Surprise

 Amazing what is revealed when all the leaves have blown away.

There's a bench near the base of this tree, overlooking the pond, and it's used by many residents of this 55+ community.  I'm pretty sure nobody was aware of a giant wasp community buzzing just above their heads.  I wonder how many wasps would live in this beautifully built nest.

Super Monarch

The king of the butterfly world?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monarch_butterfly

He's enjoying the nectar from my scarlet runner flowers.
 

To BEE or Not To BEE

Last year I posted about the mason bee (or perhaps it was a mason wasp?) that was making a home in a tiny hole in the brick at the back of my house. Remember this post?  but I never caught a photo of the actual insect.

It's the perfect spot for enjoying my early morning coffee, and this year the bee, or a family member, was back again. I was ready with the camera.

She (or he?) is extremely industrious, in and out of the hole every few minutes, probably making a nest of some sort, but I haven't noticed her carrying anything. She can crawl in but has to back out. And the actual mouth of the hole seem to be getting bigger. Interesting goings on.

Mason Bee? Mason Wasp?

Last summer I noticed a small hole (about 1/8" or 4mm diameter) in a brick, and an insect going in and out. Then a couple of days later the hole was sealed with mud. I was curious and I poked the mud out with a paper clip, so I don't really know what was inside.

This year, the same thing happened. The tiny hole in the brick is still there. I was sitting on the deck with my morning coffee, and out of the corner of my eye noticed a small insect going inside. Then a few minutes later, emerging, but too fast for me to notice what kind of insect.
The next day, the hole was sealed with a chewed up leaf.

An internet search suggested it's a mason bee or a mason wasp. The female lays her egg in the cavity and provides the baby with a yummy caterpillar or spider for breakfast after hatching.
I'll keep an eye on this brick to see what happens.

Say a Little Prayer

There was an unexpected guest welcoming me home a couple of days ago. He was resting on the inside of the window frame. He must have sneaked in through the open door, as all the windows have bug screens.

He (or possibly she?) is a green Praying Mantis, a very strange insect indeed. They have triangular heads with bulging compound eyes, three smaller eyes and a pair of antenna supported on flexible necks. They can see in 3D with all those eyes. They can turn their heads almost 180 degrees. Their front legs are enlarged and adapted for catching and gripping prey.

 I gently caught him in a kleenex, carried him outside and put him on the patio table where I could get a good look at him.... wow, what a weird creature.

I transferred him to the potted strawberry plant, and from there to a geranium.  The Praying Mantis is a predator, catching its dinner ambush style, moving fast and furious towards some unsuspecting live insect. It grips the intended food with the spikes on it's front legs. 
A PM this size would go for insects, but they are capable of killing prey 3 times their size. The larger varieties have been known to eat humming birds, frogs and lizards. They like their food sill squirming!

And if you are a male PM, watch out. Your lady friend might bite your head off in the process of making babies. Well, a girl's gotta keep her energy up to look after all those eggs!

Sharing

A Differential Grasshopper and a Japanese Beetle share a yummy dinner on my runner bean leaves.
The Japanese Beetle is an unwanted import from... yes, you guessed right.... Japan, first noticed in North America in 1916, but the Differential Grasshopper is native to Southern Ontario. Easily identified by that distinct herringbone pattern on his legs. Both these creatures are considered crop pests. I wish they would stay away from my beans!

Random This Week

Summer is coming to an end. It's been a "Back to School" week. My grandies all have new teachers who they seem to like. My Thursday Art Group is starting up again, Tuesday Line Dancing is back. It's still warm and sunny during the day, but nights are definitely chillier.

 A stunning sunset reflecting on storm clouds and a flock of Canada geese flying back to the pond where they roost for the night.

Here's Spidey: A huge spider (a bit out of focus, sorry!) who has been living on my geraniums for the past couple of weeks. It's been fascinating watching him (or her) repair the web each morning and every time an unfortunate fly or insect gets caught, he scurries over to the victim and wraps it up in spider web to save for dinner later.

A handmade quilt quoting the words of our national anthem, "O CANADA", by Canadian filmmaker and artist Joyce Weiland.  I saw many pieces of her work exhibited at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in the picturesque little town of Kleinberg, Ontario.

