The WFSU Ecology Blog
  • Home
    • About
    • EcoAdventures
      • Kayak and Canoe Adventures
      • Hiking
      • Wildlife Watching
    • Observations From the Field
      • White Pelicans Visit Dr. Charles L. Evans Pond in Tallahassee
      • An April Walk at Ochlockonee River WMA
      • Nesting Raptors at Honeymoon Island State Park
    • WFSU Public Media Home
  • Documentaries
    • In Their Words: Black Legacy Communities in North Florida
    • EcoCitizen Show | Seasons in South Tallahassee
    • Red Wolf Family Celebrates First Year at the Tallahassee Museum
    • Roaming the Red Hills
    • Oyster Doctors
    • Testing the Ecology of Fear
    • EcoShakespeare
    • Stories from the Apalachicola
    • Classic WFSU Ecology Documentaries
  • Habitats
    • Estuaries
      • Oyster Reef
        • The Effects of Predators and Fear on Oyster Reefs
        • Apalachicola Oyster Research
        • Animal Species in a North Florida Intertidal Oyster Reef
        • Oyster Reef Ecology | On the Reef
      • Salt Marsh
        • In the Grass- Salt Marsh Biodiversity Study
        • Plants and Animals of a North Florida Salt Marsh
        • Salt Marsh Ecology | In the Grass
      • Seagrass Bed
        • Predatory Snails, and Prey, of the Bay Mouth Bar Seagrass Beds
      • In the Grass, On the Reef Glossary
    • Waterways Big and Small
      • Aucilla/ Wacissa Watershed
      • Apalachicola Basin
        • Apalachicola Bluffs and Ravines | Virtual Field Trip
        • The Age of Nature Screening & Discussion | The Future of the Apalachicola
        • Apalachicola River and Bay
        • Apalachicola RiverTrek | Kayaking, Camping, & Hiking the River Basin
    • Longleaf Pine & Fire Ecology
  • Backyard Habitat
    • Backyard Blog
      • My Year in Bugs: the 2022 Backyard Blog
      • Backyard Ecology Blog | 2021
      • Backyard Blog November/ December 2020
      • Backyard Blog September/ October 2020
      • July and August 2020 Backyard Blog
      • Backyard Blog June 2020
      • Backyard Blog May 2020
      • Backyard Blog April 2020
      • Backyard Blog February and March 2020
      • Backyard Blog January 2020
      • Backyard Blog October through December 2019
      • Backyard Blog September 2019
      • Backyard Blog August 2019
      • Backyard Blog July 2019
      • Backyard Blog June 2019
      • Backyard Blog May 2019
      • Backyard Blog April 2019
      • Backyard Blog March 2019
      • Backyard Blog February 2019
      • Backyard Blog January 2019
      • The Backyard Bug Blog 2018
    • Backyard Flora and Fauna
      • Bees of North Florida and South Georgia
      • The Seasonality of Bees (and Bee Plants) in North Florida
      • Woody Vines of North Florida
      • Flies of North Florida are More Diverse than You’d Think
      • The Case for Weeds, Our Unsung Florida Native Plants
      • Devil’s Walkingstick: Your New Favorite Thorny Pollinator Plant?
      • Florida Native Milkweed | Tips for Growing Your Monarch Friendly Garden
      • Mistletoe | A Parasite for the Holidays (But Maybe We Like it Anyway?)
    • Florida Friendly Seasonal Planting Guide
    • Pollinator and Gardening Posts
    • Gardening Web Resources
Kayak and Canoe Adventures
RiverTrek 2021: Five Days on the Apalachicola River
Lower Lake Lafayette: Kayak Tallahassee’s Hidden Swamp
Chipola River Paddling Trail | The Ovens and...
Kayaking Bald Point | Adventure on a Living...
Wacissa Springs Adventure | Kayaking a Wild Florida...
A Geologist’s View of the Apalachicola River |...
Upper Chipola River Kayak Adventure | Ghosts &...
Tate’s Hell & the Apalachicola River Delta |...
Kayak Scouting Mission on the Ochlockonee Water Trail
Merritt’s Mill Pond | Kayaking and Spring Caves

