Aromatic Asters - Summer's Last Blast

I love many, many plants, but if pressed to name my favorite, I think it would be aromatic aster, Symphyotrichum oblongifolium.  Since these are the last perennials to start blooming every year, these plants look like nothing more than small green shrubs for much of the summer.  Additionally, in my garden they tend to suffer from lace bug damage, so their leaves often look light green and somewhat mottled when the summer gets hot and dry.  I grit my teeth and ignore it.  It won't hurt the plants and I'm darned if I'm going to spray.  Sometimes I start questioning how many I have in my gardens, but...

...then they burst into bloom.

They bloom and they bloom and they bloom.

Talk about the garden going out with a splash each year!

Insects love these flowers.  As I walk down the front path while the aromatic asters are in bloom, I'm usually surrounded by a happy hum of bees and by clouds of butterflies and skippers rising and then settling back to feed.

The predatory insects are well aware of how many pollinators are visiting.  It's easy to find wheel bugs, praying mantids, and ambush bugs hidden...often with an insect in their grasp.

One of these days, I'll try to collate a list of all the insects I've noted on aromatic asters.  Until then, I'll leave you with one simple question - have you added any to your garden yet?!

Another Worry for Cicadas: Cedar Beetles

Kermit the Frog always said, "It's not easy being green."  Well, I've decided that it's not easy being a cicada either.

My dogs absolutely love to munch cicadas and have been known to catch them in mid-air.  If they find one on the ground, they'll often hold it in their mouth for a little bit to get it to buzz before they chomp down and eat it.  A canine "Fizzy", I guess.

Then there are more "normal" predators like birds and, especially, the huge wasps known as cicada killers.  Female cicada killers hunt down a cicada, sting it to paralyze it (but keep it alive), drag it back to their nest in the ground, carry it below ground, lay an egg on it and seal the brood cell off.  When the egg hatches, the larval wasp eats out the paralyzed, living cicada, pupates, and emerges the next year to repeat the cycle.  An effective population control mechanism for cicadas, although it's extremely unsettling to think about.

I suspect that moles eat a fair number of cicada nymphs, too, as the nymphs feed and mature underground.

Now, I've learned about another animal that feasts on cicadas, specifically on the nymphs while they are still underground - the cedar beetle, Sandalus niger, also descriptively known as the cicada parasite beetle.  I've been observing these large beetles all around the yard over the last few days.  Most often, I'm seeing them on honeylocust trees.

These are fairly large beetles - many are close to an inch in length.  I first noticed one when I saw a big brown beetle being eating by 2 wheelbugs.  I've never seen TWO wheelbugs eating the same beetle before!  I took photos and tried to identify the beetle, but I couldn't quite make it out.  It looked somewhat like a longhorn beetle, but I didn't see long "horns" (antennae) on it.

While I was photographing this interesting vignette, Greg called me over to a nearby lacebark elm, saying that he'd just seen a big black beetle fly into it.  He showed me where she had landed and I took several photos of her;  she appeared to be laying eggs on the underside of a dead limb.

I started to go back to taking photos of pollinators on asters, when I felt something on my shoulder.  Looking down, it was a large black beetle with one of the elytra (thickened wing covers) missing.  I brushed her to the ground, where I photographed her, wondering how she had lost her elytra.  Then I picked her up and put her in the elm tree, thinking she probably got interrupted during egg laying.

Only when I edited the photographs this evening did I notice that all the white "innards" showing were actually larvae(?) or pupae(?) of some other insect that were massed inside her.  I have no idea what they are...but I'm submitting the photo to BugGuide to see if anyone there can help identify what was going on with her.  (Parasites eating parasites.  Sometimes the natural world is really complex in its creepiness.)  Did the larvae have anything to do with how she lost her wing cover?  I have no idea.

Next, I noticed another, similar looking beetle being eaten by a wheelbug on a nearby honeylocust trunk.  As I stood and took photos, I heard and felt yet another big beetle - the 5th one - fly by my head.  It was a male, judging by its smaller size and more slender body, and it landed on the tree trunk right in front of me and starting searching all around.  Its antennae were really interesting, especially when the beetle fanned them all the way out.