And the view from one of the windows at the McMichael. A painting in itself! The gallery is situated in ten acres of scenic wooded land with public trails through the trees. The building itself started as a four room log house built with salvaged pioneer hand hewn logs, but has since been enlarged, housing an extensive collection of Canadian art, including many works by the Group of Seven.

Beware of the Dragon

Wildlife in my tiny garden....

Immature male Common Whitetail dragonfly or Long Tailed Skimmer (plathemis lydia). 

His body will eventually turn white.

Dragonflies are the world's fastest insects, capable of reaching speeds of between 30 and 60 km/h (19 to 38 mph). A study has shown that dragonflies can travel as much as 85 miles in one day.

Dragonflies are among the most ancient of living creatures. Fossil records, clearly recognizable as the ancestors of our present day odonates, go back to Carboniferous times meaning that the insects were flying more than 300 million years ago, predating dinosaurs by over 100 million years and birds by some 150 million.

Dragonflies have excellent eyesight. Their compound eyes have up to 30,000 facets, each of which is a separate light-sensing organ or ommatidium, arranged to give nearly a 360° field of vision. Odonates are completely harmless - they do not sting or bite.

Dinnertime

High drama amongst the runner beans.

I think this is a zebra jumping spider about to dine on a green stink bug. Yummy!

Flutter By, Butterfly

Over 2000 beautiful butterflies belonging to over 40 different species flutter about at the Butterfly Conservatory at Niagara. They were flying over my head, landing on my clothing, even landing on the ground so I had to keep an eye on where I stepped. I would hate to squash one of these delicate creatures. All colours, all sizes and shapes.

Lots of pictures here. But I didn't note the names of these colourful creatures in most of the photos. But the species of butterfly at the conservatory include the banded orange, blue morpho, common Mormon, cydno longwing, Doris longwing, Gulf fritillary, Julia, Low's swallowtail, monarch, mosaic, owl, red lacewing, Sara longwing, and small postman.

This butterfly perched on the back of a lady's yellow jacket. They love bright colours.

Some species are bred at the Conservatory's breeding facility and others are imported from butterfly farms in Central America, Indo-Asia and Australia. Most butterflies are nectar feeders, using their proboscis mouth to reach into flowers to drink. The Conservatory has a tropical plant collection of over 100 exotic plants. And the butterflies love them all.

It was hard to get a good photo. My strategy was to focus on a flower, and sooner or later a butterfly would land on it.

The average life span of most butterflies is two to three weeks. This Blue Morpho butterfly was dead and definitely a bit ragged around the edges, but still beautiful.

Ooooo there's a butterfly on my tummy.... it tickles!

Caterpillars are reared through to the chrysalis stage on overseas butterfly farms and then shipped via special air courier. They are pinned to the emergence window at the conservatory. The butterfly emerges from the chrysalis, dries it's wings, and then makes its way through holes in the window to the main butterfly area.

The Magnificent Owl butterfly has large eye spots making them appear to have the eyes of a much larger animal.

Both the Owl butterfly and the Blue Morpho feed on the juices of rotting fruit.

There's a rain forest, and a waterfall keeping the atmosphere humid. And helpful knowledgeable staff ready to answer butterfly questions. A great place to visit. Especially if you like butterflies!

Mr. Armstrong

In Ontario, millions of ash trees are being killed every year by an non-native invasive species, the Emerald Ash Borer. The nasty little insect feeds under the bark of ash trees, and when the eggs hatch, the larvae get inside the bark and disrupt the circulation of water and nutrients of the tree. The presence of just a few insects in the tree can kill it.

There is a chemical treatment available that will kill the insect, but often the borer has done the damage to the tree before it becomes apparent.

It was too late for the young ash tree in front of my house. This summer it produced hardly any leaves, and tell-tale holes appeared in the bark, indicating the Emerald Ash Borer was at work. So it had to go.

After cutting, the whole tree, trunk, branches, sticks, has to be disposed of safely, making sure the nasty bug isn't spread to any other healthy trees. The stump was taken away, and a surprisingly small hole was left in the grass.

Within half an hour, the digger was back with a young tree, It's an Armstrong Maple. It will be tall, and not very wide, and the leaves turn red in the fall, just what I wanted.  It took just two minutes to plant, and you can see it here. OlderSon and Callum arrived in time to witness the happy event.