The WFSU Ecology Blog

  • Home
    • About
    • EcoAdventures
      • Kayak and Canoe Adventures
      • Hiking
      • Wildlife Watching
    • Observations From the Field
      • White Pelicans Visit Dr. Charles L. Evans Pond in Tallahassee
      • An April Walk at Ochlockonee River WMA
      • Nesting Raptors at Honeymoon Island State Park
    • WFSU Public Media Home
  • Documentaries
    • In Their Words: Black Legacy Communities in North Florida
    • EcoCitizen Show | Seasons in South Tallahassee
    • Red Wolf Family Celebrates First Year at the Tallahassee Museum
    • Roaming the Red Hills
    • Oyster Doctors
    • Testing the Ecology of Fear
    • EcoShakespeare
    • Stories from the Apalachicola
    • Classic WFSU Ecology Documentaries
  • Habitats
    • Estuaries
      • Oyster Reef
        • The Effects of Predators and Fear on Oyster Reefs
        • Apalachicola Oyster Research
        • Animal Species in a North Florida Intertidal Oyster Reef
        • Oyster Reef Ecology | On the Reef
      • Salt Marsh
        • In the Grass- Salt Marsh Biodiversity Study
        • Plants and Animals of a North Florida Salt Marsh
        • Salt Marsh Ecology | In the Grass
      • Seagrass Bed
        • Predatory Snails, and Prey, of the Bay Mouth Bar Seagrass Beds
      • In the Grass, On the Reef Glossary
    • Waterways Big and Small
      • Aucilla/ Wacissa Watershed
      • Apalachicola Basin
        • Apalachicola Bluffs and Ravines | Virtual Field Trip
        • The Age of Nature Screening & Discussion | The Future of the Apalachicola
        • Apalachicola River and Bay
        • Apalachicola RiverTrek | Kayaking, Camping, & Hiking the River Basin
    • Longleaf Pine & Fire Ecology
  • Backyard Habitat
    • Backyard Blog
      • My Year in Bugs: the 2022 Backyard Blog
      • Backyard Ecology Blog | 2021
      • Backyard Blog November/ December 2020
      • Backyard Blog September/ October 2020
      • July and August 2020 Backyard Blog
      • Backyard Blog June 2020
      • Backyard Blog May 2020
      • Backyard Blog April 2020
      • Backyard Blog February and March 2020
      • Backyard Blog January 2020
      • Backyard Blog October through December 2019
      • Backyard Blog September 2019
      • Backyard Blog August 2019
      • Backyard Blog July 2019
      • Backyard Blog June 2019
      • Backyard Blog May 2019
      • Backyard Blog April 2019
      • Backyard Blog March 2019
      • Backyard Blog February 2019
      • Backyard Blog January 2019
      • The Backyard Bug Blog 2018
    • Backyard Flora and Fauna
      • Bees of North Florida and South Georgia
      • The Seasonality of Bees (and Bee Plants) in North Florida
      • Woody Vines of North Florida
      • Flies of North Florida are More Diverse than You’d Think
      • The Case for Weeds, Our Unsung Florida Native Plants
      • Devil’s Walkingstick: Your New Favorite Thorny Pollinator Plant?
      • Florida Native Milkweed | Tips for Growing Your Monarch Friendly Garden
      • Mistletoe | A Parasite for the Holidays (But Maybe We Like it Anyway?)
    • Florida Friendly Seasonal Planting Guide
    • Pollinator and Gardening Posts
    • Gardening Web Resources

Backyard Blog July 2019

by Rob Diaz de Villegas August 8, 2019
Backyard Blog July 2019
Click to subscribe to the WFSU Ecology Blog

Click to browse Backyard Blog posts

I’ve been seeing headlines about it being the hottest July in recorded history. July in Florida isn’t the most pleasant time for outdoor activity. And yet, this is when the yard starts to get kind of magical. Life is just bursting here, if you can keep the plants watered and alive.