While all of these beetles were grabbing my attention, I was also hearing a clicking noise that sounded very much like the rhythmic pattern of a field sparrow, which is often likened to the sound of a bouncing ball.  This noise, however, was more "insect-like" than a bird call, if there is such a thing.  I never did find out what was creating the sound, but I don't recall having heard it before and I wonder if it was some sort of mating call between the cedar beetles.

Before I went in for the evening, I took several more photos of each of the different beetles I'd observed, and  I also found a 6th beetle on the underside of a honeylocust branch. This was another female, based on the size and shape, but I didn't get any clear photos of her.

Looking through Insects in Kansas, by Glenn A. Salsbury and Stephan C. White, I found the tentative identification of my beetles, which I confirmed on BugGuide.net.   They were all the same species, Sandalus niger.  Insects in Kansas had noted that males often had blackish-brown wing-covers, rather than black, and on BugGuide, I saw the difference in antennae between the males and females.  There wasn't a lot of information given about the species on its information page at BugGuide, but it was noted that the adult beetles are very short-lived.

I've gone back and picked up the "empty" beetles discarded by the wheelbugs after they were through eating them so that I could examine them more closely, plus I've been able to find a couple more dead specimens.  Sunday, October 19th, was the only day that I saw so many living individuals, although I've seen one or two more each day since then.  I have not heard the clicking noise again.

I have seen one more instance where two wheelbugs were eating the same cedar beetle.  Do wheelbugs do this with any large insect, or is it only with cedar beetles?  I'll be keeping my eyes open to see what I observe in the future.

Isn't the complexity of life fascinating?! 

Death Comes For the Grasshopper(s)

Not surprisingly after 3 hot, dry years, there have been a lot of grasshoppers around this summer.  Grasshoppers and hot, dry weather go together like bread goes with peanut butter and jelly.  I've been noticing a few things that bode a little better for next year, though, and I'd like to share them with you.

The beginning of the summer started with literal hordes of grasshoppers, especially newly hatched nymphs.  The photo above shows a phalanx of said nymphs on a soon-devoured broccoli leaf.  It wasn't uncommon to have hundreds of tiny grasshoppers flying up with every step through grassy areas. 

Now, towards the end of July, there are still a lot of grasshoppers, but the numbers seem to have declined a bit - dozens fly up at every step instead of hundreds.  Sometimes only a few fly up.  I haven't sprayed or made any effort to curb their numbers, so what has happened?

First of all, the weather has been cooler and wetter than during the last 3 or 4 summers.  Cooler, wetter weather is good for plants, but bad for grasshoppers.  Newly hatched grasshoppers can be killed by cool, wet weather.  Truthfully, I'm not sure we were cool enough or wet enough for this to happen this year, but I'm mentioning it anyway.  However, warm, wet weather can also have a negative effect on grasshopper populations....

During warm, wet weather, there is a naturally occurring fungus, Entomophthora grylli, which infects grasshoppers and causes them to climb to the top of vegetation and grasp the stem with their legs, then die.  I've been seeing quite a few grasshoppers seemingly mummified like this.  The best news is that, as these grasshoppers dry out, the fungal spores spread on the wind to other grasshoppers, infecting them as well.

So not only is there one less grasshopper reproducing for next year, but each one that dies like this has also potentially caused other grasshoppers in the area to die as well!  Rather nightmarish...but effective.

Predators have been playing a role in decreasing grasshopper numbers, too.  Just in my ramblings with camera in hand, I've caught shots of several wheel bugs eating grasshoppers. 

I've got a large population of wheel bugs this year;  after such an abundance of prey, I suspect I'll have an even larger population next year!

Spiders, too, eat grasshoppers.  This photo of a black and yellow garden spider eating a grasshopper was actually taken last October, but I'm sure that the spiders I'm seeing this summer are taking out quite a few grasshoppers as well.  (My garden spiders aren't this big yet, but they will be!)

