July Urban Nature Walk: Wasp Watching in Quincy!

[urbpan]

Our July Urban Nature Walk took place in the small city of Quincy, where there was some known habitat of a particular very special species of wasp. My friend Jenn, an invasive species expert with the State Department of Agriculture led a small group of us behind a big indoor skating rink to a barely maintained little league field called Curry Field



First things first, we found these huge mushrooms in the woods on the way to the field. To be fair, Don found them while looking for ferns and horsetails. These are, actually, rather modest specimens of Bondarzewia berkeleyi


This is what we're really looking for! What is it?


These little mounds are the hallmarks of the wasps we're looking for, Cerceris fumipennis. The female digs out a burrow the diameter of a pencil and deposits her eggs in brood cells down in the earth. Like most wasps she must feed her young other insects. This wasp also goes by the name of "smoky-winged beetle bandit" which tells you what it feeds its larvae (and also translates "fumipennis" into something that 12 year olds won't snicker at).


And look here, Jenn has caught herself one! But let me back up. The point of this is that little smoky-wing here specializes on Buprestid beetles, or jewel beetles, including the emerald ash borer. We have plenty of native Buprestids here in the Northeast, and the EAB is an invasive alien. These beetles spend most of their lives as grubs deep in the wood of living trees, and then a short time way up in the canopy of the trees, so most of us never see one. The wasps catch the adults and bring them down to the ground. Sometimes the wasps drop the beetles near their mound and forget about it; these can be easily collected and catalogued. Wasp watchers collect and catalogue, but also catch beetle-laden wasps as they come in for a landing. This deprives the wasp of it's quarry, but provides valuable information. We caught 3 smokies carrying jewel beetles before we decided we had learned enough and were just engaged in wasp-bothering.


I also caught a couple related wasps that, instead of beetles, use sweat bees to stock their larders. This metallic green sweat bee should have been fed to the wasp grub but now will probably find its way to the local ants or other scavengers.


Here she is, a real live smoky-winged beetle bandit!
[EDITED 7/18/13 TO ADD: nope this isn't a smokey-winged bandit it's a "sand-loving wasp," Tachytes sp. I'll have to go on another expedition to get a good photograph of the right wasp.]

Isn't she beautiful? Also they don't seem to be able to sting humans, so you can handle them without worry.


And here's her intended nursery groceries, some native wood-boring jewel beetle.


Of course, put me in a grassy field with an insect net and I'm gonna catch more than what I'm supposed to.




You see, there are a pair of ponds behind the ball field. These are actually old man-made skating ponds.



Makes for good dragonfly hunting!


I'm hoping dragonfly experts like cottonmanifesto will jump in to tell me what species we found here.

Jenn posted a pic of me holding a nice spangled skimmer here.


This one has some hitchhikers--see the red markings? Those are mites, just hanging on to catch a flight to somewhere else.


It looks uncomfortable, but holding the wings against each other is the way to handle dragonflies without hurting them.


Sometimes man-made habitat doesn't look too bad.

Comments

[harebell.livejournal.com]

This is seriously awesome. If I could do anything, it would be to study wasps.

[drhoz.livejournal.com]

lovely

[cdozo.livejournal.com]

Nice post. I love learning the details about different wasps and how they lay their eggs.


And that pond is beautiful, but the link to your skating pond post doesn't work.

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

Thanks, fixed!

Would you like to submit anything for the animist blog carnival?

[ext-2072065.livejournal.com (from livejournal.com)]

Hello! I just found your awesome hands-on nature blog! Some animist blog carnival contributors are pantheists and I would really like to have to contribute too! Here is the newest call for submissions, which I hope you will share with like mind minded people! Blessings Heather

While many of us are still working on a BIRDS contribution for the August Animist Blog Carnival (deadline July 29th) hosted at animist jottings (http://animistjottings.wordpress.com/), I wanted to give everyone a head’s up on September’s theme: BIOREGION. It shall be hosted by Lupa at Therioshamism (http://therioshamanism.com/). Please have your essays/poems/pictures/etc posted on your blog before August 28th and a link sent to Lupa on or before the 28th (http://www.thegreenwolf.com/contact.html).

Your contribution can be older writing/art that relates to bioregion.

Some ideas: Water shed, native food shed, foraging. Geology. How does one bioregion in your life feel different from another? Photos of your bioregion. Famous poems, slang or songs about/from your bioregion. Climate Change/development affecting bioregion. Internet or facebook as a bioregion. Totem of the bioregion. Saying hello to a new bioregion, saying goodbye to one when you move. Topophilia. Guide books for your bioregion. Ceremonies about a bioregion’s seasonal changes. A personal almanac. Astrological chart as bioregion. Local economy, locavore eating, local arts, local music scene. The maps in children’s books- what if you made one for your bioregion or one from your past? History of bioregion. Art made with found items from bioregion. Idealized goal for bioregion. Resources for studying bioregion. Teachers about your bioregion. Soil testing, putting in a garden, who grows where the best. Symbiotic relationships in your bioregion. Natural disasters. Why tourists come. Why you live there. What your role is in the bioregion. Body as bioregion. Weather patterns, animal migration, other cycles. Indigenous people of the bioregion, where are they now? Land restoration and wildlife rehabbing. Invasive species and extinct species. Interview with a human, tree, river where you live. Globalization and bioregion. A scene from your animist life interacting in some small way with the bioregion, the return of a migrating bird, the first rains after a dry spell, tending the community garden, shoveling snow, the first fruit of the year at the farmer’s market. An annual vacation spot. Bioregions of the past: where felt right for you, where felt wrong? How does the bioregion affect the human civilization, behaviors and cultures there?

ABC Contributor Guidelines
1. Write an essay, poem, memoir, conduct an interview, etc about the month’s theme. (To check the theme, go to the ABC HQ.) Or film a song or photograph an image or art piece that is about the theme.
2. Post on your blog with a link to the month’s hosting blog and a link to the ABC HQ (http://ecoanimism.com/blog-carnival).
3. Send link to your post to that month’s host by the 2nd to last day of the month.

If you are on the fence, going “Am I an animist?” this month I’ll share some quotes from Emma Restall Orr’s book on animism, the Wakeful World:

“(I)n his practice of learning and reverence, the animist will acknowledge the spirits of a place, the spirits of a river, of fire and storm, the spirits of tribe, of motherhood, of the dead, the spirits of a gathering, of an event in time, and so on. In doing so he is reaching to perceive those fleeting patterns that, so filled with energy and potentiality, are the essential moments flowing into moments, the raw creativity that manifests each form, saturating each experience. (He) is aspiring to play an active and respectful part on the creative process of life, even if only though gratitude, awe and devotion. (T)he animist will also acknowledge the soul, reaching here to catch a glimpse of what is the summation of all that has been.”

“(E)verything exists for itself. The conviction that everything has its place within the greater soul of nature, that everything is in wakeful relationship with every other member if its community or communities, confers to everything an inherent value…. (E)verything is sacred.”