aloe on the rocks
Month: May 2024
A Spell of Good Things
I finished this one yesterday and started again at the beginning, because I‘m sure I missed stuff the first time through.
Bubo virginianus
Gift from the sky.
another teacup
Working on my ellipses.
riot of greens
Got to get these seedlings into the ground in the next day or so.
BB13
A & I returned to the Backbone Trail after more than a month’s break, and hiked the penultimate and longest section. It was so pretty, especially between Tri-Peaks and Sycamore Canyon. We had Chamberlain Trail to ourselves; it seems that only thru-hikers go there, as it isn‘t a convenient loop or out-and-back hike. I’d like to return with my birding binoculars; I *think* I saw my first Phainopeplas.
Urocyon cinereoargenteus
Quick sketch after a loooong hike.
teacups
Pseudacris hypochondriaca
Hmm, I thought we had the Pacific Tree Frog aka Pacific Chorus Frog here, but now I’m learning that the species was divided into three in 2006, and in Southern California ours is called the Baja California Tree or Chorus Frog (Pseudacris hypochondriaca).
Due to its proximity to Hollywood, this species of chorus frog has often had its vocalizations featured as stock sounds in film and television. Consequently, its distinctive “ribbit, ribbit” call has become the quintessential frog sound in the English-speaking world, even though only this species and a few closely related ones actually produce that sound.
Ichneumonidae
Ichneumons are a diverse group of parasitic wasps. Female ichneumons lay their eggs on or in a living host, usually an insect or spider. When the larvae hatch, they begin to feed on the host, frequently eating it in such a way as to allow it to remain alive for as long as possible, permitting the larvae to complete their development. The host is literally eaten alive.
In 2019, a group of international entomologists suggested the name “Darwin wasps” for this family, in reference to a famous letter that Darwin wrote in 1860 to American botanist Asa Gray. He wrote: “I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice.” (Darwin solved this vexing issue by saying that there is no solution. Nature is not cruel or evil, and does not exist to offer us moral lessons; it just exists.)
Gross as endoparasitism sounds, these wasps play an important role in regulating insect populations. This specimen was in my dining room … looking for caterpillars??
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