Birds, not surprisingly, eat grasshoppers as well, although I haven't been lucky enough to get any photos of that happening.  Bluebirds, quail, pheasant, meadowlarks, lark sparrows, and lots of other birds are known to eat grasshoppers.

I occasionally see great golden digger wasps around the yard, as in this rather out-of-focus photo from about a week ago, hunting (in this case) on Bradbury beebalm.  If these beautiful, big wasps aren't feeding themselves with nectar and pollen on flowers, they are actively prowling for grasshoppers to sting and paralyze.  Once the grasshopper is paralyzed, the female wasp takes it back to her nests as baby food to lay her eggs on.

The long and the short of it is that grasshoppers are grazers on plants, and a lot of animals eat them.  With bison no longer freely roaming the prairie, I understand that grasshoppers are actually the primary herbivore for this important ecosystem!  Because grasshoppers are so mobile, it's hard to kill them with insecticides.  Ironically, it's much easier to kill the insects that prey on grasshoppers - so any time you spray an insecticide, even an organic one, you are probably helping to increase grasshopper populations, in the long run, by decreasing their predators.

Speaking of spraying insecticides and accidentally killing off insect predators, the last grasshopper predator I'm going to show you today fell victim to some actions Greg and I took several years ago before we knew any better.  While we didn't actually spray, we did kill enough of these predators that their population declined around our yard and gardens for a few years, so we've actually had more grasshoppers than we would have had if we hadn't tried to solve a "problem" we were sure we had.

The first summer or two that we lived and gardened here, we started our vegetable garden.  Despite the tall grass that we encouraged to grow on much of the property, we didn't see a large number of grasshoppers.  Some, yes, but not enough to cause noticeable damage.  Generally, our garden plants did superbly, although the tomatoes, in particular, attracted large numbers of black blister beetles.  A few grey blister beetles came too.  Not only were these insects a little creepy looking, but they ate the tomato leaves and made the tomato plants look really ugly.  I still harvested more tomatoes than I could possibly use and there weren't enough blister beetles to defoliate the plants, but definitely there were enough to make the plants look ratty. So I started to handpick the blister beetles, dropping them in soapy water to kill them.  Each morning I would do this, and it wasn't unusual for me to dispatch 50 or 100 each day.  It definitely lessened their populations over the course of the summer.

Even after I learned that blister beetle larvae ate grasshopper eggs, I continued to handpick the blister beetles, reasoning that I was seeing plenty of blister beetles, so it shouldn't be a problem.

In June, 2011, we came back from a trip to San Antonio to find several masses of hundreds of striped blister beetles writhing on our front lawn, presumably in an ecstasy of mating.  Our only thought was how to dispatch them as quickly as possible before they, too, started to eat the leaves of our tomatoes and other plants!  So we put soapy water in our shop vac and vacuumed most of them up.  Problem solved.

By later that same summer, I was seeing very few blister beetles...but hordes of grasshoppers.  As you may remember, the summer of 2011 was horribly hot and dry.  We had 53 days over 100 degrees F. and almost no rain.  By late July of that year, our althea had been defoliated by the grasshopper hordes.

For every adult blister beetle you see, an average of 27 grasshoppers don't get born.  What had we done?

For several years now, we've had so many grasshoppers that by early summer most of our vegetable garden is gone.  Once the grasshoppers hatch out, they devour the spinach, kale, broccoli and cauliflower within days.  Then the onion and garlic go.  The asparagus stalks become dried brown sticks with all the green gnawed off.  Over the course of the summer, all the iris leaves get whittled down to nubs.  Thankfully, 2011 was the only year our althea were entirely defoliated, but their leaves have been severely chewed each summer since then.
 

This year I'm finally seeing black blister beetles on the tomatoes and a few other plants again.  Mind you, I'm not seeing them in huge numbers, but they are there and they are reasonably common.  This year I'm NOT picking them off and killing them.   I'll share my tomato leaves so that, hopefully, the black blister beetle larvae will be feasting on grasshopper eggs over the winter!

