A Recent Cast of Characters in My Gardens: Pollinators and Predators

With the initiation of several days of rain, it seems like a good time to share a few garden photos from the plethora I've taken over the last few weeks.  Since I'm obsessed with pollinators and other wildlife, that's what I'll generally be showing you!

Gaillardia (Gaillardia pulchella) brings in a lot of insect activity.  I have several pots of gaillardia on our back patio, as well as a few plants along the street by our mailbox.  Not surprisingly, most of my photos are from the plants I see most often - the ones near my back door.

This is a lousy photo, but I wanted to share the single bumble bee (Bombus sp.) I've seen in my gardens so far this summer.  Gaillardia is the ONLY flower I've seen her on so far.

A female monarch (Danaus plexippus) finally visited the yard for several days last week and she left several eggs behind.  Here's she's ovipositing on a swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata) I planted a couple months ago.  I'm a "survival of the fittest" biologist, so I don't collect the eggs and raise the caterpillars inside;  I'm waiting to see if I see any caterpillars - this photo was taken on the 28th, so there should be a couple tiny babies out there munching away, but I haven't gone looking yet.  (Update:  my grandson and I went out in the rain this afternoon and found at least 3 tiny new monarch caterpillars!  Yeah!)

Ms. Blue Dasher (Pachydiplax longipennis) here isn't a pollinator, but I love welcoming her and her relatives into the yard.  Every mosquito this mosquito hawk eats is a mosquito that doesn't bite me! Aren't her eyes particularly gorgeous?  The body of the male blue dasher is a beautiful powdery blue, but I've been seeing almost exclusively females lately.

This green treefrog (Hyla cinerea) seems to have decided that the outside corner of our gutter near the bright lights of the kitchen window makes a perfect home.  Over the past week, I've been seeing her (him?) frequently within just a few inches of this location.   Note:  nothing like a closeup photo to let you know the house badly needs a power washing!

Out front, the newly planted sweet pepperbush (Clethra alnifolia) has excited a lot of pollinator interest.  I shared the potter wasp and the 4 spotted scarab hunter wasp I've seen nectaring here in my recent post;  this is a carpenter-mimic leaf-cutter bee (Megachile xylocopoides) who also has seemed to enjoy the blooms. 

The deep velvet black of this bee's body and the iridescent blue-black of its wings are just stunning.  I wonder if this is the species that has been harvesting circles of dogwood leaves to make their nest cells waterproof?

Another little green treefrog was tucked away inside a Flyr's nemesis (Brickellia cordifolia), hoping against hope that I didn't actually see him as I looked around.  I let him pretend that I hadn't noticed him.....

With the spotted beebalm (Monarda punctata) beginning to bloom, I'm starting to see a little more activity in that section of the garden, including this small green anole (Anolis carolinensis).  I'm still not seeing many insects attracted to the spotted beebalm blossoms, but I did see a hummingbird feeding - even though I didn't have my camera with me so I could visually share with you.

Back to the anole for a moment, I've been seeing many tiny little green anoles for the last several weeks, which just makes me smile.  Obviously it's been a good year for anole love!

Another recent dragonfly visitor was the great blue skimmer (Libellula vibrans), who perched on top of the poles in our tomato pots for a while - and was lucky enough (and good enough) to capture a passing moth shortly after I took the top photo.  Those big, black-spotted blue eyes aren't just for show!

Out front, enjoying the turkey tangle fogfruit (Phyla nodiflora), there's been the phaon crescent (Phyciodes phaon), nectaring - and possibly laying eggs, since fogfruit is their larval plant.  Note:  I don't know if this individual is a male or female.

The fogfruit has also attracted many other insects, including a female blue dasher dragonfly, a carpenter-mimic leaf-cutter bee, several  different species of wasps, bees, and flies.  In fact, the fogfruit is active enough that it's probably worth a post just by itself.  I just wish it looked a little more "gardeny"....

Anoles have been out in the front gardens as well as in the back.  Here was one haunting a summer phlox (Phlox paniculata) blossom.  Sometimes I wonder if I don't see huge numbers of pollinators because I DO see lots and lots of predators around the blooms - and I'm sure it's not a coincidence that they are hanging out there!

Speaking of predators, whether nymphs (like this one) or adults, I'm seeing quite a few milkweed assassin bugs (Zelus longipes) this summer.  I thought they were so-named because they were part of the milkweed community, but recent reading suggests their name comes from their coloration.  I've certainly seen them on many, many plants, not just on milkweed.

The clustered mountain mint (Pycnanthemum muticum) in the back yard has brought in quite a few unusual (for my garden) pollinators.  Besides several wasp species, there is this grapeleaf skeletonizer moth (Harrisina americana) which has both a common name and a color pattern that make it a perfect Halloween animal.

Believe it or not, this small, colorful, Halloween themed moth, also nectaring on the mountain mint, is from the a group of moths known as bird dropping moths.  Yes, that's an actual common name for moths in the subfamily Acontiinae .  This moth goes by the hard-to-remember name of black-dotted spragueia moth (Spragueia onagrus)  and is an animal I've never seen before in my life.  Kudos to the helpful folks at BugGuide.net for helping me identify this one!

Lacewing larvae, looking for all the world like prehistoric monsters or like some less glittery version of Tamatoa, the Crab, on Moana, are hard to see unless you look closely, but they are great allies in garden pest control.  This photo is blurry (the entire "mound" is barely 1/4" across and I wasn't using a tripod) but, if you look carefully, you can see the huge jaws under the front edge as well as a wing from one of its dinners right above the jaws.

In all, this lineup of characters from my garden highlights 6 garden predators (green anole, green treefrog, milkweed assassin bug, lacewing larva, blue dasher dragonfly, great blue skimmer dragonfly) and 6 pollinators (monarch, bumblebee, carpenter-mimic  leaf-cutter bee, phaon crescent butterfly, grapevine skeletonizer moth, and black-spotted spragueia moth).  During the 10 days that I photographed these animals, I saw many other animals, too.  Some, like the 5 species of wasps that I talked about in my last post, I've shared with you.  Others, like bluebirds, cardinals, bluejays, gray squirrels, chickadees, tufted titmice, house finch, mockingbirds, red-shouldered hawk, brown skinks, southern toads, and Eastern box turtle, I haven't shared.

How can anyone be happy with a statically "pretty" landscape, when a garden filled with wildlife changes minute by minute?!  I love the surprise of going out into my yard and meeting a new insect neighbor.  I love the pleasure of looking at a flower cluster and realizing that I'm looking into the eyes of a little lizard or camouflaged frog.  Each new animal I see adds a layer of richness to the world around me that delights and soothes me.  What an honor to be sharing my yard and gardens with all these other forms of life here on Earth.