Thanks, Spring Valley Elementary!

Wow, Midway ISD has some great bugs. In the past, there have been some first county records for moths (Vine Sphinx comes to mind) and Mrs. York, a counselor at Spring Valley Elementary, has been kind enough to send more photos to us! All of these are from September 2012.

Cicada species, possibly Tibicen genus.

The bug above is a cicada - they make that whining noise in the middle of the day in summer when everything else has gotten quiet and gone to find shade. If we're not mistaken, the critter above is one of the Genus Tibicen - "Annual Cicadas" or "Dog-Day Cicadas"  On occasion, you may find their crunchy, empty exoskeleton when it has been shed.

Waved Sphinx (Ceratomia undulosa)

Waved Sphinx (Ceratomia undulosa) is a really exciting moth - it is a second county record! The first county record* for McLennan Co. was found in 2009 by another of the York household; Mrs. York's husband!

* officially the first one we found was not accepted due to its rough condition, but the 2010 Waved Sphinx found by Mrs. York's son, Matthew, was accepted!

Virginia Creeper Sphinx (Darapsa myron)

Virginia Creeper Sphinx (Darapsa myron) - this is an adult of the caterpillar that eats the leaves of Virginia creeper, which is a native vine, related to the grape vine. The vine can commonly be found growing along fences or trees in McLennan Co. Sometimes people mistake these vines for poison ivy ("leaves of three, leave them be") Virginia creeper is NOT poison ivy! Instead, it is dinner for caterpillars that will grow up to be these beautiful Virginia Creeper Sphinx moths!

Virginia Creeper Sphinx (Eumorpha vitis)

Can you tell the difference between poison ivy and Virginia creeper? Vine Sphinx and Virginia Creeper Sphinx need to know the difference!

Thanks to Mrs. York for sharing these neat bugs from Spring Valley Elementary!

Busy, busy summer

As the title implies, we're up to our ears in... life. Between wrangling pups, pup-sitting for others, work, school, work and more work, we've managed to get a few photos worth sharing:

Family portrait: Matt, Nauga, Heidi and Anakin. Awww.

A Black Witch moth on the back wall while blacklighting.

The Chihuahua named Little.

Pepsis wasp. Oh yes, there's an Entomology class afoot this summer!

Recent bug life: Lyside Sulphur, Eyed Elater and an Opuntia Beetle (the 'longhorn')

The reason you don't go the speed limit out here. Ever. This was taken at 6:40 - long before dusk!

...and, FINALLY, our first dung beetles of the season. It only took until mid July to see them at Post Park. Still no sign of them in town. Maybe after a few real rains?

Post Park inhabitants

September 5th was when these photos were taken, and yes, other older photos will start to pop up on the blog, now that things are settling down.



Ah, tent caterpillars...

Post Park, also known as Fort Pena Colorado Park, or The Post, is a county park about 5 miles south of Marathon. The birding is fantastic. So are the butterflies (not to mention moths; we found a Poplar Sphinx there!) Anyway, while the juv Canyon Towhee seen begging earlier in the season was still begging, we found a few other juvies being a bit less dependent:



Young Vermillion Flycatcher out over the pond.



Young Zone-tailed Hawk on a yucca.

The Zone-tail was first seen up in a high cottonwood tree, Matt found it and pointed it out to me - we immediately assumed Common Black Hawk due to habitat and, well, it was perched. Zone-tailed Hawks never perch (common knowledge). Once we realized that the tail was not particularly banded, we quickly wavered over whether or not this could be an insanely dark Red-tailed Hawk... wing length vs. tail length and a solidly dark back helped ease our concerns. Finally when it flew we had a perfect Turkey Vulture mimic; Zone-tailed it was! And one short, adult tail feather was growing in, so as it cruised the area we were able to reassure ourselves that the ID was correct.

Only one tarantula was seen at the park on the 5th; one of those bound and determined to get to wherever it was going, not stopping for photos nor introductions. The bright abdominal fuzz was so attention grabbing that I crawled along for quite a while just trying to get a decent angle while it ran southwest. Trying to lure it onto my hand just resulted in it trying to find a detour. Such pacifists!



(Note: it shows up a bit larger than life-sized on my screen... it's really a bit smaller than my hand.)

lurking in the shadows

One month ago, late into the night, Matt and I heard a large flying-insect type noise in our bedroom. We thought nothing of it, as moths were regular visitors.

The second night that we heard it, Matt had turned on the light and saw a huge, fluttery, shadowy beast. How this visitor entered the house, we do not know. We do know that the amusement factor was directly proportional to the amount of shadow chasing.

What invertebrate lurked in the shadows of our bedroom?