The more I learn, the more I realize that I don't know very much.  A blog post I read over the weekend was talking about tangleveined flies as a grasshopper predator.  That's a new species I don't recognize, so now I want to learn more about them and see if I have any of those grasshopper predators in the yard.

There is an incredibly complex web of plants and animals that will generally keep each other in balance and keep the Earth healthy, if we leave enough of them alone to "do their thing."  We humans, though, get pretty cocksure of ourselves and start killing plants and animals off, thinking we know a lot and can surely manage better than Mother Nature does. 

We're not as smart as we think we are.

Hopefully my yard is getting back into balance a bit better again.  Ah, the gardening spirit never fails, does it?  Next year will be better.....

Wheel Bugs Vs. Walnut Caterpillars

Two days ago, I noticed a mass of small, hairy caterpillars on a single leaflet of a pecan leaf.

Today, I took a close look at the pecan again and discovered 3 separate masses of the hairy caterpillars, which I later identified as walnut caterpillars, Datana integerimma, a well known pest of walnuts and pecan trees.

Two of the groups of caterpillars seem to be developing with little interference, at least so far.  The above group was the furthest along in their development.  I need to decide what, if anything, I am going to do about them.

Meanwhile, the third group of caterpillars had attracted some attention.  Some lethal attention, actually.  Two wheel bugs had positioned themselves between the caterpillars and the healthy leaves of the twig they they were on.

Both wheel bugs had caterpillars that they were feeding on.  They appeared to be capturing each caterpillar as it attempted to move to a new leaflet to feed.

Wheel bugs, like most predatory insects, are VERY aware of their surroundings.  It is hard to sneak up on them, and these two were no exception.  As soon as they saw me, they hid...and every time I repositioned, so did they.

One shot I got silhouetted one of the wheel bugs eating a caterpillar against the sky.  I found that the sight of the wheel bug's pair of legs, locked around the central rachis of the pecan leaf as it fed, made me feel almost protective of this fierce predator.

(Note:  The caterpillar is the slightly hairy thing, hanging from front of the wheel bug.)

Anyway, according to the information sites that I found on the web, I probably should get rid of these caterpillars while I can.  This is probably the first generation...and there is usually a second generation too.  The caterpillars usually cause their most extensive damage in the last instar before pupating; then the second generation will cause more damage, as it's likely to be larger.

The wheel bugs will presumably take care of the one cluster that they are systemically guarding and eating.  That leaves the other two clusters.  If I destroy them by plucking the leaves and drowning the caterpillars in soapy water, I may be able to keep further damage from occurring.  But then there is no further chance for other predator or parasite numbers to increase.  According to the Forest Service information sheet that I linked to above, there are at least 13 parasites known to attack these caterpillars, as well as several predators (such as the wheel bug and certain spiders), and viruses and other diseases.

For now, I think I will let nature take her course and just observe.  Reality "television" at its most real!

Wheel Bugs Growing Up....

Preying mantises and ladybugs have great reputations as good predators in the garden, but I've found a species that I think is even more awesome:  wheel bugs (Arilus cristatus), in the assassin bug family.  Like preying mantises, wheel bugs are very mobile and eat almost anything they can catch.  I've observed them eating a wide variety of insects, ranging from grasshoppers to beetles to caterpillars.

Wheel bugs have only one generation per year so, as with most predators, it takes them longer than plant-eating insects to ramp up their numbers after a population crash.   This is why, when you spray insecticides (which indiscriminately kill ALL insects), predator populations take so long to catch up that the plant-eaters/prey insects end up having huge population explosions in the meantime.  This is great for insecticide companies, but not so good if you're trying to use fewer chemicals in your yard or garden.

Overwintering as eggs laid in clusters on the underside of tree branches, the wheel bug life cycle begins when the tiny new nymphs hatch out in late April or early May, just about the same time that the honeylocusts bloom.  Although I occasionally find wheel bug eggs on other trees, most of them seem to be laid on honeylocust.  I doubt this is coincidence.  The egg cluster above, about the size of a quarter overall and located, like usual, underneath a honeylocust branch, was just starting to hatch on April 21st this spring.

