Party Time at the Cleyera

 Backyard Nature, Insects, Natural History, Sense of Place  No Responses »
Jun 212014
 

Summer is here at last, and it is party time at the Cleyera on Piney Woods Church Road!  Come on out and see what all the buzz is about!  The decor is sheik yet seasonal, consisting of Cleyera flowers in bloom,

 

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accompanied by spent blossoms, tastefully arranged amid gossamer spider threads.

 

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The blossoms are a popular hangout for guests.  Abundant honeybees are busy pollinating many of the flower heads,

 

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along with bees from the well-respected Family Halictidae, flashing thier gold at passers-by.

 

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Among the more intimidating-looking of the party guests is undoubtedly this Virginia Flowerfly, Milesia virginiensis, which looks a lot like a yellowjacket but does not sting.

 

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On the other end of the spectrum, the Cleyera also caters to much tinier folk, such as this quarter-inch tumbling flower beetle from the Family Mordellidae, possibly Mordella marginata.

 

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Undoubtedly one of the Cleyera’s most dapper customers as summer gets underway is this Longhorned Beetle (Strangalia luteicornis), a well-heeled and elegant specimen of the Family Cerambycidae.

 

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If you visit the Cleyera, it is worth watching out for the occasional riff-raff — unsavory characters such as this two-lined spittlebug (Prosapia bicincta), a common pest of turf grass and ornamentals.

 

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The Cleyera — a great place to party, and get some serious pollinating done — but only while the flowers are blooming.

Beautiful Fly

 Backyard Nature, Insects, Natural History  No Responses »
Jun 202014
 

Here are a pair of photographs of a beautiful fly, a member of the group referred to as “thick-headed flies” (Family Conopidae, possibly Physocephala sp.).  Thick-headed flies are wasp imitators, who also happen to lay their eggs inside the bodies of wasps.  This one has lovely blue wings.  It was perched on the blooming Cleyera along Piney Woods Church Road, the current roadside “U.N.” for diverse pollinating insects.

 

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Day 171: Plume Moth

 Backyard Nature, Insects, Natural History, Piney Woods Church Road 365 Project, Sense of Place  No Responses »
Jun 202014
 

The Cleyera at the corner is pulsing with activity these days.  Most of the visitors are honeybees, but I am finding quite a few other insects, ones previously unfamiliar to me.  The key, I have found, is to arrive in the early morning, when the air is still cool and insects aren’t dashing too rapidly about.  Even then, it takes quite a few photographs to secure one crisp image of a bee.  Fortunately, this particular insect, with about a half-inch wingspan, was quite content with being motionless.  In fact, when I first saw it, I thought it might be dead, or a molted exoskeleton of something.  This plume moth (Family Pterophoridae) has a fragile, ghostly quality about it — so insubstantial compared with most moths and butterflies I have encountered in the past.

 

Plume Moth

All A-buzz

 Backyard Nature, Insects, Sense of Place  No Responses »
Jun 192014
 

The Cleyera shrub at the end of Piney Woods Church Road was all a-buzz with bees this morning, now that its flowers have opened.  Peak bloom is still a day or two away, and so, I suspect, is the peak of bee activity.  There were quite a few bees buzzing about, along with a scattering of smaller insects.  The bees were quite intent on their task, dashing from flower to flower to perform their necessary tasks, making macro photography difficult.  I may return tomorrow morning for another go.  Meanwhile, here is a photograph of a bee hard at work.

 

All A-buzz

The Shrub at Road’s End

 Backyard Nature  No Responses »
Jun 182014
 

Where Piney Woods Church Road meets Hutcheson Ferry Road, at the turn-around point in my daily walk, there is a shrub that forms a long hedge about ten feet in height.  I have no idea what the plant is, though I suspect it is some bit of landscaping that was planted long ago to shield the adjacent residential property.  The shrub is rather nondescript, with small untoothed oval leaves in abundance.  At the moment, it is in bloom, and at last I have found the courage to photograph it (the shrub does appear in one earlier photo of a mockingbird from April, though).  Ironically, while intent on photographing the flowers, I also took an intriguing semi-abstract macro shot of the base of several leaves.  A neighbor told me that when it is in bloom, bees swarm all around it.  I saw no bees there today, though the flowering is just getting underway.

With help from folks on the Facebook Plant Identification page, I was able to determine that this plant is Clayera (Ternstroemia gymnanthera), an evergreen shrub native to China and Japan, and commonly planted in hedges throughout the Southeast. 

 

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