made fields and meadows late in summer and into fall.  A small variety of grasshoppers, plus field crickets and mole crickets also get sustenance from those plants.
     While watching the butterflies and bees fluttering and buzzing among the flowers, I also noticed several grasshoppers jumping among the tops of the green foliage of those blooming plants, and grasses.  They were there to ingest that foliage.
     Watching even closer, I saw a few dark field crickets hopping over the ground among the bases of the same plants, where they fed on the living foliage.  And as I watched bees, butterflies, grasshoppers and crickets, I heard the seemingly unending, measured chirping of a mole cricket in his shallow burrow in a damp part of the roadside ditch.  Mole crickets are built like moles with shovel-like front legs and small back legs.  They eat the roots of plants that hang in their tunnels.
     It is always amazing to me how much lovely nature is in human-made habitats created to serve human needs.  Those habitats are quickly populated by adaptable plants and animals, to their benefit in having homes, and our benefit in enjoying the presence of those adaptable, wonderful living beings.   
    

Mourning Doves and Canada Geese

     Mourning doves and Canada geese are legal game birds at the start of September each year in Pennsylvania farmland.  And although they are members of different families, these handsome, permanent resident birds have much in common because they share human-made habitats- the innumerable lawns and fields they have adapted to.  They demonstrate convergent evolution. 
     Both these adaptable species feed on vegetation, the abundant doves on seeds and grain in fields, and the numerous geese on short grass on lawns and fields and on grain in fields.  Both raise young on suburban lawns, the doves in flimsy twig and grass platforms in trees and the geese in grassy nurseries on the ground near built ponds, and along streams.  Both species are used to people and their activities and conduct their daily lives around human activities.  Both are exciting to see and hear when they are in flight.  The geese honk excitedly as they fly in long lines or V formations.  And we can hear the whistling of the doves' wings when those birds are in speedy flight.  It's also a pleasure to hear the doves' melancholy cooing during warmer months.  And both species have bright futures because of their adapting to changing conditions.  Today, each one of these game birds has a large population throughout much of North America, in spite of hunting pressure, accidents, and predation on them and their young.  They bring much interesting, attractive life to lawns and fields.
     Mourning doves originally inhabited woodland edges where they nested in trees and fed on weed and grass seeds in bordering clearings.  Canada geese have traditionally raised young on marshy ground in eastern Canada and wintered around the Chesapeake Bay Area.
     However, European settlers in North America long ago cleared away deep forests to create farmland, producing fields that soon became dove habitats.  And in the 1960's, the flight feathers of some breeding pairs of Canada geese were removed so that those geese were forced to raise goslings in meadows and in suburban areas in the Lower 48 States, creating a new population of Canadas whose numbers have grown so much in places that these geese have become pests there, hence the hunting season on them.       
     Mourning doves raise two young in a clutch, and they can raise up to six broods of young during the warmer months of each year; a pair of youngsters a month, on average.  But they usually don't because of crows, raccoons and other predators on eggs and small young, or from wind pushing nest and young out of the trees.
     Doves build grass cradles in trees, particularly coniferous ones that offer better shelter from predators and wind.  And both parents pump a "porridge" of pre-digested seeds into their chicks' mouths until they are able to fly and get their own food in fields.
     Canada geese hatch four to six goslings per pair in grassy nurseries, surrounded by tall vegetation, near ponds and marshes.  But some pairs of Canadas nest in raised bridge supports, crow, heron or hawk cradles of sticks in trees, and in old tires mounted over water especially for the geese.  The goslings, which are fuzzy, wide-eyed and ready to feed themselves on plants soon after birth, must leap from those elevated nesting sites to the ground or water below.  
     Because of their adaptations to human-made habitats and activities, mourning doves and Canada geese are abundant in Pennsylvania and can take hunting pressure.  But they are also interesting, exciting and attractive birds on lawns and fields throughout much of North America where hunters and non-hunters alike can easily see and appreciate them.