...a praying mantis, of course.

no news is good news

Recent events have led to a massive backlog in photos and posts. Namely, we found a place out here to rent! The falcons are fewer and farther between, now that they're getting to fend for themselves. So in our down time we're not getting much of a chance to update the blog or do much other than... paint. And clean things. And paint more. And schedule termite treatments. And did we mention paint? The place we're renting is a cute little 1 bedroom house that has some great native grasses in the yard (a lawn crew would absolutely cringe at the sight of it, all patchy and uneven) and is on a quiet corner where 2 of 3 neighbors on the corner have horses. The third actually has a silhouette of a horse painted on the side of the house. Our 'next door neighbor' is a giant wall (somewhere in the compound there does seem to be a snazzy abode), and the lot behind us is vacant, so we have a nice view of the water tower ~2 blocks behind us. We, however, get well water. But it's all the same, cool, crisp, delicious water... we hope.

The excessively fragile old furniture in the house has been flagged as 'not appropriate for the shed' - we should clarify here that the 'shed' is a corrugated tin-roofed, leaky, mud brick pile of old railroad ties supporting an awning... and is not fit for any creature's habitation, much less old furniture. Alas, if we look at the chairs and tables too hard, they may crumble under the sheer intensity of the modern gaze. Never mind touching or moving them! Storage is at a premium, as there is only one closet in the entire building, but there is not a single cabinet anywhere in the house (other than some old glass cases... that are not fit for actual storage). So "quaint" is a good word for the situation! Practical, on the other hand, might be a stretch.

The front porch is a vast expanse of concrete - in the shape of a slab - that in the midday sun, shines a blinding glare. It is due for an awning or roof or at least a gutter of some sort. In the evenings, it'll be fantastic for porch sitting though! The back of the house is another story. Yet again, we'll be living in a house with a non-functioning back door. There's not much hope for this one, either. The light outside the door, however, does turn on! It's one of four lighting fixtures in/on the entire building that does work! We keep flipping switches and swapping new light bulbs with high hopes. Thus far we've not worked during non-daylight hours though, so lighting has not been a problem. Fixtures, other than one soot covered ceiling mount, simply do not exist. Yet.

Oh! There's a composting toilet. We've yet to find the 'starter mulch' for it, but there's some in the mail, and hopefully it arrives before we need to use that restroom. Fingers are crossed! The giant hole in the yard with dead ragweed or milkweed stalks (and crushed keystone light can) should prove fruitful as a compost pit once we get the "biolet" up and... composting. For now there is a gentle aroma wafting through the bathroom. We look forward to having a 'butterfly' pit to accent our butterfly 'nectaring' station. You can tell we'll have way too much fun with this living experiment!

To skip around the house, we should mention the painting situation. The bedroom MUST be painted before we 'move in' (late September being our anticipated Puppy Arrival time). Apparently the little white space heater had itself a little too much fun and the walls, ceiling and windows were COVERED in soot. Several layers of soot. Really, really nasty soot. Three layers of Killz primer is finally making the walls look better. There's little hope for the ceiling, since it's grooved wood panels. We'll pretend that 2 walls looking shiny white will make the dark, reclaimed wooden walls cleaner, too. It's the thought that counts, right? Washing the walls did very little, so the first layer of paint ended up being a kind of smeary gray.

We'll leave the highly visible termite infestation up to the fruitful imaginations of our dear readers.

To conclude this post, we'll give you some strange highlights:
Julio's mild salsa is really medium (the only bad thing about it is that it isn't sold by the quart!)
Black Widow spiders live *outside* the 'new' house, not inside!
Chili cheese dog pizza is WAY better tasting than it sounds
there's a mural of mountains and a yucca in the shower at the 'new house'
prickly pear juice (from the fruit) is a hilariously fun adventure... it deserves its own post
we managed to procure 3 more jars of last year's honey batch!
shadowboxing praying mantis... in the bedroom! (of the current house, not the 'new' one)

...for the record, the praying mantis won. It was then caught in a glass and relocated outside so it could hunt something more juicy than its shadow. Yes, we do keep a very tall glass next to the night stand for that purpose!

breakfast

A few mornings ago, Matt noticed a sound behind us - it was a slightly grinding sort of crunchy noise. Apparently grasshoppers are delicious for breakfast, at least for a mantis.

non-food Marathon

The library. We like it, it is small and friendly and Shirley (who no longer bakes biscuits) works there. There are picnic tables out front for when shade and temperature allow, and a desk inside for when AC is needed. Alas, there seem to be no outlets inside. That's what the French Grocer and The Famous Burro are for. Outlets and wifi - outside! The community room may have outlets, but we've yet to explore it well enough. Eventually I'll have to get a French Grocer t-shirt and have it autographed by the owner. Just because.

