Watching Hunt’s Bumble Bee (Bombus huntii) on Caragana in the Springtime
Watching Hunt's Bumble Bees on Caragana blossoms in the Southwestern Colorado Springtime.
A Good Life
Miscellaneous Wanderings and Maunderings
A Good Life
Miscellaneous Wanderings and Maunderings
Wasps and Bees
Watching Carrot Wasps in the Garden
Watching Carrot Wasps (Gasteruption sp.) in Southwestern Colorado. Do I know how to live or what?
Watching a Spider Wasp Hunting in Southwestern Colorado
Photos and text from an afternoon spent watching a Pompilid Spider Wasp catching a Spider in Southwestern Colorado.
Watching Tarantula Hawks on Desert Milkweed in Tucson, Arizona
A meditation on watching and photographing Tarantula Hawks in Arizona.
Iron Cross Blister Beetle – Tegrodera aloga
Here are photos of a gorgeous Iron Cross Blister Beetle (Tegrodera aloga) that I saw one afternoon in Tucson. This was in early May of 2005, on the Cactus Forest Loop of Saguaro National Park East, at perhaps 3000′ elevation.…
Oil Beetle – Meloe sp. (Blister Beetle)
In the middle of September, 2023, I was hiking along a meadow trail bordering a mixed conifer woodland at about 10,400′ in the San Juan Mountains of Southwestern Colorado. I saw a strange-looking insect that was slowly climbing up the…
Barn Swallows destroy a Bald-faced Hornet nest
Most Summers, we’ll get several pairs of Barn Swallows nesting in the garage. They’ll raise young in the Spring, and then perhaps try for a second clutch later in the Summer. There are usually a couple of weeks in the…
Aphid Mummy
Here’s a photo of a a couple of Aphids on a Brittlebush leaf, taken in Tucson, Arizona, in March of 2004. The Aphid in the foreground is smaller, darker, and you can see that there’s a shed skin on the…
Thistledown Velvet Ant – Dasymutilla pseudopappus
Yesterday (2022-10-23) I was walking along a trail in Southwestern Colorado, at an elevation of about 6200′. As I looked down, I saw a bit of white fluff in the middle of the trail, one that was moving of its…
Xanthoteras eburneum – Cynipid Wasp galls on Gambel Oak
I was on a hike the other day in a Ponderosa Pine forest in Southwestern Colorado, at about 7000′. There were a number of small Gambel Oak seedlings in the trail, and some of their leaves had a line of…