Tag Archives: Phenology

Fall Approaches, 2008

Posted on by
Reply

I’ve been watching fall advance locally: first the red of the Dogwoods, the yellow of the Locusts, the psychedelia of the White Ash. When my system gets back up and running, I’ll have some photos of my own to share. Meanwhile, NASA treats us with their annual satellite perspective on the phenomenon. This is how it looked about two weeks ago.

Fall Color in the US Northeast

Fall was beginning to color the East Coast of the United States when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this image on October 12, 2008. Orange touches trees in the north and at higher elevations, where temperatures are cooler. Lower elevations are still green. The fall color follows the sweep of the Appalachian Mountains through Pennsylvania, New York, and into New England.
– Fall Color in the US Northeast, NASA Earth Observatory

The image also illustrates the dense population of the East Coast. Cities are gray in this photo-like image. The greater New York City region covers a large area on the coast. Boston, Massachusetts, and Providence, Rhode Island are also clearly visible.

Related Posts

2007:

2006:

Links

Fall Color in the US Northeast, NASA Earth Observatory

Summer Nights

Posted on by
11

Update 2010.01.03: Corrected all links to the old Gowanus Lounge domain to the new memorial domain.

Flatbush Raccoon

I know it’s summer when the fireflies are out in force. As are the raccoons (Procyon lotor).

Both made their first appearance in the backyard about two weeks ago: just two fireflies, and just one raccoon. Tonight, multiple fireflies in everyone’s yards, front and back. And a family of raccoons, as we get every year. I saw three little ones at once. I saw the adult separately.

Here are, I think, two of the young’uns, one in a tree, and one on the ground. It could also be the same young raccoon. The one in the tree climbed down, shortly after which the “other” appeared on the ground.

Flatbush RaccoonFlatbush Raccoon

The groundling was very curious about my camera, and came within four feet of me before it realized the camera was attached to a person.

Flatbush Raccoon

Gowanus Lounge recently reported on raccoons sighted in Carroll Gardens. Some folks raised concerns about rabies. I left the following comment:

We love our Brooklyn raccoons!

They are annual visitors to our backyard. And our kitchen on the second floor. They climbed my neighbor’s apple tree to get there. They don’t scale building walls, they climb trees and other structures.

They’re scavengers, looking for easy grub. Don’t leave pet food outside. Don’t feed stray and feral cats and dogs. Keep garbage cans and compost bins and piles covered.

As for rabies, Brooklyn is the best off of all the five boroughs, with only 5 animal cases detected in the past 15 years; the most recent, in 2005, was a bat. Rabies is endemic in the Bronx and Staten Island.

Related Posts

Links

Old news

I feel so dirty just reading the headline

Posted on by
Reply

CITY’S GIANT INSECT ORGY

That’s how the NY Post – renowned for its lurid, sensationalizing headlines – announced the anticipated emergence of Brood XIV.

The content of the article was considerably more sedate and on-point:

After living six inches underground since 1991, millions are about to come to the surface across the Northeast: The males will sing their distinctive song, the females will swoon, and then they will mate and die.
…
This particular brood stretches from Georgia to Massachusetts. Locally, they are concentrated on Long Island, although some might remain in Brooklyn and Queens.

There have been strong, localized emergences east of us on Long Island, in Suffolk County. Unfortunately, there’s been no signs of Brood XIV in Brooklyn or Queens. The sole Brooklyn report, from Bay Ridge, has not been substantiated and is likely a false report. I’m afraid Brood XIV may be extirpated – locally extinct – from New York City.

Related Posts

(Magi)Cicada Watch

Links

CITY’S GIANT INSECT ORGY, by Jeremy Olshan, NY Post, June 5, 2008

Colletes thoracicus (Colletidae), Cellophane Bees

Posted on by
4

Update 2009.05.09: Cellophane Bees Return
Update 2008.05.28: Many thanks to John Ascher for the id!

Colletes thoracicus (Colletidae), Cellophane Bee

While spending most of the weekend gardening, I discovered that the garden is home to a small colony of mining cellophane bees. At first I thought they Andrenidae, mining bees, based on photos and this description on BugGuide.Net:

Many small, ground-nesting bees observed in areas of sandy soil are members of the family, Andrenidae. Characteristics of this family (of which there are approximately 3000 species) are: Small size, 20 mm, (or smaller) brown to black in color, and nesting in a burrow in areas of sparse vegetation, old meadows, dry road beds, sandy paths. Although the nests are built in close proximity of one another, the bees are solitary (each female capable of constructing a nest and reproducing). Many species are active in March and April when they collect pollen and nectar from early spring blooming flowers. The female bee digs a hole 2-3 inches deep excavating the soil and leaving a pile on the surface. She then digs a side tunnel that ends in a chamber (there are about 8 chambers per burrow). Each chamber is then filled with a small ball of pollen and nectar. An egg is laid on the top of each pollen ball and the female seals each brood chamber. The emerging larval bees feed on the pollen/nectar ball until they pupate.
– Family Andrenidae – Mining Bees, BugGuide.Net