All new family members should have a name, so Callum has christened my tree Mr. Armstrong.

Bad Tatzmannsdorf - Austria

Bad Tatzmannsdorf is a small spa town of approximately 1500 people in the Oberwart district of Austria, and is one of Austria's leading health and wellness resorts.

The area was ruled by a Hungarian noble family as early as 1378, and has been settled by Germans, Turks and Croats through the centuries. It became a favourite health resort for "cures" for the Austrian aristocracy from the 1700s onwards.

We stopped for an afternoon for the Men of Note concert that was scheduled at the Kurzentrum Concert Hall in Bad Tatzmannsdorf.

One of the Men of Note members was born in Germany and is fluent in German, so was able to introduce the choir and the musical numbers to the mainly German speaking audience. Good idea, as the current repertoire is sung in English or Latin.

The Kurzentrum at Bad Tatzmannsdorf hosts a variety of cultural and recreational events including lectures, readings, recitals and concerts, as well as providing running and walking trails and spa and wellness activities for guests.

The gardens were filled with fragrant lavender, and we noticed some very large hovering insects who were enjoying the flowers' nectar. They looked like what I imagine a baby humming bird would be, but they were hoverflies or hoverbees. 
Edited: I have been told that this is a hummingbird hawk moth. A fascinating creature.

After the concert we stopped at the nearby Weinstadl restaurant for an Austrian buffet dinner. Lots of meat and potatoes!

And of course when in Austria, one has to sample the local brew. Puntigamer is a traditional beer from Styrias provincial capital Graz, and famous in Austria for its football sponsorship. Puntigamer supports Austria's First League football club "Sturm Graz". 

More pictures to come.
If you have visited Bad Tatzmannsdorf, leave me a comment and tell me about it.

It's a Bug's Life

Just resting on the green tomatoes.

 But I have no idea what kind of bug he is.

Daddy Long Legs

Maybe it's the time of year, or the weather conditions, or perhaps the current phase of the moon, but these creepy crane flies are everywhere!

Right now, there are three of them on the window screen, another five basking in the sun on my deck and lots more flying around my front door, waiting to come in as soon as I open it. I don't like them.

Mud Dauber Wasp

zzzzzzzzzzzzzz! ZZZZZZZZZZ! ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!

What's that high pitched buzzing sound?

I looked up and saw this strange tube clinging to the verandah wall above my head. Whatever is it? And why is it making that noise? When in doubt, consult the internet.

It's the home of the "Organ Pipe" Mud Dauber Wasp.

The Mud Dauber wasp builds her nest by carrying balls of mud in her mouth and sculpting it into a tube shape. As she does this, she makes a loud high pitched buzzing noise.... that's the sound I heard.

Update: the buzzing sound is Mama wasp beating her wings at high speed to dry the mud!

When Mama wasp is satisfied that the nest tube is long enough, she flies off in search of juicy spiders. She catches them, stings them into submission and paralyses them, and pops them into the nest, stocking the larder.

Then she lays her single egg on one of the comatose spiders.

Now it's time to seal the tube with more chewed up mud, and start on the next nursery tube. The egg hatches, and Lo and Behold! the baby wasp larvae can feast on fresh spider meat every day, thoughtfully provided by Mama.

Amazing!

A bit of a shock for the spiders though.

However, I gave the nest a shot of Raid.... sorry Mama, please build your elegant nest somewhere else.

What's the Buzzzzz....

"Now, if I wasn't so darned fat I could squeeze in even further to reach the really sweet stuff....

.... note to self: must stop sneaking all that extra honey from the kids!"

Paper Wasp

Just one lone Paper Wasp was busily building this nest under the handrail on OlderSon's verandah. The nest is made out of wood fibre and was firmly anchored to the wood by a thin stem called a petiole.
Some of the cells already contained larvae, and there's one white grub visible, working hard to close the door on his cell, no doubt looking for some peace and quiet.

We had to knock the nest down, can't have a colony of wasps around with curious Callum close by, but the queen wasp angrily searched for her babies for a long time before giving up.

I sincerely hope she moves to a different neighbourhood to start her next family.