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Tag: Insects

  • Deer Ticks

    Deer tick

  • Birds and Blooms Nature Walk – May 16

    Birds and blooms nature walk (collage)

    Birds and Blooms Nature Walk – Saturday May 16, 2026 @ 10:30 am. The migrating birds have been returning to their nesting grounds or moving north for some time already, but May is the peak of the warbler migration. We’ll pay attention to the many native plants that are blooming and the insects that pollinate them.…

  • Fireflies

    Firefly photo by Bruce Marlin taken from Wikipedia

    One of the amazing things of summer is seeing fireflies. Fireflies light up the night with their bioluminescence. Fireflies (lampyridae) are also called lightning bugs or glowworms. They are a family of elateroid beetles with more than 2,400 species. The firefly uses a chemical process to produce bioluminescence in a specialized organ called a lantern.…

  • Deer Ticks and Chiggers

    Image of a deer tick and a chigger

    Chiggers (Trombiculidae) are of the mite family and are called harvest mites in Britain but also known as berry bugs, bush-mites, red bugs or scrub-itch mites.  Several species of chiggers in their lava stage bite their animal or human hosts and by embedding their mouthparts into the skin cause “intense irritation”, usually with severe itching…

  • Exploration of Scarlett & Mitchell Rain Gardens Nature Walk (September 7, 2024)

    Collage image of exploration of rain gardens

    WHAT: End of summer Nature Walk Featuring Solidago & Sunflower/Pollinators & Predators WHEN: 10:00am Saturday, September 7, 2024 WHERE: Meet at the main entrance showcase (kiosk) to Scarlett Mitchell Woods. We’ll explore the rain gardens at Scarlett Middle and Mitchell Elementary schools. WHY: Solidago is the scientific name of Goldenrod. If the weather is right,…

  • Pheromones

    Flying honey bee

    Pheromones are chemicals that humans, animals and insects use to communicate. Pheromones are analogous to an excreted/secreted hormone.  Read more on pheromones on the Wikipedia page. Pheromones are involved in almost every aspect of the honeybee colony life: development and reproduction (including queen mating and swarming), foraging, defense, orientation, and in general the whole integration…

  • Traveling Cherry Millipede

    Traveling Cherry Millipede

    In 2023, I started seeing these millipedes that I had not noticed in the past. The iNaturalist site said these are the Traveling Cherry Millipede (Pleuroloma flavipes). One can see these little guys from North Dakota, to Connecticut, to northern Louisiana and even southern Texas. The traveling cherry millipede does secrete toxic cyanide compounds to…

  • Spring 2024 Serendipity Walk – Creatures of the Pond

    Spring 2024 Creatures of the pond, collage

    Michael led us on a walk to the pond and looked for bugs, larvae and nymphs in the water. We found a red water mite, water fleas, a blood sucker and a variety of larvae. The pond was not teeming with bugs and larvae as was expected. The bugs and larvae are food for other…

  • Spring 2024 Serendipity Walk in Scarlett Mitchell Nature Area

    Spring 2024 Cycles of Life & Death Walk

    This was the first of four Serendipity Walks held on Saturday, April 6. These are some of the things we saw:

  • Common Bees of Michigan

    Bee collecting pollen

    “If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would have only four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man.” a quote sometimes attributed to Albert Einstein. Needless to say, bees are an important pollinator. See a PDF of 16 common bees…