Insects in the garden



Hummingbird Moth

 We arrived in New Hampshire in the middle of a major thunder storm. It didn't just rain, the whole sky fell on us, The windscreen wipers were useless and the drains couldn't cope. Then it simply stopped raining and out came the obligatory rainbow. Bugs resumed their chirruping and bees tuned up for their hum-along favourite.

Before we even got in the door we dropped our cases and ogled the bushes. Two kinds of hummingbird hawk-moths were on the buddleia  and there were huge black wasps on the flowers near by. Then the butterflies arrived and an array of different dragonflies hunted for smaller bugs and even chased off a real hummingbird.



Monarch Butterfly

  The sound of crickets and cicadas increased as dusk approached and the mossies woke up. It was a very hot and humid evening, reminding us of nights in Chicago when we had watched fireflies dancing. I sprayed up with Bug-Off and went outside with some hope of seeing something, and there they were. The whole family came out to see them every evening after that.  "Lightning Bugs" might be a better name for them because they are beetles, not flies and because they flash in flight rather than burn. We told our son Dan that they were "Tinkerbelles"  and he spent hours trying to get me to catch them.

Everything's big in America, or so the song goes. It certainly applies to some of the butterflies such as the   Great spangled fritillary, the black swallowtail and the Monarch but there are tiny skippers as well. Some of the larger, more spectacular butterflies we saw turned out to be grasshoppers.


Great spangled fritillary


I took a photo of a huge beetle with some sort of appendage sticking out of its rear end. I'm guessing that it is a female stag beetle that is trying to attract mates. It stayed on the same spot for two days so I hope it succeeded.

Typically, the woods here-abouts are rather dark and flower-less, but there are meadows and glades where butterflies congregate. Our rich pickings were entirely due to our host's gardening skills.
Thanks Becky.

A humid dusk by the lake would not be complete without the whine of mosquitoes. For about an hour they drive you indoors but become less active later. Then it's worth another excursion to see the stars in a sky with almost no light pollution.