So what are we seeing? Pollinators? Yes! And quite a variety, too. Caterpillars? You bet! Baby birds? So cute!

Before all that, I want to start with a couple of kind of odd insects that fascinated me in July 2019:

Thieves and Nymphs

Hanging thief- genus Diogmites.
Hanging thief- genus Diogmites.

I caught this out of the corner of my eye, sneaking behind some leaves on our pepper plants. The closest thing I could get to an ID on iNaturalist was the genus Diogmites, or hanging thieves. Look at the spines on its legs, which it uses to help it grip plants and hang upside down. Hanging this way, this predator lies in wait for flying insects. Pretty cool!

Giant Katydid nymph- Stilpnochlora couloniana
Giant Katydid nymph- Stilpnochlora couloniana

At first I thought the insect above was another predator- a ringed assassin bug. An iNaturalist user ID’d it as a giant katydid nymph. I googled katydid nymphs and, wow, that’s what they look like! And that makes sense, since I’ve seen (and always hear) adult katydids in the yard.

Katydid.
Katydid- possibly a lesser anglewing.

All right- who’s ready to see some pollinators! Okay, but first, kind of an unsung hero in the yard.

Let’s Watch a Dung Beetle Push Some Dog Poop Around

iNaturalist let me know that this dung beetle is specifically a rainbow scarab, Phanaeus vindex. If you disregard its job, this is kind of a cool looking animal. But that job- it’s not pretty. I found it kind of fascinating when I saw what it could do in the span of 30 minutes or so.

One morning when I was cleaning up dog poop, I noticed the ground throbbing just after I lifted a piece. So left the piece nearby and watched. At first, it looked like it was just covering its burrow, like a boulder at the mouth of a cave.

I went in and came back out about twenty minutes later. I found this:

Poop turned to soil- a mound of dirt created by a dung beetle.

This is the patch in our yard where I lifted pavers, and I’m letting nature do its thing to reclaim the space. We’ll talk more about that later, the plants that have taken root here. But what I’m wondering is, are the spots where the dung beetles work maybe a little more fertile? Something to keep an eye on.

The other thing I found neat about this is seeing how the dung beetle works. It made that mound of dirt from beneath, where one would imagine its safe from a lot of animals.

So, sorry if that was gross. You know what’s not gross? Flowers! Butterflies! Bees! And let us not forget hoverflies…

Pollinators Part 1: Butterflies

This might have been our best month for butterflies in a couple of years. I credit that to a six by six foot patch where I planted native flowers. I’m also managing other plants (weeds) in my yard using iNaturalist to guide me. And some of these have favorable qualities for pollinators. Anyhow, I’m seeing a good diversity of bees and butterflies.

Zebra longwing (Heliconius charithonia) on red salvia.
Zebra longwing (Heliconius charithonia) on red salvia.

Last year, I didn’t see zebra longwings much in the yard besides one that would occasionally fly over. And I saw that there were fewer counted in Leon County during NABA’s summer butterfly count. Their numbers were possibly affected by a cold winter in 2o18. This is a tropical butterfly, and we’re at the north of its range, so it stands to reason that it would be more affected by cold than other species. Happily, this one was a regular in the yard for a few days.

Gulf Fritillary (Agraulis vanillae nigrior)
Gulf Fritillary (Agraulis vanillae nigrior) on an asthma plant.

I don’t want to be unappreciative of the skippers and duskywings we’ve had in the yard until now. I think they’re cool. But I love seeing the big, colorful butterflies as well, like this gulf fritillary. July had a good mix of butterflies.

Long-tailed skipper (Urbanus proteus) on pentas.
Long-tailed skipper (Urbanus proteus) on pentas.

