Lost Ladybug Project

Hippodamia convergens on a verbena bloom

A different Hippodamia convergens

Hippodamia convergens freshly pupaed

Hippodamia convergens, the same freshly pupaed

I took my camera out awhile and, during my wanderings, came across two ladybugs to submit to the Lost Ladybug Project. What's the Lost Ladybug Project? Researchers at Cornell University are asking kids and adults to shoot photos of ladybugs across the nation so they can survey species. Check out their website! One of my two articles on ladybugs and the project (published in Jakes children's magazine) is posted there under the "media" link. The other article, "Ladybug Lookout," appeared in the August 2009 issue of Texas Parks and Wildlife magazine.

P.S. Here's a ladybug in our Wildscape that won't make it to the Lost Ladybug Project! :-)

James gave her to me for our fourth anniversary (May 2). Our neighbor, Linda, had already bought it at Blanco Gardens, but she insisted that James take it and give it to me. We have wonderful neighbors!

Passionflower vines and caterpillars

We visited Wildseed Farms this morning in hopes of finding native passionflower vines. No luck. However, Liz Cannedy at the Farm's butterfly garden kindly shared some cuttings off one huge Passiflora caerulea (above left), complete with baby fritillary caterpiallars, so we could start some at home. She also gave us a big sprig of Passiflora 'Incense' (right bottle). We trimmed off most of the big leaves, piled them in a plastic container and set them inside a dark cabinet in the garage. Here's hoping some the caterpillars make it!

Passiflora incarnata

Meanwhile, I checked our little native passionflower vine, and it's hanging in there. There must be seven or eight caterpillars feeding on just a few meager leaves.


I was relieved to see more eggs and a few tiny caterpillars on our other (nonnative) passionflower vine. It's thriving! Which is good because that means plenty of food for everyone!

Don't hurt it!

So just a bit ago, I was in the back yard, taking down a hummingbird feeder so I could change out the sugar water. A black car drove by. The driver stopped, backed up slowly and peered at our house. What's up, I thought to myself. When the driver stepped out, I hollered, "Everything OK?" He glanced at me, then walked over to the flower bed and squatted down.

"Yeah," he hollered back. "I just saw a snake! It went in here."

"Oh, GOOD!" I responded, excitedly. "We LIKE snakes! Don't hurt it!"

"I won't!" he said.

I hurried to the front yard, where the young man still squatted, peering into the rock border. "It went in there," he said, pointing. I peered, too, but neither of us saw anything.

"I bet it's one of our rat snakes," I told him. He nodded.

"It was BIG. It was crossing the street, and I nearly ran over it," he said. "Then it crawled into your yard and into those rocks."

Then he told me about a big python that belongs to his girlfriend. I said I doubted it was native, right? No, not a native, he said. Did he know where it naturally ranges? He looked a little confused and shook his head. I suggested that they might out. Then I briefly shared about our Wildscape, how we plant natives, and that a neighbor once brought us a hognose snake, which we released in the Meadow. I'm not sure how much he cared about anything I told him, but I did my part!

And he did his....by respecting our rat snake. He even admired it!

Bugguide.net

Four-lined plant bug

Poecilocapsus lineatus

I've been using Bugguide.net for a long while to help in identifying insects and spiders. But I'd never uploaded my own pics and sought help in identifying unfamiliar specimens. Wow, they're GREAT. Contributing editor Ken Wolgemuth IDed this bug, which I thought was a beetle. Today, Maury J. Heiman, another contributing editor with Bugguide.net, quickly confirmed the ID of the moth image I submitted (and blogged about today as well).

Thanks, Bugguide.net guys!!!!!

Miscellaneous observations and plants

I'd been wanting some a cool native plant for our Wildscape so I walked along a neighborhood street this evening and found a patch not far from our house. Linda C. was driving by while I was in the search stage of my mission.

"What are you doing, Sheryl?" she asked curiously.

"Well," I confessed sheepishly, "I'm looking for some sensitive briar. It's a neat plant. When you touch the leaves, they close up. I like to show it to kids." Linda just smiled and shook her head.

So I did dig some up and plant it in our Wildscape. Some of the stems have blooms about to flower. The flowers are puffy little pink things.

Sensitive briar (Mimosa microphylla)

Sensitive briar flower buds

Pink skullcap
We planted this in a front bed several years ago, and the salvias were crowding it out. So I scooped it up yesterday and gave it a new home in the back yard.
Now it has plenty of room to grow.

Virginia creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia)

A volunteer native vine in the back yard. Last year, the drought discouraged
it from even appearing. But it came back this spring.

Look–a spider eggsac on the African milk tree (a potted nonnative succulent
that my Uncle Dudley gave me in 2002).

More new additions

Passionflower

Dwarf salvia 'Mystic Spires'
Salvia longispicata X farinacea

We visited Rainbow Gardens today in San Antonio and left with three new additions. I'd been wanting some 'Mystic Spires' salvia, which grows smaller than 'Indigo Spires.' And we also wanted more passionflower vines–preferably the native species (Passiflora incarnata) for Gulf fritillaries–along our chain-link fence in the back yard. But they're hard to find. Native species have three-lobed leaves; introduced or exotics have five-lobed leaves. Sometimes folks at nurseries look at you funny when you ask for botantical names, specifically genus and species. But we like to keep up with those in our Wildscape.

This evening, after James had planted everything and we were touring, he hollered at me to come see something.

"Look, the passionflower's already attached itself to the fence!" he exclaimed. Sure enough, a tendril was wrapped firmly around a wire. James had just planted the vine maybe an hour or so before!

Supper guest

This evening, James made chili dogs for supper. We were nearly done with our meal when I happened to glance across the table. "Look!" I exclaimed, jumping up from my chair. "I've got to go get my camera!" Poor James. He was confused and kept looking out the window, trying to see what I saw.

"No," I said, "look THERE!" I pointed at the chair across from me. There perched a baby praying mantid! What a cute little thing!

"It's watching you!" I told James, while I was shooting photos. He was busy in the kitchen, fixing another chili dog, and the mantid was looking in his direction. When my camera's flash went off, its little head swiveled toward me. Mantises have excellent eyesight.



After the photo session, I fetched my "spider bottle" that I keep handy in my purse for just such occasions. I tried to entice it inside, but the little guy preferred to stay on my hand. So together we went in the back yard, and I let it go on one of our Jerusalem sages. When I went back later, there it was.....

It's so tiny that I had a hard time focusing my camera on it.