Bear here...
First thing is we want to thank all of you who still follow us here and on Facebook. It's nice to be liked and welcome to all the newer followers too. Thank you for being interested in us. Believe it or not I was inspired by a YouTube reactor to start blogging again. (His channel is TooBlunt. He does music, opinions and more...) I figured our page is helpful and it's time to get back out there and see what others think about what we do. Now is the time.
Since Spring is about new beginnings, I am beginning to blog some more about what we do. I am also going to talk about my new take on Theresa's old hobby: gardening for wildlife as well as for ourselves. What is out there in our yarden that we don't see or don't pay attention to? I'm calling it "Small World Life" and it is amazing. Yep, I am now interested in insects and spiders. In scientific terms it's Entomology (for Insects) and Arachnology (for Spiders)...
First thing is we want to thank all of you who still follow us here and on Facebook. It's nice to be liked and welcome to all the newer followers too. Thank you for being interested in us. Believe it or not I was inspired by a YouTube reactor to start blogging again. (His channel is TooBlunt. He does music, opinions and more...) I figured our page is helpful and it's time to get back out there and see what others think about what we do. Now is the time.
Since Spring is about new beginnings, I am beginning to blog some more about what we do. I am also going to talk about my new take on Theresa's old hobby: gardening for wildlife as well as for ourselves. What is out there in our yarden that we don't see or don't pay attention to? I'm calling it "Small World Life" and it is amazing. Yep, I am now interested in insects and spiders. In scientific terms it's Entomology (for Insects) and Arachnology (for Spiders)...
I call this spider Battlebutt. To me she looks like a little punk rocker. She is about 1/2 the size of a dime and has five pairs of spines!
There are five insect orders that I am interested in so far (bees, wasps, dragonflies, damselflies, and flies)...
My insect interest started with Bumble bees. I wanted to know what I was seeing so I joined a citizen based monitoring group for bumble bees in Wisconsin (the Bumble Bee Brigade). (We take photos and send in surveys, they confirm our sightings and track how the bees are doing for the season). In one day I took pictures of four different species of bumble bees. The one above I call Happybutt (because her marking looks like a smile). She is a Brown belted bumble bee.
While taking pictures of bees I noticed some unusual wasps in our yarden and decided they were the next group to study. The one below chatting with the ant is a solitary wasp. Cool, ain't she?
While taking pictures of bees I noticed some unusual wasps in our yarden and decided they were the next group to study. The one below chatting with the ant is a solitary wasp. Cool, ain't she?
The next two insects I am interested in are the two suborders to the order of Odonata. I thought they were the same but was wrong. I found a local monitoring project for them too (Wisconsin Odonata Survey). The larger stronger flyers below are Dragonflies...
The smaller weaker fliers (below) but still good hunters are damselflies.
The last insect is flies. I know, flies are boring, right? Not so. There are more than just the usual houseflies (note three of the different types below) and once I saw what a variety there is I was hooked.
Like I said before, we are happy you are still interested in us and what we do. I'm thinkin this will be a good and informative year.
Type at ya later,
Bear
Type at ya later,
Bear
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