Today in the garden there was a green sheen.

Sweat Bees, Halictid bees, and a Cuckoo Wasp! These little ones were very busy on the hydrangea by the raised beds on the west, but no worries, they are not interested in humans at all.

Other green creatures included the Long-legged Flies darting about after VERY tint flies and other small prey and Green Bottle Flies (one of which went down the hole as baby food for the Large Ectemnius wasp).

And! A little Summer Azure butterfly finally stopped long enough for a photo!

Colorful day in the garden!

Jay

The most common observation today was Fireflies hanging out on the leaves in the garden. At least 6 were observed. Swing by in the early evening to see if you can spot some blinging!
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/172030198

A very interesting observation today was of the little Square-headed wasps. They are hunters, gathering prey for their young. They do not create large colonies and so they are not aggressive towards humans. But great fun to watch. Most wasp are very specific about what they feed their young, some collect spiders, others caterpillars, some cicadas... Today was the first time I had observed the activities of Square-headed Wasps. It turns out they hunt Blue Bottle Flies, those shinny metallic blue flies that some might consider pests! In the span of about 15-20 minutes I saw the wasps bring 4 flies into their nest. Observations https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/172029474, https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/172158129 include images of a wasp returning to the nest carrying a fly. This observation includes images of the nest excavation: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/172158433.

Always some cool nature happening in the garden. The scarlet red of the Bee Balm in the back, and the tiny metallic bronze-green bees coming in to gather pollen are a treat to the eyes! Amazing fireworks colors!
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/170710549
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/170500228

I have created a "Bumble Bee Bookmark" to help identify some of the more common bumble bees in our area. Come by on Sundays between 12:00 and 2:00 PM to get yours.

I volunteer in the Garden most Sundays from 12:00-2:00 PM, and usually stay until closer to 4:00 PM

I'm glad to help people check out the project and learn how to add observations through iNaturalist.

Please stop by and ask for Jay.

We started this iNaturalist project to answer the question "What is the biodiversity of our little neighborhood community garden?" The seed was planted when we noticed a huge herd of Elderaphids on our elderberry, and upon closer inspection noticed there were some syrphid fly larvae feeding on the aphids! This in addition to the Central European Bicolored Ants doing the herding of the aphids. It was quite a scene. By an amazing coincidence, I had just been learning about Maria Sibylla Merian who was curious about insects and plants and made many important observations about their lives and interactions back in the 1680s, and published a book of her notes and illustrations. Here is a link to one of her books https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/138981#page/65/mode/1up , and if you zoom in on the lower left image, LVI, you will see a syrphid fly, its larvae eating an aphid, and one of its “cocoons” right above the fly. This is the way she described the fly’s larvae and life cycle:

“He feeds himself from the little flies which continually fly around him by keeping very quiet, but if one runs above his body, which he can reach, then he quickly throws out his trunk and thus takes this little insect; then it sucks out all the substance, and rejects its skin: finally it causes it to molt, & transforms itself into a blister or clear bladder, hence fourteen days after a Fly, as it is represented on the Rosebush. She develops with her feet for half an hour her wings twisted and entwined one inside the other, and flies away. She has a yellow head & red eyes, the upper part of her body is green, the underside yellow & black, & her feet are yellow, she walks very slowly.”

Such a wonderful story from so long ago, and Maria was such a careful observer and patient documenter of the whole life cycle! And we can see the scene play out right here in our neighborhood garden!

This lead to submitting a short article in the community garden newsletter.

To foster looking closer at the wildlife in our neighborhood, we created this project. We will try to build on this and use it in conjunction with some programing in Maggie's Garden, NYC.

Please feel free to message me about the project or ideas for developing and using it for community engagement with the natural world.

• Jay