Intermittent Invertebrate: Series Introduction

It has been a while, hasn't it? 

I just drafted and deleted several paragraphs about why it has been a while since my last post and then wondered why I felt the need to explain why I was gone.  Silly, right? 

I was gone (figuratively speaking)! Now I'm back (time permitting)! Huzzah!

I was trying to come up with something clever along the lines of Wordless Wednesday, Photo Phriday, etc. for a new subject on the blog, but was not having luck until I settled on what probably best describes my current blogging style- sporadic posts which will now include pictures of insects found on the farm. Yes, they aren't as cute as baby goats or Stella, but they certainly are a part of the farm (integrated pest management, baby!), and an important aspect to try keep in balance for optimal produce production. I think some of them are kinda pretty too.

My interest in bugs was first stoked by my high school biology teacher who gave us the choice of collecting and identifying 60 different types of insects or doing some other project that sounded much less interesting to me at the time.  One of the first things I learned was that spiders are not insects (too many legs), and that "true bugs" are a type of insect, but not all insects are considered to be a type of bug for classification purposes.  My family lived in a suburban housing tract that backed up to open space, and I quickly discovered that I could easily collect more insects in the open grassland than I could in our manicured back yard, even though all that separated the two spaces was a four foot high wooden fence.  I remember being amazed at just how many different types of flies there are since I had assumed that flies were pretty much one type of annoying bug, and was quite surprised at how many niches in the ecosystem they occupied.  Once I started keeping an eye out for individual insects, I started seeing more detail in the world- like instead of just a swarm of insects on the porch light, there were moths, leaf hoppers, and oooohhhh a lace wing!

Cuckoo Bee on oregano flowers- click on image to further embiggen

This interest was renewed last year when a few of my blogging friends wrote about pollinator week, and I decided to take a look at what insects, besides our honeybees, were visiting our summer blossoms.  I expected to see mostly bees, but I am pretty sure I saw more wasps at the flowers, and I came to learn that many of the insects that we consider "beneficial bugs" rely on nectar sources to complete some parts of their life cycle, which probably means that the dearth of nectar sources affecting honeybees is also affecting the predatory wasps that help keep "pest bugs" in check.  This is one of the reasons that I often end up letting our herbs flower- we don't get as large of a harvest, but they tend to have more blooms than ornamental plants, with a wealth of nectar for the insects.

A few notes on photographing pollen/nectar seeking insects: there's a reason the early bird gets the worm- pollinators are not early risers.  Insects are generally more active with higher temperatures, so  in the middle of summer, that can mean some pretty sweaty photo sessions in the garden.  I've also discovered that in a digital era, insect photography brings back some of the thrill/uncertainty/crushing disappointment of film developing where you just never know if you actually got the shot of the teeny tiny bee until you have a chance to review the photos in detail after your session is over.  These little creatures move so quickly, often in evasive flight patterns, that they can be difficult to keep track of, and even if you do manage to keep track of them, it can be difficult to convince the camera lens to focus on them (too small of a thing, too many other options in view to focus on).

These first pictures feature cuckoo bees (and oregano flowers, which are incredibly small), a type of bee I was not aware of until I took these pictures.  They sort of straddle the line between two insects most people are aware of: bees- which are fuzzy and gather pollen on themselves, and wasps, which are smooth bodied and have no mechanism for intentionally gathering pollen.

This cuckoo bee seems to be visually checking nectar levels...or making sure this isn't a trap.

You'll notice that the cuckoo bees in the first and second pictures (they are two different types- if you look closely, the stripe patterns are slightly different, and the leg colors are different) have no pollen on them, and pollen gathering is one of the traits bees are generally known by.  So at first I thought these might be wasps, but then again, they don't have the typical wasp profile with the narrow elongated waist, and they are ever so slightly fuzzy, which put them back into the bee family.  Cuckoo bees, as it turns out, are not pollinators who only visit flowers to consume nectar, and are predators of other bee species- usually of a type they are closely related to.  Bees actually evolved from predatory wasps, so it would make sense that the cuckoo bee would have some waspish traits, making it initially challenging to identify them. 

Apparently, the flower was indeed worthy of stopping for- love the green eyes on this cuckoo bee

Both wasps (yellow jackets, paper wasps) and bees (honey, and to some extent bumble) can be social hive dwellers, but the majority of our California bee species live alone, either in the ground or in some type of wood.  Where the cuckoo bird lays its eggs in the nest of another species of bird, which then ends up raising the cuckoo chick(s) as their own, the cuckoo bee engages in similar behavior, known as kleptoparasitism.  It will find a ground dwelling bee, usually a pollen-gathering type, and lay its eggs in the cells the host bee has provisioned for its own eggs. The cuckoo bee larvae hatch, earlier than the host larvae, and eat through the provisions, and usually the host larvae as well, if the mother cuckoo bee didn't already do so when she was laying her eggs.

