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 Here is one of the most magnificent animals in the bosque, they are prolific right now and most stretches of still water will have some beady eyes watching as the people pass by. A male bullfrog resting on pond weeds. That big radar dish behind the eye, is an ear drum. It is bigger than the ones we have inside our own heads. Bullfrogs blink to swallow, they use their throat muscles to pump air into their lungs (buccal breathing). Their lungs double as movement and sounds detectors. They are less reliant on breathing through their skin, which allowed them to survive the chytrid fungus plague that attacked other frog's skins and eliminated every individual frog of other species. They are so alien to a mammalian way of thinking it is crazy.

I have spoken to people who had parents that raised bullfrogs in Corrales on farms in the 1900's, but it takes too long for a bullfrog to develop, so they were all released, or escaped during floods. Other species, like these woodhouse toads grow fast, but usually not fast enough in small pools in the ditch, like this one. Here the same flies and beetles that feed the adult toads are reproducing on the dead tadpoles of the same species.
 

Not all insects are small. These cicadas are coming down from the trees now. The larvae feed on tree sap from roots. The adults are found in the tops of the trees where they reproduce and then die.

I'm still having trouble seeing these insects as giant ants and not wasps, but the apps I use to identify them are pretty emphatic.

This is a new insect for me, a dragonfly that acts like a damselfly. It is also not found on the slow moving ditch waters, but was out on the fast flowing Rio Grande river. Not surprisingly, it's called a "ruby spot"

Another unoriginal name; "white tail". the variety of dragonflies right now is pretty impressive

Dragonflies have a very big "presence" or chutzpa, especially these bigger ones. Those huge eyes are great for close and long distance movement detection. This one is also showing off the "mask". Officially, a dragonfly face is that part that humans would think of as the upper lip.

 

 This lady bug looking thing is a grey ash beetle. It comes out at night with the moths and is the first one I've seen.

 

 The datura plants seem to be host to many odd species. This is a three lined potato beetle. No species seems to stay on the plants for long, however.

This beautiful guy is a crab spider of some sort, these spiders have front legs much larger than the back ones. They are ambush predators that eat flies in the leaves of high trees. The background is covered in frass from munching caterpillars. The size and quantity of the frass is increasing rapidly as these caterpillars grow.

 

 The bosque is a tinder box and ready to catch fire. Human activities don't help. Here, apparently, is the remains of 25 car burning, there have been a big increase in fires around the Albuquerque bosque recently. Please report all fires quickly.

 

 The bosque is a remarkable place, the mature cottonwoods are throwing out large handfuls of these cottony seeds right now. They are remarkable in many ways.

 

 Patches of clay mud attract all seeds, like this grass growing around an acequia gate. The moisture also "sticks" cottonwood seeds, while the grass leaves also stop the fluffy seeds as they tumble past.

Downy seeds are incredibly flammable as can be seen on the video in that link. Many drought tolerant weeds are sticky and /or have stiff whiskers that collect the fluffy heads of seeds. In thick drifts, these seeds are able to collect in favorable locations while using nothing other than evolution (luck, plus fitness)

Some areas have these large patches of nightshade free of seeds, but most areas are drowning in cottonwood seeds, especially in high human traffic areas. How do the seeds discriminate?

Most other trees are also done with fertilization, and are growing their fruits. There are apples, cherries, apricots, plums, and others others out there, growing rapidly in the heat.

The cattails have put up their stalks, preparing the next generation. their fuzzy seeds is much less numerous than the cottonwoods, but their drifts will continue long into the fall. The seeds are packed tightly in the brown sections. Each stalk contains millions of tiny, highly modified flowers.

First the stalks produce the classically yellow pollen. I am not sure if these plants produce male and female plants separately. But I think I see both sexes on one stalk.

Interestingly, the willow flowers seem to attract the cotton drifts. These thick stands of willow are known nurseries of young successfully sprouted cottonwood trees, no idea what the causal relationships are.

Most plants under mature cottonwood trees (>30 years old) seem to have selected areas that attract these smothering seeds. Any area that is sticky or spiky will catch the fluffs, of course, but I wonder if this has a statically significant effect on delays in specific plant growth?

On the other side of the coin, the fluffy seeds might prevent insects from predating on plants. But it is unlikely that things are that simple. Here, the scale insects are under a blanket of fluff, but somehow there is moisture caught in droplets in the fibers of the seeds. All spider webs in the way of cottonwood seeds are rendered useless as insect traps by the fluffy stuff.

Ants are part of this mystery. This tree ant is struggling  to get to some aphids to milk them. It also could not reach several lacewings that were eating their "honeydew cows". Those droplets could be honeydew excreted by the aphids, something from the tree itself, or shed by those scale insects also feeding on the tree.

The Virginia creepers are also taking over the crowded forest. Their secret is these octopus tentacles they throw out like lassos, the same system is used by grape vines to climb wires in the vineyards scattered around Corrales.

In this way the vine can invest its energy in things other than just being a sturdy support. The stands of creeper can grow quite thick as they grow leaves high in the canopy. Unlike many vines like English ivy, they do not smother the trees they climb.

This incredibly shy bird likes thick cover. It is a green heron. I see now why birders carry such strong cameras.

This coppers hawk was being incredibly bold roosting right over the lateral ditch trail. It turns out it was hunting doves that were feeding at a nearby bird feeder. The dinner table was doing double duty, it seems. Right after this picture was taken, it buzzed the feeder and all the doves took to flight while the hawk watched for any stragglers.