I contacted Kevin Matteson, contact person for the Bee Watchers 2008 project here in NYC. I wasn’t able to attend any of their orientation session last week, so I forwarded him a link to this post. He in turn forwarded the link to his “colleague at the museum.” Thus turned out to be John Ascher, a BugGuide contributing editor, and all-around big bee guy, who identified the species in the first comment below. Considering I don’t have a Ph.D. in Entomology, I don’t feel so bad.

[Colletes] are virtually indistinguishable from some of the Andrenidae mining bees. Colletes are honey bee size, and have dramatic black and white banding on the abdomen. Some andrenids have similar markings, but are usually slightly smaller. Colletes tend to nest in dense aggregations, while andrenids are not usually as populous.
– Genus Colletes – Cellophane Bees, BugGuide.Net

I noticed the first entrance mound a couple of weeks ago, shortly after I put up the bat house. I saw a discoloration on the ground directly below the bat house, and thought it might be guano. On closer inspection, I thought it was an anthill.

This weekend, I was doing a lot of work near that corner of the house, and the presence of bees was more obvious, especially when I started digging up and dividing perennials (Hemerocallis and Hosta) from a bed I was preparing for a new sunny native plant border.

I also noticed that the bees were entering and leaving what I had taken to be ant hills. Here’s the area where they’re all nesting. There are six entrance holes visible in this photo. There are a couple more hidden beneath leaves. The area is less than a square foot.

Colletes thoracicus (Colletidae), Cellophane Bees in the garden

Here’s a closer view of the three entrances to the left. Zoom in and check out the leftmost one. There’s a little bee in there checking me out.

Colletes thoracicus (Colletidae), Cellophane Bees in the garden

When I saw all this activity around numerous holes, I thought I might have a hive. Since they’re adjacent to the house, I was worried that they might move in. Before I did anything with them, I wanted to identify them to find out what they were.

To photograph this individual, I captured it in a plastic jug and placed it in the refrigerator for a few hours. When I retrieved it, it was inert, and I first feared I had killed it. When I took it into the backyard, where temperatures were still in the 70s, thankfully it slowly revived. I placed it on a piece of graph paper from my notebook for scale. The squares are 1/4″.

Here are two more views of the same individual. When I was done, I returned it back to the nesting area. Not realizing these are solitary bees, I thought it would return to the hive. It flew off, instead. I hope it returns and is able to find its own nest, again.

Colletes thoracicus (Colletidae), Cellophane Bee

Colletes thoracicus (Colletidae), Cellophane Bee

I want to take some more shots. I think I can get a shot of the wing venation without harming the individual. I’ll be more careful to not keep the subject away from its nest for so long next time. Maybe only a half-hour of chilling is all I would need to get my shots.

I’m not satisfied with the depth of field (DOF) in any of these shots. My macro lens has a focal length of 105mm (digital, around 150mm equivalent 35mm), which compresses DOF. Using the flash helped a lot. A tripod would be better. I’ll try some different options on my next attempts.

Links

Colletes thoracicus, Discover Life
Bee Watchers 2008
Family Andrenidae – Mining Bees, BugGuide.Net

(Magi)Cicada Watch

Posted on by
5

Note: I’ll continue to update this as I learn more.

Photo of Brood XIV Magicicada septendecim taken May 18, 2008 in West Virginia by Jason Scott Means
Photo of 2008 Brood XIV Megacicada from West Viriginia by Jason Means

I just learned (from News12 Brooklyn) that the 17-year cicadas are about to return to Brooklyn. There have already been sightings on Long Island, in Otsego Park in Deer Park. There have also been sightings to the north of the city, along the Hudson Valley.

Magicicada is the genus of the 13- and 17- year periodical cicadas of eastern North America. These insects display a unique combination of long life cycles, periodicity, and mass emergences. They are sometimes called “seventeen-year locust”s, but they are not locusts.
– Magicicada, Wikipedia

13 and 17 are prime numbers. Evolution “discovered” prime numbers.

Periodical Cicadas appear earlier in the year than our regular, annual “dog-day” Cicadas, which don’t show up until later in the summer. If they are still here, we should begin to see signs of them now, certainly by the end of May. They can be readily distinguished by their red eyes (dog-day Cicadas have black or dark brown eyes), darker bodies, and smaller size. For comparison, here’s a photograph I took of a dog-day cicada, Tibicen canicularis, in my backyard last October.

