Ladybugs might not look the part of the predator as adults, but they certainly do as larvae. Is there any other creature that goes from looking so fierce to so cute as it ages?

Some call me bug, though bug I am not.
Some call me bird, though bird I am not.

I’m no lady,
at least not yet.

After finding a ladybug pupa attached to a leaf on one of our daisies, I checked it every day while taking Ellie out for her walk. One day I noticed the pupal shell looking a bit dried out and the reason slowly dawned on me. I grabbed Ellie’s floppy ears and shouted “My ladybug hatched! My ladybug hatched!”

Ellie didn’t share my excitement since this involved neither food nor hedgehogs, but I got even more excited when I realized the newly minted ladybug was on the other side of the leaf, waiting for its wings to dry. I decided to hold off on pictures and took Ellie on her full walk, which in hindsight was pretty risky, but it all worked out. The ladybug was still there when we got back and I ran inside to get the camera and took, oh, let’s just say a few pictures.

When I got up to let our cat Emma back inside, I returned to find the leaf empty. Our yard’s newest predator had taken flight, but not before I got some nice pictures. In this one, the ladybug on the left waits with wings outstretched to dry. On the right is the orange and black shell from which it just emerged.

I’ve been bitten by the ladybug bug this year and am constantly on the lookout for the little beetles in their various states in our backyard. Yesterday I counted four more ladybug pupa on the plants near this daisy, and also got some pictures of one of the ladybug larva.

Ladybugs go through several stages before they become adults. They hatch from eggs into the larval stage, where they look more like miniature alligators than cute little ladybugs. After a couple of weeks they enter the pupal stage shown here, where the larva sticks itself onto a plant and the skin splits and protects the pupa underneath. During the next week or so the pupa metamorphoses into an adult and finally emerges as the familiar little beetle we all know and love.

This particular ladybug is a multicolored Asian lady beetle, which is not native to the United States. Ohio State’s extension office has a nice writeup on this (often deliberately) introduced little predator.

Bees! Bees! Bees!

I was taken with the dramatic black-and-yellow pattern of the bees hanging in formation, but even more so with the co-operation of the colony as bees constantly flew into and out of the living, wriggling mass. Even though they stepped all over one another, they all seemed to take it in stride and focused on their common goal.

I like the wrong-way driver in the lower left corner who is upside down as she finds her way into the swarm.

A bee swarm hangs together despite the heavy rain

After first finding the bee swarm one cool spring morning, I was both pleased and concerned to find them still there the next day on a warmer but wetter morning. Despite looking like a solid mass, the swarm was anchored by the bees on top to some mossy branches while the bees below were just hanging on to each other. The mass of bees must have gotten much heavier in the rain, but these stout workers up top held their ground. They also took the brunt of the rain, the bee in the upper left is covered with a drop of rain as large as her head.

I hope they survived the wet weather and were able to find a new colony before they starved to death. I wasn’t able to get back to the refuge until the next week and by then they would have long since either established a new colony or died off. I didn’t see any little bee carcasses on the ground, I took that as a hopeful sign.

My two days with the bees did highlight how I need to get a new tripod and ballhead better suited to the weight of the big lens, I was using it for these shots to keep as much distance between myself and the bees as I could — even in their quiet state I wasn’t taking chances — and even with a remote release vibration ruined many of the shots.

I also need a new raincoat, mine has been shedding its waterproof lining and doesn’t keep me so dry anymore. The camera and lens have some weather-sealing but I also draped them in a heavy old bath towel and stooped below it to take a picture like an old-time photographer.

One of my favorite experiences at Ridgefield this spring was discovering a bee swarm early one morning near the parking lot at the observation blind. I had walked right by it at first, more cognizant of the existing bee colony in a tree cavity to the right, but discovered it on the way back to the car. I’m allergic to bees and generally keep my distance but the cool temperatures kept them pretty quiet.

This is the first time I’ve ever seen a swarm, one of the nice things about wildlife photography is that it encourages me to learn more when I see something I don’t understand. A quick visit to the Wikipedia page on bee swarms revealed that the colony was reproducing by sending off a large group of workers to start a new colony, waiting patiently en masse while their best scouts agree upon a new location.

I initially thought the one large bee in the picture might be the queen, but further reading revealed this to be a drone, the male honey bee, and the rest the female workers. I also learned that males don’t sting so I guess I’m only allergic to lady bees.

I have other pictures of the swarm to come, this is the one I cropped to use as the current header.

After crossing the trail, the tarantula tried to hunker down under this rock but despite its best efforts it didn’t quite fit. I decided to continue up the trail and leave it be, either to stay there or find a more accommodating hiding spot.

