Looking at my year in review and thinking about some of the cool organisms I got to observe in 2022 (so far - there's most of a month left!)
In the winter, I found an interesting organism (turned out to be a mold) growing on a mulberry leaf and was able to take a very high magnification focus stack. That was a really fun project. I also did a lot of extreme macro work in the moss in the yard (back in California), and was fortunate to be able to watch an ant find a fungus gnat that appeared to be just emerging. High drama at tiny scale!
While recording audio in the mountains, I came across an incredible event - some hoverflies had found a concrete drainage ditch and were congregating there, sitting on the concrete and vibrating their wings at a fixed rate! They also landed on flat rocks and did the same. I did not observe any of them performing this behavior on softer nearby surfaces such as leaves or dirt, although they did land on these surfaces. I was able to get some good recordings of the interesting tones that they produced. I believe that the sound must have been the point of this behavior, but I can only guess what purpose it may have served.
I got to see some wonderful organisms this summer in California - like the state was giving me a good send-off, I got to see that beautiful tiny threadsnake, TWO solifuges, two lovely ground mantises, my first male black widow, my first webspinner... I also came across a couple rarely recorded insects that I uploaded to bugguide - they weren't observations that I recognized as special at the time, but they got me to start posting images on bugguide, something I'd been too shy to do previously.
Finally, my first springtail portrait that I'm really pleased with from here in WA, a globular springtail commonly found in the Pacific Northwest and not (from what I have seen) found elsewhere. I'm looking forward to spending a lot more time with springtails!
What a wonderful year of observations. I can't wait to see what next year brings!
Microscopic focus stacks of some kind of mold growing on a leaf. It's like an alien world...
I'm sorry I didn't get a picture of the petiole...
This recording is to document an interesting phenomenon that I came across on Saturday morning. A number of hoverflies (such as in image 1) had congregated in a cement drainage (image 2) by a fire road in the mountains. They were vibrating their wings against the cement to create the sound in the recording. They seemed to be pairing off - two flies would settle near one another and vibrate their wings, then take off simultaneously. Twice, after taking off, the pair that took off together collided in midair, but I do not know what type of interaction this was. (Mating? Aggression? Something else?) In the spectrum in image 3, A is the sound they made when vibrating their wings while settled on the cement or a rock, and B is the more chaotic sound they made when they took off.
This is a section from a longer recording - I recorded them for quite a while!
Unfortunately I was not carrying a lens appropriate to get any high quality photos or video of the behavior.
So small...
A couple inches long. Would have liked to get a better look at this pretty friend but it wanted to hide under the plants...
I think this is the right group?
I had never heard of this entire order until tonight.
Small. Maybe 1/2 cm body length? If I hadn't already been carrying the camera I don't think I'd have noticed how pretty this spider is.
Not sure of this one. Doesn't look like Vespidae.
Apparently missed posting this.
Comments
You've had an interesting year! And produced some great observations.
@sedgequeen It has sure been fun! Honestly iNaturalist is what's kept me sane (as sane as I ever was anyway) during the move :)
:-)
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