Meat

 "Just as the sun knows when to set and rise, the birds know when to migrate and return. There's a rhythm to life, and everything has its place." - Maya Angelou 

 The weather has its own reasons and follows its own feedback loops. It is odd to see a weak monsoon system set up gain this summer in New Mexico.

The monsoon is important to New Mexico as a source of groundwater for both humans and wildlife. The long term trends affect whole ecosystems. The rain that fall this today can effects seen several years later as plants and animals thrive or move according to the moisture and conditions.

More specifically, the conditions that allow a rainbow to form are set down very precisely.

So, the main ingredients to see a rainbow are the following:

• You need to be standing with the sun to your back and the rain in front of you.
• The sun needs to be less than 42^o above the horizon.
• The sun's rays must be hitting the raindrops to create the rainbow

Nature also follows specific laws, but there are many more of them, and they both overlap and have different priorities, producing a bewildering and complex tapestry of life and death.

Humans have a very negative view of death. Mostly we try to ignore it. In nature death seems to be much more visible. This wasp is a male that is dying due to its very short lifespan. Males are very disposable in most reproductive cycles, especially social insects. If they don't contribute much to social life, they don't seem to live as long.

Male scolid wasps do not actively fight each other, but they do prioritize detection of females over aggression with each other. They are much slimmer and slight because they don't need to subdue large beetles like the females do. Their slings are also very slight.

 

Male blue winged scoliid wasps are also short lived. They have clearly longer antennae due to their needing increased sensitivity to pheromones. Sometimes they can be found flight each other in small swarms trying to be the first to successfully mate with an emerging female. But they will usually just wear themselves out hunting for females. These wasps are much more spread out, mostly because their prey, metallic June bugs, are also spread out in lawn turf.

 

Raspberries are a common sight in Corrales, or rather used to be when Heidi's had a community raspberry and blackberry patch open during the summer just south of La Entrada Road and the interior drain. the area is a fantastic wildlife preserve currently, but the area is always at risk of housing development. Fruits from trees, fields and bushes are impressive along this road, and the several farms in the area keep the area vibrant for both humans and wildlife.

 

 Scarab beetles live most of their lives eating roots, but they occasionally come up to the soil surface to breed and risk predation by the several species of large wasps that parasitize them.

The large datura plants have an evil reputation which seems to be quite at odds to the beautiful blooms. The blooms close during the day and open at night in a process called anthesis. The process is probably promoted by the relative increase in humidity in the atmosphere as the sun disappears. The reason the flowers close during the day is likely to prevent desiccation of the nectar, allowing an increased "pop" in nectar fragrance in the early evening. Anecdotally, I have also noticed bees try to force their way in but stop once daylight has gone. Data and research on floral opening mechanisms seems to have waned since 1950, but recently been revived by the growth of intensive cannabis farming.

The blossoms of the silver leaf nightshade are very different, in spite of being a plant in the same nightshade family as the datura (along with potatoes, tomatoes, tobacco, etc) these prominent anthers are often pollinated by bumblebees using a method of pollination called "Buzz pollination" the nectar reward is small but the pollen is more nutritious and indeed, commercial greenhouses of tomatoes use bumblebees to pollinate the flowers instead of honeybees, that don't buzz pollinate. If there aren't any bumblebees, growers have to resort to electric toothbrushes.

Convolvulus arvensis also known as field bindweed is a plant that also has a mutulistic relationship with bees. In this case a type of sweat bee that also roosts inside the petals after anthesis. Usually the males use these flowers to attract females to breed. They will also chase away other bees from foraging. These specialized bees have pollen collecting hairs over the abdomen instead of the simple pollen baskets found on the legs. Interestingly, this flower stays open longer in urban settings and this seems to be related to the lack of pollinators, especially anything that isn't a bee or wasp.

 

morning glory is just another name for a flower that includes the convolvulus genus, but can refer to any of over 1,000 species, many of which are not even closely related. This bloom seems to be in the Ipomoea genus, also called bindweed, of course.

North America is very lax in its naming conventions. This is seen in the naming of robins to a particular type of thrush species not at all related to robins. This butterfly is named a sulphur in America (applied generically to most Colias species), and a clouded yellow everywhere else. The system of weights and measures is not the only confusing in North America.

The four toothed mason wasp is one of the many hymenoptera species in the world and is notible for the fact that the males can sting, (but have no venom) and they copulate for far longer than other species. This species feeds on caterpillars, pollens and nectar.

This Euodynerus species is another type of potter wasp often found on plants in wetter weather. So many wasp species exist but they are all single minded on reproduction right now and have almost no chance of stinging anyone.

Jumping spiders are often found in the summer, They are very acrobatic, smart, and those huge eyes seems to miss nothing. They seem to act very differently than those other sedate and cautious spiders.

Velvet ants will become more common as they scurry around, These are actually a wasp species, but the females are wingless. Their stiff hairs deter the ants they share their habitat with. These wasps actually parasitize other wasps such as cicada killers and bumblebees but this particular species, Klug's velvet ant has not been specifically studied.

 This wasp looking insect is actually a rough harvester ant. These drones are the unsuccessful suitors of the solitary queen. Hot, humid mornings are ideal conditions for a swarming as new ant colonies bud off from existing groups.

 Cattle egrets travel around tall grasses hopefully spotting and catching fleeing insects. Their name comes from their habit of using large animals such as cows and horses to scare insects into the open.

A major problem of nesting birds is the danger and vulnerability of fledglings. This nest of Say's phoebes was raided by a cooper's hawk. Luckily, this female had already raised one brood this season. Phoebes are in no danger of extinction and have learned to nest as close to humans as possible to reduce their exposure to predators.
 

Humans are very likely to keep predators of all sorts away from this sacred temples (homes). Because of this, many animals have learned to stay close, literally under our very floorboards and roofs. Mice, cockroaches, wasps, and phoebes all rely on us for protection. Coyotes and bull snakes are kept away by various efforts, even by those of us who like these fine animals. 

Everything has its place, indeed.