Tag: caterpillars

When It Rains

On By trashonthemonocacyIn Monocacy River, Nature3 Comments

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When the Monocacy overflows its banks, my oldest son pulls on his waders, mounts his bike, and speeds to the river, frantic lest he miss a moment of the spectacle, but, as he apparently needs someone with whom to share the wonder (and, amazingly, his active Instagram account doesn’t seem to count), he even more frantically insists that I come along. Secretly grateful to be wanted for something other than a ride to the airport, I follow along, prodded by the intermittent “hurry up!”s made necessary by my bikeless status. Someone, after all, needs to hold the dog’s leash and stash her poop bags, not to mention stop to clean up once in a while.

I haven’t looked at any flood charts, but my son and I reckon that this week the river was the highest it’s been since a stretch of rainy days in March 2014. While the “island” wasn’t  completely underwater, as we have seen in the past, it was shrunken by the swollen waters. The bluebells had become aquatic flowers, and flotillas of logs, branches, leaf debris and trash (I could make out plastic bottles, the distinctive red of a coke can, and the occasional flash of artificial color) drifted by at a frantic pace. A pair of darting swallows and the voice of a nearby kingfisher made me wonder about the other animals, not lucky enough to have wings, whose holes and homes were now underwater.

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Err,um, could you like, maybe, give us a lift?

And I do mean to include those animals with more than two or four feet, like this rather unfortunate spider and possibly doomed caterpillar. Honestly, it’s been a rough spring for the insects and arachnids, in pupal form or otherwise, what with the snow and lingering cold. And now this? Bother.

Not far into our explorations, we encountered a very large snapping turtle that certainly didn’t mind the extra water. My son poked it with a stick (of course), which provoked it into an aggressive hiss, which, in turn, provoked our Rosie-pup into lunging after it in our defense. Knowing that she would lose that battle, I held tight to the leash and suffered her whimpering frustration as the beast disappeared into the muddy depths.

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The snapping turtle is here somewhere: trust me.

Next week: cleaning it all up.

Weather, According to Caterpillars

On By trashonthemonocacyIn Monocacy River, Wildlife2 Comments

I think most people are familiar with with the folklore concerning the Woolly Bear caterpillar: the longer the black bands, the longer and more severe the winter. To be honest, according to my lifetime of anecdotal observations, this is a totally unreliable means of predicting how snowy or cold a winter might be. Just look at these two Isabella Tiger Moth larvae (a.k.a. Woolly Bears, a.k.a. Pyrrharctiae isabellae) I found a couple of weeks ago:

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They don’t exactly look the same, do they? No. And that’s the problem I encounter every year. Arguably, though, taking these two into account, I can see a slight argument for a relatively mild winter. I guess.

What really confused me when I was younger were the Woolly Bears that weren’t really Woolly Bears. For instance, this fellow, the Virginia Tiger Moth caterpillar (Spilosoma virginica), is entirely blond:

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Is he trying to tell me that I should winter in California? No. Absolutely not.

Finally there are some decidedly un-woolly but incredibly interesting caterpillars that hang about in the fall. I think that this Eastern Comma caterpillar (Polygonia comma) is just perfect for Halloween, when it made its appearance:

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Just don’t ask it about snow.

Cooler Reflections

On By trashonthemonocacyIn Monocacy RiverLeave a comment

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I’m sitting on the thick branch of a fallen tree, perched just above the waters of the Monocacy and hidden by dangling bunches of ripe pokeberries. The berries are poisonous to us but good food for the birds, who already have consumed about half of the deep purple fruits, leaving the empty magenta stems as simple ornaments.

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There is a pair of chickadees in a nearby tree, their voices more obvious than their tiny feathered forms. They hang from the japanese hop vines, eating their ripe seeds. If I sit still long enough, I’ll see more birds, like the downy woodpecker that just stopped to inspect the maple tree on my right.

It’s perfect sit-and-watch weather, cool and clear and mostly free of the annoying flying insects that plague late summer days. Of course. It’s fall now, but early in the season, when most everything is still clothed in green and the crickets sing at night. Butterflies and moths are making their final rounds among the goldenrod, asters and sneezeweed, and wooly caterpillars are appearing on walking paths.

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At home I’m harvesting the last of my tomatoes and collecting seeds from my zinnias for next year’s spring planting. I hear people speak of spring as the season of hope, but in some ways fall is even more so. Despite everything.

More Monarchs on the Monocacy

On By trashonthemonocacyIn Monocacy River, Nature2 Comments

 

In a field awash in purple and yellow and green, butterflies float between plumes of goldenrod and sturdy ironweed blossoms. Among the plain, white cabbage moths and big, brilliant swallowtails, are a few ever-popular Monarchs, whose recent population decline is of particular concern (see Monocacy Milkweed). On my way back from scavenging the banks of the Monocacy, I like to stop by the open fields and look under the leaves of the scattered milkweed plants, where the distinctly striped caterpillars of the Monarch are likely to be. Yesterday I found a pair of the wee larvae munching away. As it is early September, these caterpillars, if they survive to butterfly-hood, are of the generation that will make the famous flight to Mexico. That’s a big future for such a little insect. But I’m rooting for them!

Monocacy Milkweed

On By trashonthemonocacyIn Monocacy River, Wildflowers1 Comment

The milkweed is just beginning to bloom now, both in the open spaces along the river, highways, and farm fields and in my small garden in the backyard. There are many kinds of milkweed, but the sort that I see on my walks is Asclepias syriaca, or Common Milkweed, a dusty plant with broad, green leaves, a vein of magenta, and large, drooping clusters of pale pink, surprisingly intricate flowers. In my garden I grow Asclepias incarnata, a more slender-leaved native commonly known as Swamp Milkweed, and Asclepias tuberosa, a more delicate, orange-flowered variety called Butterfly Weed.

Milkweed is most famous for being the host and primary food source for the larvae of the Monarch butterfly, which has been dwindling in numbers in recent years. While there was a slight uptick in the population overwintering in Mexico the past two years, it’s still threatened primarily by loss of habitat. Planting milkweed and conserving the land on which it grows will help combat a further decrease in the Monarch population.

A few years ago, we managed to host a Monarch caterpillar in our Swamp Milkweed. The rubbery-looking creatures are fascinating and even quite beautiful. Perhaps it’s not a big surprise that they grow to be one of the most identifiable butterflies in the world. Let’s keep it that way.