Here’s my favorite of the skippers, the long-tailed skipper. They’re the one constant of the garden from year to year, likely because I always plant their larval food- beans and peas. We have three other butterflies that lay eggs in the yard annually, but those monarchs and swallowtails don’t often stick around to pollinate flowers. We had all four species in the yard in July, so we’ll do a separate caterpillar section below.

White checkered-skipper (Pyrgus albescens).
White checkered-skipper (Pyrgus albescens) or, less likely, common checkered-skipper (Pyrgus communis).

My butterfly guide doesn’t list a common checkered-skipper, but I’ve been seeing the ID pop up in iNaturalist. Evidently, the only way to tell the two species apart is with a microscope, or by dissecting them. Doing some further research, it seems more likely that it’s a white checkered-skipper, just based on range maps. We are close to the southern part of the communis range, though, and we can’t easily tell them apart…

Silver-spotted skipper (Epargyreus clarus) on pentas.
Silver-spotted skipper (Epargyreus clarus) on pentas.

Here’s another pretty skipper.

Carolina satyr (Hermeuptychia areolatus/ helicta).
Carolina satyr (Hermeuptychia areolatus/ helicta).

I find these in our front yard, under the shade of three trees. They’ve very small and inconspicuous, often resting in the leaf litter.

Horace's duskywng (Erynnis horatius) on winged loosestrife.
Horace’s duskywing (Erynnis horatius) on winged loosestrife.

And here’s a look at a Horace’s duskywing, a species that’s been pollinating here for the last few months.

Pollinators Part 2: Native Bees

Two-spotted Long-horned Bee (Melissodes bimaculatus) on red salvia.
Two-spotted Long-horned Bee (Melissodes bimaculatus) on red salvia.

In July I started noticing new bee species pollinating our flowers. They can be tough to photograph, but it’s worth it when I can see the diversity of native species we have.

Metallic sweat bee.
Metallic sweat bee (subgenus Dialictus) on red salvia.

iNaturalist users ID’d this one as a type of metallic sweat bee. This is a small bee- if I didn’t zoom in, I might have thought it was a fly. Take a look at how this bee pollinates the red salvia flower (and compare the size with the long-horned bee above, on the same flower):

  • Metallic sweat bee pollinating a red salvia flower by climbing all the way in.
  • Metallic sweat bee pollinating a red salvia flower by climbing all the way in.
  • Metallic sweat bee.

I’m not getting specific IDs for some of these bees, and part of that might be how hard it is for me to photograph them (practice, practice, practice). The salvia and wing-strife plants have a series of small flowers, and bees will quickly move from one to another. In May, when I photographed a Poey’s-Furrow bee, it was on a nice big purple coneflower- plenty of pollen in one place. And a much easier photo to take.

Leafcutter, Mortar, and Resin Bees- Genus Megachile
Leafcutter, Mortar, and Resin Bees- Genus Megachile

Again, not a very specific ID.

  • Blue metallic sweat bee.
  • Blue metallic sweat bee.

I tore out some old wooden benches from the backyard, and saw two pure green metallic sweat bees fly out. These are my favorite bees. I didn’t get a great photo of them, but I did see them apparently looking for a new home. From what I read, they will make their nests in rotting wood, or on bare ground. Here we see one starting to dig.

Likely a brown belted bumblebee (Bombus griseocollis)
Common eastern bumblebee (Bombus impatiens)

Towards the end of the month, I started seeing bumblebees and blue metallic sweat bees in the flower bed. These are the bees I have always seen in the yard, but until recently, I’d been seeing other species.

The more closely I pay attention, the more diversity of native bees I notice. Counting the Poey’s furrow-bee and the carpenter bee I photographed in May, I’ve photographed seven native bee species in our yard this year. A lot of the credit has to go to the amount of pollen we’ve added to our yard. But these are ground nesting bees, and I also exposed more of the ground by removing pavers. Our yard is feeling more like a habitat this year.

Pollinators Part 3: Wasps

Red-marked Pachodynerus Mason Wasp (Pachodynerus erynnis)
Red-marked Pachodynerus Mason Wasp (Pachodynerus erynnis).

