Of Bees and Wasps--22 May 2009

It just so happens that a couple of days before capturing the images for this post, I had attended the Hedgerow Farms open house and listened to a talk from a representative of the Xerces Society--a group that advocates for invertebrate conservation. Who knew???

Also, the day before I took these, Gramps had told me he saw a tarantula hawk and we had a brief exchange about the Schmidt Sting Pain Index and velvet ants. Yes, I have strange conversations often.

Anyway, I was visiting a project site that I'm responsible for off-Kokopelli Wildlife Area and noticed a strange, perfectly round hole in the bare ground:


Something retreated inside and I decided to hang around and see if it came back out. Well....



it did. I'm not much of an authority on native bees, but I believe this is a species of solitary bee. As the Xerces Society speaker had informed us, these native bees require bare ground areas to dig their holes in. There is a lot more information about them here. Although honey bees provide a very valuable service to plants in the USA--they are not native. Even with honey bees performing the bulk of pollination now, there is evidence that the native bees increase their effectiveness. Research has shown that when native bees are present, honey bees tend to switch plants more frequently, leading to increased fertilization of other flowers.

When Gramps told me about the tarantula hawk, I told him that their sting rated a 4.0 on the Schmidt Sting Pain Index, which doesn't sound all that impressive until you realize that the scale only goes up to 4. They use this sting to paralyze tarantulas prior to laying an egg in the still living body of the spider. Then the larvae eats the tarantula (saving the vital organs for last to keep the spider alive) before pupating into a new tarantula hawk. I have heard that the sting from a tarantula hawk will send a person to their knees in pain.

I also told Gramps about the time when I was 7 or 8 and caught a velvet ant (a white one, not like the one pictured below) and it promptly stung me. It was, and still is, the most painful sting I've ever been on the receiving end of. For awhile after that, I had a "kill-on-sight" policy for these creatures. Don't judge me, I was young!

Velvet ants are actually wasps and they are also sometimes referred to as cow-killer wasps because their sting is so painful. It rates as a 3 on the SSPI. The females are wingless and have a stinger, while the males are winged and do not. Usually the two look so different that they would not be recognized as the same species. Shortly after I snapped the pics of the solitary bee, I saw this beautiful velvet ant scurrying about. They are FAST! I was able to capture several crummy photos, however. You can see why they are called "ants".

Drawdown-- 30 April 2009

It's that time of year at Kokopelli Wildlife Area. The time when we drawdown our seasonal wetland cells to grow the moist soil plants to feed next year's migratory waterfowl. By drawing down during this time of year, we tend to germinate our most desired waterfowl food plants-- primarily smartweeds and watergrass. You can see extensive mudflats in these photos. The mudflats are areas that we disked last summer in order to keep the vegetative communities at an early successional stage.
By drawing the water down gradually, we concentrate the invertebrates that have been multiplying all year long, creating ideal feeding conditions breeding waterfowl and for migrating shorebirds like these:

long billed dowitcher

western sandpiper

killde--wait! that's not a killdeer

semi-palmated plover

(notice only a single breastband and a white forehead--also much smaller)

blacknecked stilt

We also concentrate larger prey items such as fish and crayfish to help feed other species like these:

American white pelican

notice the plate on the bill which only grows during breeding season

This next bird is a fairly uncommon visitor to Kokopelli WA and it reminds me of fishing from a boat on Lake Sabrina with my father and brother. I used to have a lot of fun watching them dive and then trying to predict where they would pop back up.

western grebe

We also have a large heron, egret and cormorant rookery. Right now they are trying to feed their young and the steady supply of easy pickings during drawdown helps them out quite a bit.

I only was out of the truck for about an hour, but when I got back, I felt one of these near my boots. I found another one later in my office and I still feel about a hundred phantom(?) ticks crawling all over me.

Where I'm From- 1 Jaunary 2009

My wife rolls her eyes way up into the back of her head every time I start talking about where I spent my formative years. After 13.5 years of marriage, she doesn't even try to hide this anymore. You can imagine my pain.

Undoubtedly one of the best things that ever happened to me as a kid was when my parents relocated to a small community tucked between the morning shadows of this giant:



And the evening shadows of this pile of rocks:



Bisecting the middle of the valley between these mountain ranges is what I think is the most scenic highway in California.

As a kid, I pretty much had free roam over these hills--hunting snakes and lizards, fishing and climbing huge piles of rocks for no discernible reason. As long as I was back before it got dark and I accomplished (this term was often applied loosely) a minimal amount of work around the yard for my parents, I would be turned loose again the next day.

Growing up under these circumstances, it was hard for me to imagine becoming anything other than a wildlife biologist. Except for maybe a professional baseball player.

Happy New Year to my loyal reader. Hopefully the next post will actually be about Kokopelli Wildlife Area.