The "What Bug Is This" Mystery Is Solved and The Mysterious Screaming Red-tailed Hawk Battle Comes To the Fore!

                                                                                     

This is one of the main participants in the Mysterious Screaming Red-tailed Hawk Battle but before we get to that there is the previous mystery....the What Bug Is This Mystery.

It was blog reader  Marion Palen who came up with the goods-

​I'm no entomologist, but for the fun of it, I did some web "research"-- 

After a false start Marion identified it...

It's a Squash Beetle.

And so it is.  Which makes perfect sense, as it was found on a pumpkin vine.  Many thanks to Marion Palen for the ID.

Next up!  The Mysterious Screaming Red-tailed Hawk Battle.

I was on an errand driving in the rural countryside pushing 6 PM when I heard Red-tailed Hawk screams.  They were loud, repeated, and there was obviously some kind of crisis going on.

I pulled the car over, jumped out, and searched the direction the screams  where coming from. 

5:56:58 PM  Far in the distance, beyond a cornfield and above a wooded area what I take to be a Red-tailed Hawk is flying madly back and forth.

Periodically she would dive into the trees and then reappear almost immediately.  

 Screaming and screaming and screaming over and over again. I had truly never heard anything of such duration and what seemed like desperation or fervent  anger or both.

5:58:44 PM  She continues to focus on the same small area.  Sometimes diving.  Sometimes flying back and forth in short spurts and glides.  I begin  to think is not just she who is screaming but also another Red-tail in the same general area as well.

5:59:21 PM  I have cropped the photo and increased the contrast  in order to show that far left and right smaller birds have appeared out of the trees.  After looking carefully, these may just be bystander smaller birds that have been flushed from the area as they don't appear  to be attacking the visible hawk.

 5:59:42 PM Look carefully and you will see the hawk disappearing into the distance center.  I start scanning in all directions.

 6:01:15PM    Is that a hawk on one of the poles following the  railroad tracks to my right?
                                   Maybe, I can't really tell.

6:01:37 DRAT!  I start walking as fast as I can along the road which takes me closer but also farther away in another direction due to the angle of the road.  I begin to think it is definitely a Red-tail.

 And when I got home, cropped, and lightened it up, it WAS a hawk!  But that didn't help me much at the time.  Because when I finally did manage to get closer after passing behind other trees...

6:04:59 PM  This is what I saw.  No hawk. She/he waited until my eyes were out of view.... and flew.  But I didn't know that.   I took photos of all the other poles in view.  Nothing!

6:07:59...Nothing.  I keep walking on the road towards the railroad tracks glancing up at the poles and wires. 

I follow the road, watching the poles down the line carefully.   

6:09:50  When I  get to the railroad crossing and look nearly directly  up at the pole by the road...

Unbelievable there she is.  How can one not love Red-tails.

She gives me "the look" or is it he...at any rate 7 seconds later...

6:09:57 PM  She has something else to deal with besides me.  Note her beak.  She is screaming again. See her beak. Is it the hounding of the little bird that has set her off or is she warning a mate about me?  Her mate has to have seen me...must be the little guy.  And upon looking at the photo of the "little guy"  I begin to wonder if that bird is a Kestrel.  A Kestrel can kill a Red-tailed hawk.

6:09:57 (within the same second as above)  The Red-tail takes off  for the trees.

 6:09:57 PM Also within the same second.   Okay all you birders out there.  What species is  the bird almost totally in silhouette, chasing the Red-tail and causing it to call?   I'm thinking Kestrel...look at the crook in the wings.  Very falcon like.

6:10:23 PM  26 seconds later, a Red-tail reappears.

6:10:24 This looks like the same Red-tail.  She still has an eye on me.

6:10:25  The camera's actual view.

6:10:25  The next frame as she is pursued, she once again begins to scream.  It is almost like she has begun to panic? 

MORE TO COME

What Insect Is This?

First, an explanation.  When I find various creatures in my yard, tree frogs and the like, and the little girls next door are outside, I call them to come and see whatever wonder I have discovered.

Today their mother Jessica, waved me over to their yard.  The girls had discovered some insects in their accidental pumpkin patch...the compost area in which last years jack o lanterns had been deposited.  There was a very healthy accidental pumpkin vine in which two pumpkins were growing. The weather has been abominably dry and the vine next to it was on its way out. 

The girls had discovered a nest of the above white insects.  

 They had also discovered eggs like the ones above, had watched tiny versions of the top insect hatch and noted they started teeny and then grew to adult size like the one above as the insects were visible in a great variety of sizes.

Though fascinated by all creatures and any living thing for that matter, I've never delved very far into the bijillion forms of insects.

Does anyone know what these insects are?  Or even which family they may belong?  Or any thoughts on the matter?

Shoot me an email.

It began to drizzle, therefore I didn't get decent pictures of the multiple sizes and the activity of these guys.  

I'll try for some behavior pictures tomorrow. 

Donegal Browne

P.S.  The tree frog was back on the lighted window tonight.

 

Cope's Gray Tree Frog, Slugs Love Beer, Plus the Day Lilies and the Hummingbird

Never fear we aren't finished with the Harris Hawk, nor hawks in general but the Harris piece is taking a very long time to put together.  Therefore today's  an intermission...

I was out picking Japanese Beetles off just about everything that is capable of photosynthesis in my domain when I pulled back a Rhubarb leaf for inspection...TA DA!

                            Cope's Gray Tree Frog

 Yes, I know, he isn't gray.  As it turns out a Cope's Gray Tree Frog can be gray to green to brown.  Seems like one would just call him a Cope's Tree Frog right?   But no, too easy.

I've enlarged the photo for better detail but he is actually about one and half to two inches long. 

If you'd like to hear what he sounds like click the link below.
 http://dnr.wi.gov/org/caer/ce/eek/critter/amphibian/cope.htm

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Not the sharpest shot in the world but it does give documentation.  See the yellow on his abdomen and inner leg?  One of the field marks of Cope's.

Actually it rather looks ot me as if he is wearing socks.  Highly unlikely of course.

If you look carefully you will see another field mark, rather oversize very sticky toes. 

I had been having trouble with slugs wrecking all of my strawberries of late.  I remembered as a child reading that slugs LOVE beer and and that this love could be capitalized on when they were wrecking your garden.

The trick is as slugs love beer you put beer in saucers around your garden.  They can't wait to get some so they crawl into the saucer have some beer, wallow in it, oops, and then it's curtains.

See there is only a little beer in this edge of the saucer.  They could have scooted to the verge, drunk their fill and then scooted away.  But no, they drank to excess and see what happened.  A cautionary tale for us all.  Do not swim in beer.

I had been seeing for some near evenings of late a hummingbird making a practice of visiting the feeder but also taking nips from the Tiger Lilies.

 What must it feel like to be able to put your full weight on a flower and not crush it?

 And here's the little fellow coming in for a landing on a mulberry twig.

Happy Hawking....
Donegal Browne