Spot

 When people see some things as beautiful, other things will then become ugly.

                                                                                                                    Lao Tzu

Beauty and ugliness are intertwined in nature, we harm ourselves when we try to distinguish between "good" and "bad" based on how something looks or acts. Of course, no-one avoids making judgments about a thing, but that doesn't mean we should.

All flowers are a communication, a transaction, between an immobile plant, and a needy insect. There is a lot more going on there that it would first appear, as with most communications there are layers of meaning to what is said. Why flowers appeal to human senses is a bit confusing, because it seems to have happened completely by accident. This accident is the cause of the American population spending an estimated 6.3 billion dollars a year on cut flowers. The average household in the US also spends $500 dollars on gardening and supplies each year.

 

Flowers are odd things because they rely on selection pressures that can actually be bad for the plant over all. An example would be attracting specialized pollinators whose larva will also eat the plant's leaves. Most of these interactions can still end up being very beneficial in odd ways.

How plants process and produce pollen is very odd. Russian olive is noted for the fragrance of its pollenkitt (a substance coating the pollen grains), that gives off a musky odor and is especially appealing to bees that use basket hairs to collect clumps. The pollenkitt helps the grains pack into a tidy lump for transport, which their pollinators appreciate.

Look closely in some globe mallow flowers and you will sometimes find a small, native bee sleeping inside. You can find a small bee defending this real estate from other bees of the same species. This behavior is unusual and no one is really sure why they do this. Especially when there appears to be plenty of flowers to go around.

The yerba mansa plant uses white to stand out in the shady forest floor. The bosque flooding is a boon to this flower, which is (sort of) named for the shady, swampy backwaters where it is found. This flower uses an inflorescense to attract whatever pollinator is in the area.

Flowers may want a specialized pollinator in some circumstances because these carry the right pollen for fertilization efficiently. This flower is closed unless a heavy bumblebee lands on the landing pad section to it and opens the trapdoor. This prevents small insects from plundering the flower, and encourages the bumblebees who like a large nectar payout with each visit.

Most asters have an open faced flower than attracts many types of insects, some of whom have the right pollen on them. The yellow section is really a cluster of tiny "false flowers"

Catkins are an intermediate step between wind pollinated plants, and insect pollinated flowers. The willows have kept this rather archaic system because flowers do not last very long in humid, damp conditions near water.

the saltwater tamarisk looks like it's flowers should be insect pollinated, but the pollen is actually spread by the wind. It seems to be very attractive to small wasps, however.

 

 Flowers can be very adverse to self fertilization, or easily self pollinate. Those flowers, like this one, that has the pollen kept very far away from the central pistil usually have developed that way to reduce incidents of self pollination.

This is actually a rare sight, it is the flower of a cultivated potato, whose ancestors came to Europe from the mid 16th century and contributed to the dominance of Europe over the Mediterranean cultures in the following centuries. This flower looks a lot like the silverleaf nightshade found in New Mexico, because they are all related in the nightshade family. One plant changed empires, the other plant is an indestructible weed, so it goes.

How flowers are used is impressively varied, by humans as well as by insects. This flower beetle is feeding on the pollen as well as the nectar of this showy flower. By going from the nectar to the pollen and then straight on to the next flower the insect does as the mute plant wishes.

Wasps are very adaptable, and not only use the flowers in the traditional, insect way, but they also hunt other insects hiding in there.

 

 Many beetles often use flowers as meeting places to find others of their species, this is much more common in the fall as the last of the flowers are disappearing.

Cactus produce huge amounts of pollen and the bees seem pretty blissed out as they burrow down to the base where the nectary is located. 

Insect activity is complex. This small group of aphids is being tended to by a few ants that guard and protect them in exchange for the honeydew they give off as a byproduct of their feeding on plant sap. Ants are mostly discouraged from visiting flower nectaries, so they collect sugar from extrafloral sources instead.

The beetle population is rapidly spreading out in the tree foliage. They are feeding and mating in a desperate hurry. Most of the time they are not considered destructive because their damage is spread out over a large area on plants that are tolerant of damage.