At certain times of day, there is quite a lot buzzing around these flowers. And it’s not just those native bees that us environmentally minded folks get excited about. The mason wasp above is a regular pollinator on our plants.

Fraternal Potter Wasp (Eumenes fraternus) entering its pot shaped nest, which is wedged against a door frame.
Fraternal Potter Wasp (Eumenes fraternus).

Maybe you’ve seen these little clay pots against your home? These are the nests of fraternal potter wasps. If you watch these structures (instead of say, hosing them off the side of your house), you may see a potter wasp fly in with a small caterpillar. This is a little meal for its larvae.

I’ve been noticing wasps grabbing caterpillars in the yard. But then I also see the same wasp species pollinating flowers. That got me thinking about their feeding habits. I read the little tidbit about potter wasps feeding insects to their young after clicking on the wasp’s name on iNaturalist (there’s an about section in there, which I recommend clicking and reading to learn more about the flora and fauna in your yard). Googling wasps, I learned that the behavior is consistent among most solitary wasps. Adults feed themselves nectar, but forage for insects to feed their larvae.

Four-toothed mason wasp (Monobia quadridens) entering its cavity beneath a wooden railing.
Four-toothed mason wasp (Monobia quadridens) entering its cavity beneath a wooden railing.

If you look back to the 2018 Backyard Ecology Blog, there’s a photo of a four-toothed mason wasp bringing a caterpillar back into its cavity on the underside of a wooden railing. But this wasp has a relationship with another insect that I’ve been observing:

A cuckoo wasp lingers outside the cavity of a four-toothed mason wasp.
A cuckoo wasp lingers outside the cavity of a four-toothed mason wasp.

I apologize for the quality of the photo. The blue wasp is a cuckoo wasp, which lays its eggs among wasps of other species. I’ve seen the cuckoo wasp enter the mason wasp’s cavity before. But this is the only time I’ve seen the cuckoo wasp waiting for the mason wasp to leave.

Wasp pollinating Florida Pusley.
Wasp pollinating Florida Pusley.

I thought his might be a yellow jacket, but iNaturalist identifies it as a mason or potter wasp. That makes sense- yellow jackets are social wasps, and this is a solitary wasp. The flower its pollinating is considered a weed by many- Florida pusley. But it is native, and it does provide nectar. On a Sarasota IFAS blog post on the plant, you can see discussion in the comments section about how it takes over lawns. One person even complains that there are too many bees!

There are a lot of ways to manage your lawn, and we all have different goals. I’m not a field of grass kind of guy, so I like seeing a diversity of plants. And I want that diversity of plants to host a diversity of wildlife. Which brings us to…

Pollinators Part 4: Hover flies

Four-Speckled Hover Fly (Dioprosopa clavata) on fennel flowers.
Four-Speckled Hover Fly (Dioprosopa clavata) on fennel flowers.

This is the third hover fly- or syrphid- species that I’ve identified in the yard this year (I saw one in March and one in February). These are fascinating little insects. They are bee mimics, though I’d call the four-speckeled hover fly a wasp mimic. They are pollinators, and as we’ve seen time and again on the Backyard Blog, their larvae eat aphids (two species of larvae that I’ve seen, one in March and another in June). This is a doubly beneficial insect.

Pollinators Part 5: Moths

Everyone’s favorite pollinators! Not really. To most people, butterflies and bees are the face of pollination. And don’t we love hummingbirds? Most don’t know what a hover fly is, but they have likable traits. Then there are wasps and moths.

There are a lot of cool, weird looking moth species. But most are small and brown, and are mostly indistinguishable from one another unless you take a close look and bother to learn about the different species.

Possibly a Cabbage Looper Moth (Trichoplusia ni).
Possibly a Cabbage Looper Moth (Trichoplusia ni).