When the tiny wheel bug nymphs hatch out in late April or early May, they look very different from their parents.  For starters, they have a bright red abdomen.  (Actually, when they first hatch out, they are completely yellowish-orange, until their exoskeleton hardens the first time.)  There is no "wheel" structure on their back and they, of course, have no wings.

Even at this tender stage, they are fearsome predators.  On May 11 this spring, I photographed this 1/4" wheel bug nymph carrying (and sipping on) the pupa of another insect, firmly pierced by its proboscis.

With each succeeding molt, the wheel bug nymphs' appearance changes just a little.  They get a little more gray and black, a little less red.  However, they never lose their fierce abilities as predators.  On June 7, this wheel bug nymph had moved from the tree where it was hatched to a clump of Jerusalem artichoke about 30' away, where it enjoyed a tasty meal of grasshopper nymph.

The photo above is, unfortunately, rather blurry, but I was lucky enough one day to spy a wheel bug nymph molting under a leaf of American plum.  The exoskeleton of the newly emerging nymph is, again, orange until it hardens.

That same day, June 8, I found this nymph hiding in daisy fleabane by its discarded, old exoskeleton.  It had obviously also emerged recently; the new, larger exoskeleton was not yet hardened and darkened to the normal colors of gray and red.

Also on June 8, I found this wheel bug nymph eating what looks to be a small caterpillar while posing on a spent bud of lanceleaf coreopsis and sporting a classy red and black abdominal outfit.

Right now, on June 22nd, I'm seeing nymphs that have turned almost completely gray, but that still don't sport the adult's wheel structures on their thorax or their wings.

They are still busily eating their way through the insect population of my yard.

Here in south central Kansas, the earliest I've seen a mature adult is July 21st... or at least that's the earliest I've photographed an adult.  The above photo was actually taken on September 9th in 2008.  In it you can clearly see the wheel on the back of the thorax, as well as the wings folded neatly over the abdomen.  All red coloration is gone from the body, although a little remains on the legs and antennae.

The adults continue to feed, essentially indiscriminately.  Here an adult female is feeding on a tiphiid wasp that was herself feeding on goldenrod nectar.  Actually, in this case the wheel bug's choice is rather unfortunate, since tiphiid wasp larvae parasitize white beetle grubs, the kind that eat grass roots.  Judging from this female wheel bug's abdomen, though, she has eggs of her own that she needs to lay.

By October, the new egg clusters are being laid and the year's adults are beginning to die off.

This female was still around on November 15th last fall, but her will to live seemed to be ebbing.  I watched her for a long time as she sat right next to this tachinid fly, but she never made the move to pounce on it and eat.  I figured that she must have laid her quota of eggs and be feeling worn out and ready to go. 

As cold weather hits, all the adult wheel bugs are gone and the future of the species lies safely - but solely - protected within the years' eggs, glued firmly to the underside of tree branches.  It's a system that's worked for thousands of years.  I can only hope and trust that nothing disrupts it in the future....

Jungle on the Prairie

A week ago yesterday, our daughter was married.  In Florida.  Needless to say, we traveled down there, both to help out ahead of time and to attend the wedding.  Rather than hurry back, we decided to stay a few extra days and relax, which was...relaxing.

There was one big problem with this agenda.  After months of almost no rain, it rained here the day after we left and then again several more times while we were gone.  In fact, we received more rain in the 2 weeks we were gone than we'd received since the start of the new year until the day we left.

Not too surprisingly, then, we came home to a jungle - or as close to a jungle as it gets on the Kansas prairie.

Including the driveway, the only area that didn't look overgrown was the buffalo grass!  (Have I told you recently how much I'm coming to enjoy buffalo grass?!)

The vegetable garden looked particularly disastrous - the spinach, lettuce and many of the broccoli and cauliflower plants had bolted and the weeds had literally appeared as if by magic.  Pigweed - which I hadn't even noticed germinating before we left - was over a foot tall.  Crabgrass - which had barely started to germinate - was a 4" tall carpet of green in areas.

