Crabgrass Caterpillar

So this god awful crab grass makes up the majority of our backyard, and my one regret to gardening is the fact I didn't flood out the patches with the most toxic forms of Round Up known to man before starting my restoration. So imagine my horror to find this awful plant is host to some caterpillar! They're near impossible to see too.

Black Swallowtail Before the Meadow

Another Black Swallowtail, Papilio polyxenes, hatched today. This time it's a male. What surprises me though is this was the third one to form a chrysalis but the second one to hatch. I'll give the other one a few more days before jumping to conclusions but there's a chance it will wait until next spring to emerge. I have another 5 caterpillars waiting for make their own chrysalises, and I think that's it for this species this year. The females lay eggs on the Parsley, and the resulting caterpillars are surprisingly conservative eaters. Compared to other cats out there these barely nibble the plant early on. Later instars will consume whole sprigs in a day but you get a surprising amount of caterpillars per parsley plant. I've taken to collecting them once they're an inch long and feeding them Golden Alexander, Zizia aurea, in captivity. Golden Alexander is a host plant but the females will only lay on the tender new growth... once they're done flowering they're pretty much done growing, thus this is only a spring time host plant. The caterpillars are happy to eat it all the same.

Also note the meadow garden in the background. I haven't been updating over the summer that much because the orange coneflower, Rudbeckia fulgida, and butterfly weed, Asclepias tuberosa, weren't as showy overall. The Sky Blue Asters, Symphyotrichum laeve, and Symphyotrichum azureus are starting to fill in nicely against the Showy Goldenrod, Solidago speciosa, and Coreopsis tripteris. The two aster species look way to similar to really tell apart, but that's okay as S. laeve tends to bloom a few weeks sooner than S. azureus, creating the illusion of a prolonged bloom.

Birds in the Backyard

While spying a Goldfinch through the window this morning I soon realized that there was a lot of bird activity going on in the yard. The Goldfinch itself landed on some Anise Hyssop to inspect for seeds then took off to one of the weedy Rose of Sharons growing along the fence. It took off before I could snap any pictures but then I noticed the Hummingbird flying about.

They've been showing up to the Coral Honeysuckle every morning and afternoon these past few weeks. As we move into colder weather the vine should produce another flush of blooms though nothing compared to the early spring flowers.

Rahhhh!?

So I glanced at the bird feeder to find this speckled Black and White Warbler, which is the first time I've ever seen those in the yard. I understand that they migrate south but I've never noticed them before.

Caterpillars that Look Like Lady Gaga

Once again the Yahoo home page linked to a "news" story where someone over at Outdoor is blogging that years ago someone uploaded a photo of a moth that looks like a poodle.

Here is the original article.

It basically reads like it was written by a spoiled 16 year old girl.

The first word that comes to mind when casting your eyes upon this photo of a bedazzling insect labeled the Venezuelan Poodle Moth is Photoshop. Really? A moth that looks like a poodle? Eyelashes that Lady Gaga would envy? Seriously?

As it turns out, yes, it is real...

What really got to me though was this comment here.

This moth reminds us of Lady Gaga.

Which has inspired me to search the internet for images of Caterpillars that look like Lady Gaga. (Also a fun drinking game for Lepidopterists reading along at home.)

The Stinging Rose Caterpillar looks just like Lady Gaga.

The Paddle Caterpillar looks just like Lady Gaga.

The Giant Swallowtail Caterpillar, which actually mimics bird shit to not get eaten by birds, looks just like Lady Gaga.

The Spotted Tussock Caterpillar looks just like Lady Gaga.

And so on... So these caterpillars really don't have anything in common other than they look somewhat eccentric. I haven't seen Lady Gaga do anything new lately so maybe my vision of her is a few years old. She wears attention getting get ups, and costumes, and tries to come off as fashion forward. She's pushed the boundaries on acceptable female attire on so many fronts that I could probably have posted random insect photos and still captioned each one as it looks just like Lady Gaga.

Black Swallowtail Hatched

It's a girl! The Black Swallowtail, Papilio polyxenes, chrysalis I had hatched today. The male and female to the species look very similar but I'm siding with it being a female from the lack of more yellow. This should make that male who's been soaring around the garden happy. Unfortunately shortly after she flew off, it started down pouring here. I hope she's alright. 

Confusing News Articles report 3,000,000 Bees Removed from Driveway in Queens

There's a news article going around today about 45 honeybee hives in one man's driveway having to be removed. None of them seem to seem to say clearly enough as to why, but BEES!!!
 
New York Post
Yahoo
CBS New York

I gather that he's selling his house, maybe? And the real estate agent freaked out, I think? And this man helped with the removal of his hives... where he might get fined an outrageous amount of money. 

The Tone of the Article
Ewww these bees are awful! OMG there's 45 hives being kept like Dogs! Neighbors complained about the constant buzzing and being attacked by "swarms" of bees. 

But...

This man thought of them like his faithful companions. Imagine 45 dogs living in a 20' by 20' area. For just pennies a day you too can donate to make sure this man's bee yard doesn't look like a shanty town in Rwanda.  

The articles read to touch on both stories here and I don't understand. The Dog analogy does not work for either case. Maybe these people should visit a bee yard sometime. I mean they might be spaced out a bit more than 20' by 20' but we might as well compare humans on a farm vs. in the city. 

How Many Hives?
45? Where? I'm looking at the pictures and I count and with estimating I count about 23. Some of those are nucs too, that is they're 5 frame boxes that make up the whole hive, instead of the traditional 10 frame boxes which one can continue to put boxes on top of. Maybe they just counted the boxes? 

The bottom line is the headline is all you needed to read with any of these articles.

Black Swallowtail Chrysalis

Black Swallowtail Chrysalis. Before forming this harder outer skin the caterpillar spins a safety line (top left) to hold it in place. They then shed off their outer layer of skin which you can still see here (middle right) somewhat still attached. Their skin then goes into a transformation taking on a wood-like texture to mimic a plant stem.

Black Swallowtails overwinter in the chrysalis stage and its around this time of the year that it becomes uncertain which chrysalises will hatch in a few days and which will wait until 6 to 8 months and hatch next spring.

Black Swallowtail Cat Again

Black Swallowtail Caterpillars grow surprisingly fast. This one is already almost two inches long.

Black Swallowtail Caterpillar

Sure enough our parsley has a Black Swallowtail Caterpillar on it, Papilio polyxenes.

Younger instars lack their primary defense and instead focus on mimicking bird poop.

One size up presents a different story. Black Swallowtail Caterpillars have a horn that pops out of their head which sprays foul smelling formic acid. Upon being clutched in a bird's mouth they aim that stuff right for the eyes! In older caterpillars the horn is long enough to be pressed right into the bird's eye where they rub the acid all around. Birds quickly learn to not eat them. 

A Black Swallowtail

A few days ago I noticed a male Black Swallowtail fluttering around my yard. The species name is Papilio polyxenes, as Black Swallowtail hardly describes anything in that swallowtail family accurately. 90% of them are black swallowtails, because they all happen to be mimicking the Pipevine Swallowtail, Battus philenor which is poisonous. Anything that causes a mother bird to regurgitate all the food for her babies prematurely is not something any mother bird would dare eat again.

Males of this species have the long line of yellow dots all along the wing. Females have these dots less pronounced, and with more blue along the rear of the wings.

For whatever reason this male was unusually cooperative for me taking photos.

Knowing the species was hanging about the yard I knew to check various host plants for eggs. Sure enough it seems our parsley was dotted by a female. I'll keep checking on these little eggs as they develop.