While at first I was disappointed to find that these were bee parasites, as opposed to the native bee species I was hoping to catch on camera, I have since read that they are an indicator of a more complex habitat.  So I am not sure that I would call these a particularly beneficial insect, but they may fit into the "indicator that you're doing something right around here insect" category. Because there are many types of cuckoo bees, I am sure I'll be posting more pictures of them in the future.

Oh, and I took this for scale:

While I know insects aren't everyone's favorite topic, I think knowing what they are and what they do makes them have less of an "ewww" factor, and I always find that the more you know about the natural world, the more you see.

More Than Veggies In The Garden

You.  See. Nothing.

Summer is most definitely here (two days at 110 degrees this week), which means that in addition to sweating copiously every time we do chores and worrying over our young plants frying their leaves off, we've got lots of farm fresh food. We're enjoying produce straight off the tree- plums, pluots, and peaches, herbs (spearmint in everything), garlic, more eggs as our spring chicks are starting to lay, and a bounty of milk products from the goats- yogurt, ice cream, and cheeses.  The summer produce is starting to ripen as well, which means we finally have some tomatoes and basil for summer salads.  Andy planted a couple of our favorites, along with a sauce/salsa tomato variety which is different from your slicing varieties in that it is long and meaty with less seeds and a lower water content than typical slicing tomatoes.  I'm experimenting with it to see if it will be a regular addition.  My first attempt at salsa was way too hot to eat just with chips, despite using only half a very small jalapeno pepper, but added to tacos, it wasn't half bad.

I went out to the garden yesterday evening to harvest tomatoes to mix with our basil and garlic for a bruschetta (another experiment with the new variety of tomato) which would go over homemade chevre, and while I usually take Stella with me to the garden, this time I left her in house. She's been picking and eating ripe tomatoes off the vines before I have a chance to get to them, and since it is early in the season, there aren't quite enough to share with the dog.

As I neared the tomatoes, I could hear the California quail chattering softly fairly close by, which is not unusual on our farm, especially lately, as I seem to hear them frequently near the vegetables and the bee garden.  I turned down one of the rows, and all of a sudden a male quail flew up from practically under the basil and landed on an almond tree.  Then a female did the same thing. 

Which caused me to stop in my tracks, because little game birds don't let you get within three feet of them without a very good reason.

California quail chicks! Can you find all six?

 

Or several good reasons.

These chicks had flattened themselves to the ground and weren't going to move a muscle, even as I moved ever so slowly towards them to try to get a picture or two.  I became very aware of exactly where I was putting my feet, knowing that they most likely wouldn't move out of my way.

I looked around and found just a few more.

At this point, I realize how lucky it is that I left the dog in the house for once!

It is quite amazing how well the dark stripes match our dirt and the light stripes match the golden color of our grass, and the evening dappling of light and shadows made them blend in amazingly well.  Knowing how quickly they grow feathers, these must have hatched out just hours earlier, and this was probably their first adventure away from the nest.

I didn't want to stress the parents or the chicks out too much, so I retreated from the garden and figured that the family would probably move on and I could get my tomatoes a few minutes later.  As soon as I showed those in the house the pictures I had captured on my phone, a real camera was grabbed, and the garden was returned to, in hopes of finding the little quail family again.

This time, we didn't hear any quail chatter.  We very carefully crept through the tomato rows and finally saw the father quail fly up from the furthest row of tomatoes.

Then we saw mama quail.

I'm just hanging out- probably in the middle of a dust bath, so just move along now.

But no sign of the chicks.  And she was staying incredibly still, and sort of awkwardly positioned.

If you look really closely (click on the picture for a bigger version), you'll see a little head peaking out from her wing.  The rest of the chicks were most likely under her as well, which explains her position and why she wasn't budging.

Andy had found her nest several days ago by accident while mowing- he got close enough to flush her out of the rosemary bush she had nested under, though fortunately, not close enough to do any harm.  The bush is only about a foot and a half tall, but with its dense greenery, it provided enough cover that she escaped the notice of a border collie and a cattle dog that frequent the area daily.  I wonder if the rosemary aroma helped to cover any scent she'd give off too?

We went over to check the nest on our way into the house.

Looks like all of the eggs hatched out, and there weren't any bad ones left in the nest.  California quail are one of our favorite birds- there's something about their shape, the sounds they make when a covey is out foraging and all is well, and the way they move that we really enjoy.  Seeing a little family of them out and about is evidence to us that we have successfully made room on our farm for more than just our livestock.  And while my original intent for that rosemary bush was to 1) have more rosemary available to sell, 2) grow another plant that blooms early in the year for the bees and 3) hide a very ugly permanent thing in our "back yard", I'm thrilled that there turns out to be a purpose number 4) quail nursery.

Fresh produce and fluffeh babies!  Our garden rocks!