This beetle is the Cottonwood leaf beetle. Not considered a pest because cottonwoods tend to grow in dense clusters of trees, and also there are no farmers who guard these tree's futures or use it's products.

The numbers of cottonwood beetles are going to be very large this year because of the perfect combination of timing from rain and temperatures.

As the numbers of beetle larva increases, the numbers of predators will rise to compensate. Here, an unknown carnviorous beetle is predating the cottonwood leaf beetle.

The leaf beetles survive by producing far more young than predators can handle, and then they vanish in following years to prevent predator numbers from rising.

Other beetles are common every year. They avoid being predated on by being very unpalatable to eat. This young conchuela bug is noticeable by having a red band around the edge and has a tough shell.

The older conchuela bugs add a foul odor to prevent other animals, such as mice trying to snack on them as well. They also have wings to increase their dispersal range. Whether or not this insect is a pest depends on abiotic and biotic factors like other host plants, or the environmental conditions that year.

This grasshopper looking insect is a katydid, and has a beautiful looking pattern on the thorax when seen in close up. Typically katydids are nocturnal and have long, slender antennae.

 

Plenty of people have written about these moths already this summer. As of the time of publishing, the moths have just about migrated through on their way to the mountains. Actual miller moths are a species found in Europe, but the name is given to any large moth that sheds scales that people are talking about.

Spiders are usually solitary creatures, but I am not sure if this is a recently hatched egg sac, or a species of cooperative spider. Some co-operative spiders, like the long legged harvest-men, are not even a spider species,

Cooperation among insects varies. These ants are usually gathering elm seeds individually, bu they will work together when there is a large insect to dismember.

The cormorants nest together on the islands at Tingly beach at night, but they dive for fish alone most of the time. This one is drying its feathers after a diving excursion. The black of its feathers is from melanin, which is actually a structural protein that helps the feathers withstand the damage they sustain from getting wet.

 

 This is an out of focus picture, but I like it because it shows a very dynamic pose of a coopers hawk with its prey.

Every year, many birds die as a result of human interference. Some deaths are intentional, and others are accidental. The bird dies regardless. This raven was likely electrocuted by an electrical transformer on a telephone pole. Others have been killed by eating mice poisoned with warfarin. Most are hit by speeding cars.

Red eared sliders have adapted well to human activity. Most were released pets. The species originally lived in Florida and the Mississippi river and were exported in the tens of millions in the 80's and 90's. I remember owning this species while living in Madagascar, Indonesia, and Majorca. They were all likely imported from farms in Louisiana.

The western parson spider is a commonly seen spider found in homes and it usually holds still long enough to be photographed. It is a very calm spider that does not bite, like all of them actually.

The toads have laid and produced their eggs, the tadpoles seem a little late this year. The woodhouse toad tadpoles are hardy and adaptable, they like permanent water and have just the right length gestation period to take advantage of the environment (eating pond weed) while getting out of it (to avoid carnivorous insect larva).

Not all tadpoles are wood house toads. This similar looking tadpole was found in the high desert hidden in a tiny muddy pool in the middle of the night. It will grow into a New Mexico Spadefoot frog and live underground all year until the rains come again. While the desert would seem inhospitable to a frog, it is blessedly free of some predators, like fish.

This common snapping turtle has died of unknown reasons. These large critters are often damaged by passing cars in the evening.

The big females like to bask in the shallows during the day and can move very fast when they want to. Because they are the apex predators in their "normal" environment, they often do not need to expend a lot of energy except when feeding or laying eggs.
 

The bullfrog was accidentally introduced into Corrales by farming experiments at the end of the great depression. They are big, rough and tough which can predate of almost any living creature they can swallow. They are not however, stupid. They adapt to humans and almost any climate condition. They can show amazing intelligence and personality and make excellent pets (other than their mating calls in the summer...during the middle of the night.) I think these amphibians are beautiful, but they are ugly too. There are entire essays that could be written about this one creature alone, but I will save that for another time...