I Do Wrong, and Then I Do Right

A plump bumblebee buzzes bounces all day in front of my door every spring and summer, upward and down, and then moving laterally, persistently, and I understand that its "dance" is communicating with other bees. A second bee, this one, joined it, but I'm having guests and I don't want hovering bees, about 18 inches from my front door, to scare them. The bees live in this burrow in the little wooden canopy above the door (with plenty of holes in it), and the slenderer bee, this one, has been going in and out of the perfectly round little hole, about half an inch diameter, and what's in there I cannot guess.

So about 1 p.m. I got scotch tape and the stepladder and taped over the hole. Fixed!

Oh. This bee worked for an hour trying to get back into the hole while its friend the bumblebee bounced around in what looked like a panic. It probably felt as I did trying for hours to link the Mac's new Big Sur update to a 2010 Brother wireless printer that until Big Sur worked fine. I remembered that we should be good to bees. Wasps are another story, and they've stung me, but bees, never.

 

I realized I had been thoughtless and had done wrong to creatures who lived here all season every spring and summer and had never done me wrong. After an hour and a half this bee was still trying to nudge its way past or through the scotch tape. I got on a stepladder and stuck a chopstick in there to break the tape. The hole was open, but not wide enough for the bee to shoulder its way through, although God knows it tried. Bringing the stepladder once again, I reached up and clawed all the tape away from around the entrance to their home/office/palace/nest. There now.

 

We all feel better. I had to buy an updated printer, finding out after calling everybody that Big Sur simply does not and never will support the printer I had.

Protographium Marcellus

April's tentative, tender greenery, like screening, given tons of rain, is now vivid and definite May green, so encompassing that while walking some packages over to my neighbor I couldn't think outside of it and couldn't stop smiling -- and then along came an airborne smile. Wowee -- pale blue with black stripes. The year's first Zebra Swallowtail (Protographium marcellus).

They're butterflies of the American Southeast, active all summer, breeding about three times a season, and in Missouri most common in the southeastern quarter of the state.

A nature photographer I once took a class with said, "When a butterfly or insect flutters away, stay where you are because it'll be back." This is true. The first time, this swallowtail flew rings around me and didn't land, so I couldn't get a picture. Then it came back and unfolded itself on the gravel as if it were modeling. Perhaps word has got around the insect community that I take great glamour shots and then put them online, and to them it's like posing for Avedon.

One Singular Sensation

All creatures here love the sun. Coming back from the mailbox I lifted my eyes and saw this, the local Walking Stick, tricked out like a hickory branch, sunning herself on the pumphouse and communing with her elegant shadow. The boyfriend I saw her with last month? I decided not to ask in case it might get emotional--or she ate him. Besides, in this coupled world, we all must understand that we really are fine when by ourselves.

The Happy Couple

The smaller one, the male, is using his special little set of pincers to clutch his female partner for a minimum of 3 hours and up to 3 weeks to make sure he and no other male is transmitting his genes to the next generation. These two walking sticks (Diapheromera femorata) were doin' the wild thing on the garage door, and so as not to disturb them I used the other door--after I took my purely scientific nature photo. They are a favorite food of wild turkeys.

Doin' the Wild Thing

Returned from a hike and in my absence two huge mosquitoes had hooked up and were doing the wild thing on my kitchen screen door. I spent half a hour getting a good photo and they are still there. The least I could do was continue my Divine tradition of bringing you photographs that no one else will.

It's been very rainy and just got warm enough to turn off the furnace, so I think this photo might be a hint of things to come. All Eastern Missouri is one big puddle of standing water. I got the last bottle of lavender-scented soap that was on the shelf at Wal-Mart. (Lavender is a mosquito repellent.)

Won't See This Again 'til 2024

Saw several of these strange burrows ringed with cairns of mud balls, a good three inches high, this past summer. They are called "chimneys." Like nothing I'd seen before, but remarkable, very noticeable, and today I find out it's no wonder I hadn't seen them before or since, because they are the homes of the nymphs of the 13-year cicada, whose year it was in 2011. (In late May and June you couldn't take a step outdoors here without feeling them crunch beneath your feet.) Some people confuse these mounds with crayfish "chimneys," but these were located on a hill, under trees, far from any creek beds. When it rains, the cicada nymphs house-clean by pushing mud and mud balls up and out of their dwelling -- pretty good considering they haven't any arms -- and leave them right outside. Good housekeeping. Now I will know what these little mounds of mud balls are when I see them again in 2024.

My Faithfullest Friend

He's back...this time in a beautifully textured "wooden" coat and the loveliest green waistcoat -- my faithful (platonic) friend the Walking Stick. He's hanging on the porch door right now, head down, waiting for me to take his annual portrait -- much more colorful than last year's, when he dressed as a dry stick. I saw him a few days ago clad in chalk-white, playing part of the garage siding. Enter "walking stick" in my search box at upper  LEFT to see his previous outfits. Here you see him at his most handsome and tasteful.

The 13-Year Cicadas Emerge

After 13 years underground, cicadas (genus "Magicicada"; top that!) emerge all brown and ugly, climb a leaf, molt off the brown shell and become, for a few weeks, glamorous winged reproducing adults. Their famous earth-rattling, nighttime choral song is the males' mating song. It happens to be the 13th year here in rugged rural Missouri. (Northern states have 17-year cicadas). But I didn't know that. I was cutting some purple irises for my table and saw bugs all over the iris leaves and said, "What's this, inch-long bugs hanging in pairs on my iris leaves? Eww!"

Once I saw them, I saw them everywhere! All doing the same. And I plucked up a brown one and saw it was just a translucent shell, still clinging to the leaf, but empty. And near every shell was a live cicada entirely new to the world, quietly drying off like a butterfly, and waiting a few days for its exoskeleton to harden. Then off to the party, which will last just a few weeks, until July. I ran for the camera to show you. Once in every 13 years!

Doin' the Wild Thing

Such goin's-on, on the garage wall, in broad daylight -- these ASSASSIN BUGS (thank you for the comments that helped me make a positive ID). I liked their attitude. They didn't care who saw them or knew, nor what anyone thought; they weren't scared of me and the camera, just intent on their very important task. Reminds me of [censored]. I hope it was fun for them and wished them well and to be fruitful and multiply. Specifically these are "sailback" or "dinosaur" bugs; Arilus cristatus in Latin. I show 'em in silhouette so as to be discreet.