Julie:

How can i stop bottle flies from coming to my yard? They have laid their eggs on my rabbit’s rear end and she’s now recovering from this. I have cleaned the yard of all the poop and soaked it with water everyday to get rid of any urine or poop smells but they still come to my yard and they are just every where please help. I need a pet safe way to keep them away from my yard, my rabbit and turtle eat the grass so no toxic stuff can be used.

Well believe it or not but they are actually doing you a favor. Females lay their eggs on the material that the larvae eat…so they are actually acting like a clean-up crew for you. With that said though, they can get out of hand with their numbers. They need two types of food sources, carbohydrates, which they get from pollen/nectar and protein, which they get from decaying and fecal matter.

The first and best thing to do is the method you are already employing and that it remove their breeding sites. Keep the rabbit and pen clean and free of any decaying/fecal matter. Also try to keep the area dry as they will lay eggs anywhere it is moist, especially because they can detect even the faintest hint of that material using the receptors on their tarsi (feet).

There are fly baits you can put out in trash bins and such, see here. There are also fly sticky paper traps and bottle traps. Examples of the bottle traps can be found here , including the ‘Victor Fly Magnet Bag Trap’, which specifically advertises for control against bottle flies.

I am finding myself in a peculiar situation this week. Josh and I are getting married on Sat and we have this week and next off for vacation. I don’t think I have had a vacation during the summer since high school because I have always been working during the field season. I’m not quite sure what to do with all my free time now.

So, for our first day off Josh and I decided to go kayaking early this morning before the heavy Cape Cod tourist traffic picked up. Check out our tight ride.

We went to a new spot that is a cedar swamp, which by the way is my new favorite spot, and I brought my camera despite Josh’s reservations about me falling in the water and ruining the camera and lenses. Good thing I did too because we saw some great birds. Let me just say though, it is quite the challenge to focus a lens on a rocking kayak, all while not losing the paddles.

I’m not even sure what kind of turtles these are but I think it is really funny how they all try to cram up on the little bit of wood sticking out of the water.

But enough of that, the good finds of the day were both adult and juvenile black-crowned night herons. The first two pictures are of the juvenile and the last 2 are of the adult plumage.

Lastly there was also the ever-present osprey. This one in particular had picked up a fish. They are not the greatest pictures but that wing-span is pretty impressive, isn’t it?

I have a feeling I wont have as much down time as I am imagining this week as all our friends and family have already started arriving, but I will be sure to post pictures of the festivities for those of you that can’t make it. And then next week we are off to the Riviera Maya in Mexico.

Stay tuned

Female deer fly (Chrysops sp.). I love the crazy pattern on their eyes.

Only female deer flies blood feed. Like horse flies, they use scissor-like mouth parts to lacerate a wound through your skin and create a pool of blood in order to suck it up.

Both males and females also feed on nectars in order to acquire carbs for energy to support locomotor activities like flying.

Not as fun as a blood feeder, but another picture of a dragonfly from the latter part of this week

I have been making a concentrated effort to get to know my new macro lens and was able to go out for a hike after getting done with work a little early today.

The first picture is of an oak timberworm, which is a straight-snouted weevil (Brentidae). Entomologists are kind of a goofy breed and those that work with weevils often roll with the saying, “I fear no weevil”. Clever, I know.

And another weevil, a broad-nosed weevil (Entiminae)…

Its a good time for chasing odonates…

Someone looks a little grumpy…

A skipper…

An Oecophorid moth (Mathildana newmanella)

A white admiral

And lastly, a scorpionfly. Scorpionflies belong to the order Mecoptera, and are an important group of insects because molecular evidence has shown that the flies (Diptera), butterflies (Lepidoptera) and caddisflies (Tricoptera) all evolved from mecopteran ancestors. Recent DNA work (Whiting, MF. 2002) suggests that fleas are actually a paraphyletic sister group to the mecopterans. In other words, fleas are highly specialized mecopterans.

Laura:

Hi Kelley, I sure have enjoyed reading all about your bugs but especially the birds you see. Now I have the most FAQ you get: what is this creature? Habitat was arid mesquite, shin oak, juniper hillside (the type perfect for Black-capped Vireo, Scott’s Oriole, and Rufous-crowned Sparrow. I’ve got two pictures of the red caterpillar, just click the next arrow at the top of the first picture to advance to the next picture.

That mini-beast is wild looking, huh? It’s a pipevine swallowtail caterpillar. There is some nice info here and here about the butterfly.

I haven’t had much time to play with the macro lens for my new camera, so I set out to give it a try today. Lets just say I still need A LOT of practice.

First of all, I went back to a favorite spot of mine out on the Cape. I love it because you walk through a succession of different ecosystems. But before I could even get out of the parking lot, an older gentleman pointed me to this redtail sitting in a near by tree. Personally, I think the fella is giving me the evil eye.

You start out walking through a marsh. The natural history museum has nesting osprey here, with cute babies and all, with a webcam hooked up. So, if you’d like to see live feed of the osprey click here. I think there is currently 2 chicks.

On the board walkway through the marsh there were several flies boppin’ around, including the deer flies snipe fly like the one below.

I’m not sure what kind of flies the next two are, I’ll let you know once I have time to look them up…unless one of you already knows and wants to save me some time.

The next two images are of the same syrphid fly…I love how striking the red is on the abdomen.

And here is clever Kelley trying to get a picture of a dragonfly in mid-flight. I’m guessing by the time summer is over I will be better at getting pictures like this.

Next you walk into an upland wooded habitat. The first thing that caught my eye was this little blue buprestid (Agrilus cyanescens) who kept flashing its forewings.

Next in line was this little skipper pearl crescent (Phyciodes sp.).

Have you ever seen what looked like a spit wad on a plant and wondered what that was all about?

The froth is actually created by a little bug called a spittle bug nymph. I coaxed him out of the froth for a photo op…he’s on the right.

The spittle bug is a true bug with piercing-sucking mouth parts. They use their proboscis, which acts like a hypodermic needle, to puncture into the plant wall and suck up the plant juices. They remove so much water and carbohydrates that excess fluid is produced. Then, they bubble air from the tip of their abdomen into the liquid to produce the frothy nature of the spittle. And, as you might guess, the spittle hides the bug from predators and keeps it from drying out in the heat.

Lastly in the insect line-up is this parasitoid wasp in the Ichneumonid family and this honey bee.

Back to the birds. Every time I see common yellowthroats I can’t help but think that they are just too cute and curious.

Here is the striking male with his famous black bandit mask on his face.

And the female…

Oh, and I almost forgot…the last ecosystem that one encounters at the spot I often frequent is the ocean. As I made it over the sand dune to the water I spotted this little guy running across the sand with his one claw up in the air. But he got a little camera shy when I got up to him.