The community room is finally open. Apparently the woman who tended it had been out of town for most of our stay. Now that she's back, the little community thrift store (in the back of the building) is open pretty much daily. There's wifi 24/7, generally half a dozen young kids playing video games, a shelf of locally made crafts and a lot of art for sale (large red/blue western themed paintings and some small, funky black and white negative exposure type photo compositions). We bought two of the handmade soaps to sample and look forward to when they carry more produce (alas, peppers aren't quite my thing, though the tomatoes looked good). There are Mexican style pottery lizard things, a ton of shiny crosses from a store that closed down, some pin cushions and quite a few really neat looking dish towels. Not sure how authentically local those dish towels are, but some are almost tempting.

Mites. Our mite infestation has pretty much vanished now that the Gladys family is gone. All three young Barn Swallows apparently fledged, and we congratulate the Gladys parents for a job remarkably well done. The nest withstood the season and the kids were well behaved! However, in the last few days, it looked like Mr. and Mrs. Gladys were thinking about one more brood. Their visits back to the nest had us worried about more mites... couldn't they just go to the nest on the side of the house, up under the eaves? We brainstormed about ways to startle Gladys and Gladys - get a helium balloon and float it next to the nest, put a ping-pong ball in the nest, fence it off with mesh... all ideas that required just a bit too much effort for the amount of incentive we had. Finally, in a fit of inspiration, I took some twist-ties from bread bags and produce bags and made a rather pointy looking ball of ~8 legs. Upon a chair I stood, and into the vacant nest this twist-monster was placed. It won't blow out, it is pretty much non-toxic, it won't hurt the birds, it won't chase more mites into the house.... it just keeps Gladys and Gladys from getting cozy again. We love them, but the mites were pretty psychologically troubling.

Spiders! Our beloved jumping friends ('bold jumping spider') have now surfaced in the living room as well as the bedroom. One each in those rooms, and at least three or four different individuals from the bathroom (do they like humidity?) brings us to a total of... many relocation trips outside. We've had teeny ones, the size of my pinky nail, dime-sized ones, at least one nickel-sized one and one gigantic critter whose legs would likely shadow a quarter. Pretty, alluring, constantly alert, these critters have become friends so long as they're not in the bedroom. Admittedly, the bedroom critter was escorted outside with a little less ceremony than the others.

Nocturnal roommates. Perhaps it's because nothing in this house is sealed - you can see daylight underneath and through the middle of the back door - but generally twice a night we have to relocate, squish, or otherwise lure out uninvited 'bed friends.' It's disconcerting enough with moths, but we've had beetles, wasps, some funky long-necked winged ant creatures, you name it. Alas, a bug net would not be compatible with the ceiling fan. Lately we've been getting less sleep than we'd like due to these nocturnal buzz-thump-buzz-thump ::crawl:: activities. Our evening reading is therefore in the living room, or with a much brighter hall light on (which stays on when we turn off the lamp in the bedroom, then we have to scurry out to turn off the hall light and quickly retreat lest the moths follow us back - it's an odd routine). The gigantic katydid was the last straw - we've down put duct tape over the window gaps, back door edges, etc.

Happy Tuesday!

everything eats caterpillars

I watched this spider make an attempt at a wasp that walked over the hole (repeatedly), but there wasn't much else to report on that - the wasp got away. But the spider had grabbed the caterpillar not 5 minutes sooner, so it's just as well.

(I would post video of the above incident, but in the background you'd hear me rambling on the phone about the camera... and nobody needs to hear that!)

At some point I may try to get photos of a lovely ichneumon wasp on here... yes, it was in the process of dragging away a caterpillar (and down into the hole they went).

likes sunsets, long walks

Our tarp neighbor, Cuddles, is a late riser. As the sun starts to go down, Cuddles comes out of a little tunnel and goes for an evening stroll. From what we can tell, the preferred lifestyle is solitary, slow-paced, curious and always aware. Everything must be taken in, felt, absorbed. With careful feeling, Cuddles negotiates uneven terrain, grass clumps, rocks and other invertebrates. We've yet to see Cuddles eat anything, but it might just be our timing - or perhaps Cuddles is shy. We're not sure if those front legs that act as feelers are because Cuddles can't see due to always having his/her face covered, or if it's just for extra sensory benefits. Perhaps navigation is best left to legs anyway, but we'd like to see that little face just a bit closer... and not behind such intimidating jaws!



Yes. We named a Vinegarroon Cuddles.

needs practice

The Desert Ironclad Beetle, of Zopherus genus, is apparently also called the "Death Feigning Beetle" - the individual(s?) that loiter around our tarp apparently did not really take that name to heart. Note the stillness when this video starts. That's it. That's the 'feigning' that everyone is so proud of! Alas, I think I'd have called it a Desert Ironclad "Pause Feigning Beetle" instead...