So we started working yesterday morning.  Greg put in about 8 hours of weeding and mulching (for the second time this spring) in the vegetable garden.  I put in about 3 hours of vegetable garden weeding, then a couple more hours, off and on, weeding in the flower gardens and lawn.  After he got too tired to weed any more, Greg mowed.

Things are looking a little better, but far from where we want them yet.

Meanwhile, we discovered that we'd had a MAJOR hatch of grasshoppers while we were gone.  There are grasshopper nymphs everywhere.

This little merry band was on one of the older cauliflower leaves....

...while this more mixed assortment was brazenly staking out one of the broccoli plants.

But wait!  One of those isn't a grasshopper!

Good eyes.  It's not a grasshopper, it's a wheel bug nymph.  With a grasshopper meal on its mind!

The wheel bug nymphs are everywhere and, much to my delight, I found a couple of them snacking on baby grasshoppers.

This one was on lamb's quarters in the vegetable garden,...

...while this one was hiding under a Jerusalem artichoke leaf.

Obviously even an army of wheel bugs won't be able to handle the hordes of grasshopper nymphs that we are currently hosting.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed that continued wet and cool will help with that problem, but meanwhile the wheel bugs are giving me great pleasure as I notice them skulking throughout the yard.   Terminators, baby!

Signs of Spring

The boys and I took a walk this morning, our first in several weeks.  We saw 2 major signs that spring is almost here, but I'm not sure which surprised me most on this sunny February 21st....

Which surprises you the most?

The crocuses in full bloom in the courtyard...

...or the garter snake that I found stretched out, sunning, on the path through the draw?

The garter snake definitely votes for him- (or her-?) self!

Basically most of the rest of the discoveries the boys and I made today were more typical of mid-February.  There were wheel bug egg clusters along the undersides of almost every honeylocust branch I examined, and a few clusters on the green ash, redbud, and Amur maple branches.  There was even a lone cluster of wheel bug eggs on the Bradford pear.

Judging from the number of clusters I saw, it should be a jackpot year for wheel bugs!

The eggs look like little urns, all clustered together in their geometric pattern, awaiting the uncapping that will come with warmer weather.  They make me smile every time I notice a new cluster.

Late last summer, I found a little mantis egg cluster in one of the honeylocusts.

I looked for it again today...and found it, looking much more desolate but somehow impregnable.

Near the compost piles, where I had 5 different black and yellow garden spiders feeding off the plentiful insects last summer, I found 6 egg sacs stalwartly holding steady against the winter weather.  This sac was easy to see, hanging from the pallet that forms one side of the cluster of compost piles.

These two egg sacs were a little more camouflaged, nestled in the chainlink fence among remains of last summer's grass and weeds.

Speaking of remains, I heard the coyotes singing to our west last night and wondered if they were in the Back 5.  As the boys and I walked around that area this morning, I saw something that looked a little odd....

Getting closer, I realized it was the carcass of a possum that had obviously been providing a meal for somebody.

The coyotes were eating last night, I presume.

Coming back to the house, I stopped to see if I could get a reasonable shot of one of the rabbit trails that cross the path periodically.  I first noticed this particular trail shortly after we moved in, over 7 years ago now.  It still looks much the same and travels almost exactly the same route as it did when I first saw it.

I've tried to photograph this trail before, but today's photo (which I took from a much lower angle) is probably my favorite so far.  For the first time, I was able to capture the true sense of the trail through the grass.  I wonder how many years the rabbits have been traveling along this same path?

The days go by and the seasons cycle onward.  It's winter now, but obviously spring will be here before we realize.

The seasons go by and the years cycle onward.  Individual rabbits are born, travel that trail, and die.  This land has seen many people come and go; in recent decades, it has been owned by different people.  They come, they watch over the land, and then they move on or die.  We are the owners who have come most recently and we are now traveling the trails here and watching over the plants and animals who share the land with us.

The seasons cycle on....