Dog-day cicada – Tibicen canicularis, Flatbush, Brooklyn, October 2007
Dog-day cicada - Tibicen canicularis

17 years ago, in 1991, I still lived in the East Village in Manhattan. We didn’t have them there. I didn’t move to Brooklyn until the next year, 1992, so I just missed the last cycle. They won’t be here again until 2025. I’m hoping – yes, hoping – that I’ll be in the thick of things here: detached houses, lots of open ground, and just a half-mile or so from Prospect Park.

Periodical cicadas are identified by broods categorizing the species, cycle, and years and range of a particular emergence:

In any given area, adult periodical cicadas emerge only once every 13 or 17 years, they are consistent in their life cycles, and populations (or “broods”) in different regions are not synchronized. Currently there are 7 recognized species, 12 distinct 17-year broods, and 3 distinct 13-year broods, along with 2 known extinct broods, found east of the Great Plains and south of the Great Lakes, to the Florida Panhandle.
– Magicicada Mapping Project

Brooklyn is part of Brood XIV (Brood 14), one of the 17-year broods. We can expect to see (and hear) any or all of the three 17-year species in Brood XIV:

Three 17-year cicada species exist, each with distinctive morphology (shape and color), behavior, and calling signals:

– Magicicada species, Magicicada Mapping Project

All three species are on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species as low risk, but near threatened, ie: close to being “promoted” to vulnerable species. Because they spend most of their lives underground, periodical cicadas are at risk from development which covers their routes to emergence at the surface. When they emerge, without sufficient woody plants – trees and shrubs – upon which to feed and lay their eggs, that generation will be irreversibly reduced for at least another 17 (or 13) years. Some broods are already extinct. Consider, for example, this observation from an unidentified entomologist:

Have you an ideal of the absolute in hopelessness? Well, let it be said that the house in which you live is comparatively new – built within 17 years. The ground on which ti stands was originally woodland. In the Summer of 1902 all the tree thereabouts were full of seventeen-year locusts. Eggs were deposited in the branches, the larvae came out, dropped lightly to the ground, and dug in. The long period of subterranean existence is almost ended. In the summer of this year the insects will start toward the light and air – and will come in contact with the concrete floor of your cellar! There may be another situation as hopeless, but certainly none more so.
– New York Times, June 23, 1919

You can help

If you see or hear periodical cicadas, you can report your observations online. The reporting page has photos so you know what to look for. Adult periodical cicadas are easily distinguished from our annual, “dog-day” cicadas by their red eyes, as shown in the lead photo above. The species pages, listed above, also have audio recordings so you know what to listen for.

[goo.gl]

Links

Brood XIV, Massachusetts Cicadas

magicicada.org
Cicada Central, University of Connecticut
Cicada Web Site, College of Mount St. Joseph, Cincinnati, OH
Chicago Cicadas
Magicicada, Wikipedia
Mathematicians explore cicada’s mysterious link with primes, Michael Stroh, Baltimore Sun, May 10, 2004

News

Hear that cicada chorus, taste that cicada crunch, Cape Cod Times, June 11, 2008
Cape is again abuzz, Boston Globe, June 10, 2008
New brood on its way to the top, Jennifer Smith, Newsday, June 8, 2008
Dogs rejoice, people duck: Cicadas are back, Columbus Dispatch, Ohio, June 7, 2008
City’s Giant Insect orgy, NY Post, June 5, 2008
After 17 years, cicadas ready to rumpus, Cape Cod Times, Massachusetts, May 31, 2008
It’s the year of the cicada, South Coast Today, Massachusetts, May 24, 2008
Noisy return of cicadas expected after 17 years, Jennifer Smith, Newsday, Long Island, May 22, 2008
Amorous singing cicadas grate on nerves, News & Record, Greensboro, North Carolina, May 20, 2008
Cicadas looking for love, Centre Daily Times, State College, Pennsylvania, May 19, 2008
Singing cicadas emerge in 13 states, USA Today, May 18, 2008
The cicadas are coming! The cicadas are coming … again!, Wilimington News Journal, Ohio, May 14, 2008
Cicadas coming to Clermont County, Community Press & Recorder, Kentucky, May 14, 2008
Coming Soon: The song of the cicada, New Albany Tribune, Indiana, May 10, 2008
The Kentucky Derby: Beware the Year of the Cicada, Minyanville, New York, May 2, 2008
Scientist awaits cicadas’ noisy return, UPI, April 25, 2008

BudBurst 2008

Posted on by
Reply

This year, Project BudBurst kicks off on February 15:

Project BudBurst will officially get underway for the 2008 campaign on February 15, 2008. Due to the overwhelming interest in last year’s pilot project, we are very confident that the 2008 campaign will be a success and that the observations reported on the Project BudBurst Web site will be useful to phenologists and climate scientists.
– via BudBurst mailing list

Last year there were reports from participants in 26 states. Ohio and Illinois had the highest rate of participation followed by Utah, Colorado, and Michigan.

