Phriday photo, photo quiz answer, & bird ID CORRECTION

Winter wall, Yosemite Falls.

1. 'Cause I just want to look at something else.

2. The photo quiz (shot in Joshua Tree NP):

male

Ch-ch-ch-changes: If you've not noticed...

I've added pages to this blog, wherein I will house the species I have identified (frequently with your help), so I can work on cumulative learning vs.

"ooh, cool!"

(one one-thousand, two one-thousand)

... annnd delete-from-brain.

mantid on our house 2 days ago; it's amazing how they can defy gravity so well.

Also, then I'm not embarrassed by asking, say, skepticalmoth 

to identify a moth species he's already kindly identified for me. =)

Different day = different moth, right?

Uh, no.

(this fairy moth isn't the one, tho' he did identify this one for me, too)

Check out upper right hand corner of the white space under "Pages" (such a clever name!): home, plants, hymenoptera, and "what's what" which explains them.

Hope your weekend is moving along nicely. I am finding that I cannot stop picking beans.

It's VERY relaxing.

Very zen.

*sigh*

Much like doing owl limpet plots, believe it or not.

=)

xoxobb

anudder bug to ID -- fanTAStic antennae

  

Photos are big....

Wow.

TOTALLY made my night.

Bug belly.

=)

About an inch and a half long,
based on memory, and no ruler.
Was clinging to window screen last night,
presumably attracted to the light?

Went to bed soon thereafter, and shut all lights off,
so it could go its merry way.

bb

P.S. Looking at Bugguide.net, I'm thinking that the genus Selonodon looks best, though I really don't know, and on some of the species pages therein they talk about how these beetles are very hard to identify. Apparently there is a LOT of variation. If anyone knows better, or just has another idea, I'd love to hear it. =) Comment away!

adult katydid in the garden, lovely green, with red eyes

These are all large photos, so clicking on them will be rewarded.

Based on my reading, this is a female.

It moved gingerly, once I made it nervous,

moving slowly forward on the cosmos flower.

I left, so it could continue doing whatever it needed to do.

I remember thinking "Hm, I thought they'd be faster."

Only when I looked at the photos on the computer

did I realize it was missing 2 of 6 legs.

One of the missing legs was its giant jumping rear leg. Yikes!

I'd say if you're missing 1/3 of your walking appendages,

being ambulatory at all is an accomplishment.

Will try and figure out its genus (or whatever I can) soon.

Anyhow, three (apparent) katydids in a week.

Cool!

=)

biobabbler

so... is this a katydid?

 

These are all pretty big pictures, so feel free to click for a closer look.

They are cropped, so clarity isn't spectacular, 

but you run with the horses you've got.

Or, so I hear. =)

"I don't want my picture taken..."

 

Seems the resting pose is antennae together...

Eventually I paid it enough attention, it separated its antennae,

lifting one up for a whiff of the goingson.

Until then, I couldn't be certain that there were 2 appendages.

Playing around in bugguide.net, it looks a bit like other creatures in the Scudderia genus, home to Scudder's bush katydids, specifically, the nymphs. They are a subset of the subfamily Phaneropterinae, false katydids.

Not sure what they did to be called false...

Of course, this being a pretty darn dry place, with lots of bleached blonde grass, this creature is suitably colored to blend in, versus many of the green creatures pictured in bugguide.

However, the Scudderia section does say:

"We made a no taxon page for the young katydid nymphs with the striped antennae which are all apparently in the genus Scudderia but not identifiable to species. It is quite likely that nymphs of Inscudderia are also included among these."

Considering my little creatures (2 different individuals, cozied up to my door frame) do not have obviously striped antennae, I still may have a ways to go to get an ID.

I really am not an entomologist, so if anyone has any thoughts re: confirming or correcting my guess, please feel free.

I wanna learn.

=)

Thanks!

biobabbler

P.S. Killer Moth Update

Another day, another sighting of the moth which parasitizes paper wasps. It's resting on our window screen, in the shade, south wall, about 10 feet from the nearest wasp nest. =)

Funny how you can learn something in biology, and what initially had looked like a dull, peaceful scene, a moth just hanging out, turns out to be a scene filled with intrigue and the possibility of a gruesome death, worthy of the most dramatic Hitchcock music.

Mwa ha ha ha ha....

would a warbling vireo warble in our woods?

  
Been hearing a bird song while gardening, lately, that's driving me NUTS.

It's very rapidly trilly-up and down with a song that arcs twice, like two rainbows hitched together.

Been at Cornell this a.m. and last night, fishing around bird songs semi-blindly. (btw I play them QUIETLY 'cause it's not good to freak other birds out, you know, the ones that actually live here and are trying to establish a territory right about now, hence the singing)

Don't know lots about bird song, but can usually play a few species' calls and know if it's that group or not.

Then, some time this morning, I hit play here.

 warbling vireo
photo: John Harrison at http://flickr.com/photos/15512543@N04/

Oooh! That's certainly in the right neighborhood. And the warbling vireo is all over the U.S.

However, I only remember two rounds of the up and down, tho' that's possibly variable?

Anyhow, the Cornell folks say something I've never read about another species (bolded section):

"A drab bird of riparian woodlands, the Warbling Vireo is more easily heard than seen. It has no distinctive field marks, but its rapid warbling song with a accented, high-pitched last note is relatively easy to recognize. "

1. erg re: no distinctive field marks. field biologist's nightmare.

2. reminds me of herp stuff talking about "highly variable color and pattern" (oh, yay), but

3. that last part (high-pitched last note) is exciting and I will DEFINITELY be listening for a high-pitched last note today. PROMISING!

(4. I love this web site and the amazing work those folks do, so I will politely ignore "a accented"--ouch!)

Crossing fingers.

Do you have any bird sounds in your aural world that you want to figure out? Or that you have figured out? If so, how did you do it?

xobb