"What's past is prologue"

                                   The Tempest

"Memories from age three or age five put on the costumes of dreams.

Things were happening then just exactly the way they happen now,

 but those things seem to be rich with inner life and happy 

discovery, and a fuzzy sense of the world."

 from Love and Irony: 

Postcards from a Child of the New 

York School

Katherine Koch

A few weeks ago the aphids were 
flying everywhere I noticed that they were 
particularly thick on my Red Leaf Rose, 
but help was nearby, the House Sparrows
 flocked to the rose alternating between the 
bird feeder and grabbing mouthfuls of aphids.
This allowed me to enjoy their antics and 
quiet beauty.

This also encouraged a bit of research on aphids. 
Spring aphids are parthenogenetic, the population 
hatching from eggs is comprised entirely of females
who then switch to vivipary or live birth without males.
Towards the end of summer they produce a winged 
population consisting of both males and females which
allows them to spread to new host plants.

The Prairie Gardener Book of Bugs
Nora Bryan & Ruth Staal

One thing that I noticed while watching the sparrows was

this Grey Squirrel, it came directly down the Amur Cherry 

ran thru the area under the feeders where the squirrels normally

feed grabbed a piece of gravel, bit it and ran away with it.

A week of so later it did the same thing.

I still have a fuzzy sense of the world.

"I watch 

the lamplight's clear pool 

on the ancient pinewood planks 

fall through cracks and knotholes 

onto the lives of mice as starlight 

filters through the window 

and falls on me."

from How I Understand Eternity

Brian Swann

I found this beetle last week in the parking lot

at work. I am always surprised to find aquatic

beetles in areas some distance from water. Twice

I have found Giant Water Bugs, a creature I first

encountered in the pages of Annie Dillard's

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek a couple of blocks from

my office. I assume they mistake the dark asphalt

for water. This was considerably smaller than the

Giant Water Bug Lethocerus americanus.

I have identified it as a Mid-Sized Diving Beetle

Colymbetes sculptilis

If I am mistaken please let me know.

" Our life is a faint tracing on the surface of mystery,

like the idle, curved tunnels of leaf miners on the face

of a leaf. We must somehow take a wider view,

look at the whole landscape, really see it... "

 Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

                         Annie Dillard

Last weekend it was time to check out the

garden. Fall is here but a few plants are holding

on. The Hollyhock is in it's glory.

There was a lone Geranium.

But the Coral Bells were beautiful. I am always

fascinated at how an insect's colours so often seems

to compliment the flower it appears on no matter

where I see it.

"Fair Quiet, have I found thee here,
And Innocence, thy sister dear!
Mistaken long, I sought you then
In busy companies of men :
Your sacred plants, if here below,
Only among the plants will grow ;
Society is all but rude,
To this delicious solitude."

The Garden

Andrew Marvell

Again these photos were taken a couple of weeks ago in the

Research Park. As I have mentioned before, this has been a

real dragonfly summer for me I have seen them everywhere

in huge numbers.

Feel free to correct id's.

Variable Darner ~ Aeshna interrupta

Darners are apparently an important

food source for young Merlins.

Bugs of Alberta

Acorn/Sheldon

Cherry-Faced Meadowhawk ~ Sympetrum internum

 " Flecked with heraldic gold,

what winged thing has landed

on my drying foot?"

If I Knew the Names of Everything

Brian Bartlett

These pictures of the Mourning Cloak butterfly ~ Nymphalis antiopa

were taken a couple of weeks ago  in the garden. It is an interesting

butterfly, they emerge in July, enter a short dormancy and emerge

again in fall. They hibernate in the winter under bark etc. and might

emerge if the temperature becomes warm enough. They can live up

to a year.

        

Bugs of Alberta

                          Acorn & Sheldon

We also encountered one on our recent trip to the

mountains.

" The beauty of things was born before eyes

and sufficient to itself; the heart - breaking beauty

Will remain when there is no heart to break for it."

                                                Credo

                                                   Robinson Jeffers

These are the last photos from our trip to the mountains.

For Shaun and Wendolene this is the longest car trip they

 have been on with us and they were very well behaved.

I always think of the mountains as the home of large animals

but I was surprised by how many plants had insects on them.
Plant identification is based on Plants of Alberta, Royer &
Dickinson, Lone Pine Publishing.

Feel free to disagree.

Mountain Fireweed

Mountain Goldenrod

Below we see a Hoverfly surrounded

by aphids Some Hoverfly larve feed

on aphids the adults feed on nectar

and pollen. Bugs of Alberta

Common Red Paintbrush

 

Twinflower ~ Linnaea borealis

"I stop in the gravel by the side of the road,

completely ringed by mountains so impressive

they must be fake."

                 Starting Out in the Afternoon

                                           Jill Frayne

A Harvestman on a Schneezwerg rose.

It looks to be missing a leg.

to paraphrase the Bugs of Alberta by John Acorn & Ian Sheldon

  

"There is a legend that if your cow goes missing you

pull the leg off a Harvestman and throw it on the

ground, it will point in the direction the cow went."

They also note there are eight species of

Harvestman in Alberta.

"Delight in the small,

those that inhabit

only a corner of the mind,

the ones shaped by wind

and a season: a slip of

grass, the nameless flower

that offers its scent

to a small wind."

                           Delight in the small, the silent

                             Lorna Crozier

This summer in Saskatchewan and Alberta I saw more

dragonflies and damselflies than ever before.

Boreal Bluet Damselfly

" I see the sky

Smile on the meanest spot,

Giving to all that creep or walk or fly

A calm and cordial lot."

                   To the Snipe

                                  John Claire

My guess is Cherry-Faced Meadowhawk

female or immature?

"Watching on this hillside tonight,

I want to know how to see

And bear witness"

                  Seeing the Glory

                                               Pattiann Rogers

My favorite plant at the Research Park is in bloom,

The Red-leaf Rose, Rosa glauca, it only blooms once

but the foliage is great in arrangements and it produces

lovely rose hips. I finally planted one in the back yard

this year.

This rose is a favorite target of Diplolepis rosae,

the mossyrose gall wasp. These galls are sometimes

attacked by other wasps who replace the original larva.

I have also seen a downy woodpecker happily ripping
them open in the winter. "It's the hard-knock life!"

There is a great discussion on this wasp at

http://www.talkaboutwildlife.ca/profile/index.php?s=1838

"Some things that fly there be --
Birds -- Hours -- the Bumblebee --
Of these no Elegy."

                                            Emily Dickinson

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