This year’s earlier start date is one of several enhancements over last year’s pilot program:

  • Expanded time, starting February 15th and continuing until the fall.
  • A myBudBurst member registration space to save your observation sites and plants online as you monitor phenological changes throughout the year and for future years.
  • Expanded targeted species list, including 19 calibration species from the National Phenology Network.
  • Monthly photos of the latest plants blooming.
  • Online geolocator to obtain latitude and longitude coordinates for observation sites

Project BudBurst is a national field campaign for citizen scientists designed to engage the public in the collection of important climate change data based on the timing of leafing and flowering of trees and flowers. Last year’s inaugural event drew thousands of people of all ages taking careful observations of the /phenological/ events such as the first bud burst, first leafing, first flower, and seed or fruit dispersal of a diversity of tree and flower species, including weeds and ornamentals. Your help in making observations and sharing information about Project BudBurst will help us in making this year even more successful.

Related Posts

Project BudBurst

Links

Project BudBurst
U.S. National Phenology network

First Firefly!

Posted on by
4

Blog Widow John and I saw our first firefly of the year as we were coming home just after sunset this evening. Seemed to be only the one. I looked for others up and down the street and didn’t see any.

It’s summer.

Here’s a photo I took of the first one I saw last year. I found it on my hose reel. The date last year was June 17, so they’re right on time or a little ahead this year.

Firefly

Yeah, it’s blurry and out-of-focus. I’ll get some better shots this year. I’m saving up for a good macro lens.

Lampyridae is a family in the beetle order Coleoptera, members of which are commonly called fireflies, lightning bugs, or glow worms due to their conspicuous nocturnal (or, more accurately, crepuscular) use of bioluminescence to attract mates or prey. The firefly is capable of producing a “cold light” containing no ultra violet rays, with a wavelength from 510 to 670 nanometers, pale yellowish or reddish green in color, with a lighting efficiency of 96%.

There are more than 2000 species of firefly, found in temperate and tropical environments around the world. Many species can be found in marshes or in wet, wooded areas where their larvae have more abundant sources of food.
– Firefly article on Wikipedia

I don’t know what species we have in our area. Let’s see what we can figure out. At first glance, my little guy (or gal) above looks similar to the photo of Photuris lucicrescens accompanying the Wikipedia article:

but there are also some noticeable differences:

  • The eyes of my beetle are not hidden beneath the pronotum.
  • The yellow margin on the prontoum is different.
  • My beetle doesn’t have the center stripes down the elytra.

It’s possible that there are more than one species here in Brooklyn. BugGuide has a photo of a firefly identified as Photinus pyralis that looks exactly like my guy. I’m gonna go with that, for now, at least until I can get some better photos of the fireflies in my yard.

Resource: Project BudBurst, another Citizen Science project

Posted on by
Reply

Yet another Citizen Science resource on the Web, this one can be embraced by all gardeners:

Join us this spring in collecting important climate change data on the timing of leafing and flowering of trees and flowers in your area through Project BudBurst. This national citizen science field campaign targets native tree and flower species across the country. By recording the timing of the leafing and flowering of native species each year, scientists can learn about the prevailing climatic characteristics in a region over time. With your help, we will be compiling valuable environmental information that can be compared to historical records to illustrate the effects of climate change.

I love the subtitle on the home page:

A National Phenology Network Field Campaign for Citizen Scientists

Even if you don’t plan to contribute your own observations, there’s lots of information available on the site. No maps or other data posted yet, since this is just getting started. There’s some good introductory information, and special materials for students and teachers.

Phenology is the study of the timing of life cycle events in plants and animals. In other words, studying the environment to figure out how animals know when it is time to hibernate, and what ‘calendar’ or ‘clock’ plants use to begin flowering, leafing or reproducing.

Phenology is literally “the science of appearance.” Scientists who study phenology – phenologists — are interested in the timing of specific biological events (such as flowering, migration, and reproduction) in relation to changes in season and climate. Seasonal and climatic changes are some of the non-living or abiotic components of the environment that impact the living or biotic components. Seasonal changes can include variations in day length, temperature, and rain or snowfall. In short, phenologists attempt to learn more about the abiotic factors that plants and animals respond to.

– What is Phenology?

via Old House Gardens Newsletter #60, April 2007.

Related Posts

Project BudBurst

Links

Project BudBurst