windy

The one heavy downpour yesterday brought down a lot of tree branches, which was quickly hauled off the road by the morning dog walkers.  Cottonwoods lose their branches easily and the shed ends can grow new roots if the  conditions are favorable.

the elms also shed branches easily, but the only ones who seem to benefit from this are browsing goats.

branches that fall in irrigation ditches have to be removed.

in the Scuzzy ditch, of course, they just become cover for wildlife. The more acidic mud (black color) has bacteria that can digest cellulose, but it takes several years.

I used to think the bagworms used threads as safety lines when they jump out of trees to avoid ant predators. While this is true, I have noticed lately that the biggest ones have been hanging on long threads for hours and I think they use the weight to spin super strong threads in preparation for pupating into moths over the winter. They use their front six legs to gather up the extruded thread and make a fuzzy pad to affix their bag to a solid surface, often a gate, or fence post.

The high winds brought down a sunflower stalk and the insects associated with it. Pocket gophers will bring down the stalks by eating the underground roots, but in this case the culprits was a nest of jeweled bugs, or figeaters. They make a loud buzzing and most people mistake them for wasps or bumblebees. They chew through the stalks of sunflowers to suck the sweet sap under the surface.

Often other insects are attracted to the injury too. 

There are definitely signs of the coming fall in the air, right now. The bagworms are getting bigger, there are many birds moving into the bosque, like flocks of geese, ducks, vultures and crows. Many are attracted to new food sources, like fallen apples in the orchards.

The mammals are also interested as the ditches are less used and the isolated pools are holding trapped fish and other foods.

A specialist predator of fish and tadpoles are the harmless garter snakes, they should be a lot more visible as summer begins to wind down.

There are many new flowers that are growing in the semi-filled ditches. This is goldenrod, a very showy plant.

This is a hard-to-get photo of a dragonfly that is in mid-flight.

There are a lot more orb-weaver spiders around right now, and this one had recently died. I noticed I had never actually seen the underside of a spider before. There is a lot of moving parts here!

This little forest pixie is looking particularly cute, and is rarely seen by me, at least.