We were hiking the Little Arsenic Trail in the Wild Rivers Recreation Area in the Rio Grande Gorge when we crossed paths with this wonderful little tarantula. I think it might be a desert tarantula since they are supposed to be common in New Mexico, and possibly a female.

While researching tarantulas, I was stunned to learn of their longevity. Species like this one don’t reach sexual maturity for nearly a decade and the females often live another decade after that. The poor males, however, survive only months after mating for the first time, one and done.

Not exactly fair, is it?

I was about to trim the coneflower blossoms but held back when I noticed this spider waiting for prey among the decaying petals. This little patch of coneflower hosts at least three different spider species, this one doesn’t spin a web but lies in wait near the blossoms.

This blue-green sharpshooter is another species of leafhopper I found on the rose bush while photographing a katydid. These leafhoppers lack the red stripes of the rhododendron leafhoppers that were also hanging out on the bush.

Rhodo hoppers may not eat the leaves of rose bushes but they don’t mind resting on them. I discovered this little hopper while photographing a katydid that was eating a spent blossom elsewhere on the bush. It hung vertically on the leaf the entire evening but unfortunately I didn’t discover my favorite vantage spot to photograph it until the last light of the day. A light breeze made macro photography challenging even in stronger light, so the pictures aren’t quite as sharp as I like.

There are nearly 20,000 identified species of leafhoppers in the world, although I haven’t seen quite that many in our backyard here in Portland. I’ve done my best to identify them but I’m far from an expert so please don’t take my word as gospel.

Rhododendron hoppers are a part of the Cicadellinae family and dine only on the rhododendron family (such as rhododenrons and azaleas). There are several species that look very similar, but the rhodo hopper is supposedly the only one out here in Oregon. From my understanding, they are native to the southeast of the United States but have hitched a ride even further than the Northwest to merry old England.

I was about to prune a spent blossom from one of our most productive rose bushes when I noticed this adult katydid gorging itself on the rose petals. I dropped the shears and grabbed my camera and settled in for some pictures. It was already late in the day and a light breeze and the tall stem made photography challenging, but fortunately for me the katydid returned the following day and I took pictures as it enjoyed its supper.

I left the decaying blossom for a week until it was clear the katydid was no longer dining there, a little way of saying thanks for letting me get some of my favorite katydid pictures.

My main camera is several generations old and when it’s time to upgrade, one of the things I’m looking forward to is how much more fun macro photography will be with the live view mode of modern SLR’s. It will be nice to setup the tripod and watch the screen instead of hunching over and squinting into the viewfinder, especially when working near our many (and thorny) rose bushes. The roses have snared enough pounds of my flesh.

This picture of an adult katydid was taken handheld in 2006, it was eating the petals of a spent rose blossom from one of the old bushes beside the house. A little side benefit about having a dog is that we usually take Ellie out through the back and walk her past this side of the house, so now we get to see the rose bushes daily when before we wouldn’t see them at all.

First it catches you in its web,
wraps eight legs around your head,
then stings and stings and stings and stings,
’til you, poor soul, are nought but dead.

O child, my child, beware the spider-bee!

I saw this miniature life-and-death struggle inside a blossom of one of our clematis vines. Actually, at this stage, the struggle was over. The tiny little bee had gone about collecting pollen before getting trapped in the web of this tiny little spider.

I found my first katydid of the year, a young one, walking along the leaves of one of my coneflowers, my favorite flower in our wildflower gardens. This particular patch of coneflower grows like crazy, there are many flowers forming and it won’t be long before they’re blooming!

I forget how small these young katydids are until I see them in person, they look so much bigger in pictures.

I’ve mentioned before how it sometimes seems that everything you see is an invasive species, such as the cute little ladybugs in my yard that turned out to be an Asian species originally brought to America for pest control.

But this little ladybug, fierce and ferocious (if you’re an aphid), is not the same species! Have I finally found one of our native ladybugs?

Alas, no, it has two spots too few. The seven-spotted ladybug is closely related to its American cousin the nine-spotted ladybug, but the nine-spot is rarely seen these days. The seven-spot is native to Europe and, like the Asian beetles, was brought over to the States for pest control and then established itself in the wild.

This one established itself on the petals of my purple coneflower. But the aphids are on the roses! The roses! For the love of Sammy, the aphids are on the roses!

Ah well, I’ve gotten a little disoriented in foreign lands myself.

We’ve had two adult katydids this year, both of which are hanging around the side of the house where there are a handful of rose bushes and a few stray gladiolus (at least I think that’s what they are). This one prefers the gladiolus and is usually close enough to photograph, while the other prefers a particular rose bush where it is often nearly out of sight and too far away for pictures.

Given this, I’ve named them Katydid and Katydidn’t.

Perhaps an even more worrisome sign than saving the lives of your garden pests is giving them nicknames.