And then, aside from the fact that not everyone finds them attractive, and that they’re nocturnal, there is a legitimate reason people find moths distasteful. It’s their larvae. I haven’t gotten confirmation, but my initial iNaturalist ID for this moth is that it’s a cabbage looper. Their caterpillars, one of which you can see in the 2018 Backyard Blog, are garden pests. Many moth caterpillars are.

So how are they different than butterfly caterpillars? They do the same thing- decimate their host plants. But I plant milkweed and fennel with one purpose- to host specific butterflies. I plant tomatoes to feed myself. The long-tailed skipper I love has caterpillars that nibble on my bean plants. I don’t mind the damage, and I still harvest beans. But, if you lose all of the dill that planted for yourself, you may not love black swallowtail caterpillars.

Possibly a cutworm moth.
Possibly a cutworm moth.

Again, I don’t have confirmation, but this is possibly a cutworm moth. You’ll notice this and the previous moth are named after their caterpillars, which are both garden pests. And cutworms are common in our yard. Cutworms are kind of a pain because, unlike other butterflies and moths, these are generalists. Monarchs eat milkweed, giant swallowtails eat citrus. They’re specialists. But I find cutworms on everything.

Webworm moth.
Webworm moth.

And lastly, this one got into our house. Note the name, again referring to a caterpillar. Webworms are found in colonies, often high in trees, enclosed by a web. I’ve seen the webs high up in our pecan tree. They’re mostly harmless in the vastness of leaves high up in that tree.

Moths are pollinators, but as you see, we already have plenty of pollinators. So, why not squash all these “pest moths” before they lay eggs on my plants? What value do they really have?

We need the bottom end of our food web

Carolina wren in its nest in a hanging plant.
Carolina wren in its nest in a hanging plant.

Every morning in early July, when I watered this one hanging plant, a wren would fly out. One morning I turned the plant around and found a nest.

Carolina wren eggs, in nest.
Carolina wren eggs, in nest.

One day when I watered the plant, the wren didn’t fly out. So again, I took a quick peek:

Carolina wren chick in nest.
Carolina wren chick in nest.

Then I heard the call of the parent, and turned to see it with a caterpillar in its beak. So I moved out of the way to let it feed its three chicks.

Wrens have been foraging all over the yard. I’ve seen them picking at vines I should have weeded out. We also have young cardinals foraging. They especially seem to like the flower bed where we’ve seen so many pollinators.

Juvenile cardinal forages in a flower bed.
Juvenile cardinal forages in a flower bed.

I shot this through a screened window. Unfortunately, they flee when I enter the yard. But I keep seeing different animals there:

The tail of a large skink.
The tail of a large skink.

This guy was constantly on the move on the other side of the fence from the flower bed. It finally had enough of me following with a camera and ran into the bed (only to scurry under the house when I circled back).

Green anole lies on wait on winged loosestrife.
Green anole lies in wait on winged loosestrife.

It takes a lot of insects to feed all of these animals. We have a wren nest, and recently fledged cardinals. All of those pollinating wasps need caterpillars, too. We have reptiles, and, when it rains a lot, we’ve had frogs. Insects are the animals at the bottom of the food web. If that layer of the food web isn’t robust, then the layers above it won’t be either. And so those pesky moths that infest our yard with pest caterpillars, they end up feeding animals that maybe we like a little better.

Another reason to like having these moth caterpillars in the yard? It might just keep birds away from the caterpillars I like.

A busy time for caterpillars in the yard

Black swallowtail caterpillar on fennel.
Black swallowtail caterpillar on fennel.

The three black swallowtails I first spotted in June had moved into their third instar phase when I took the photo above. The day after I took this, they were all gone. I saw a little bird poop on the side of the pot. The birds and wasps get the caterpillars I like, too.

Giant swallowtail on Meyer lemon leaf.
Giant swallowtail (Papilio cresphontes) on Meyer lemon leaf.

Here’s a caterpillar that seems to have a higher survival rate than monarchs or black swallowtails. At least in our yard. As I cover in our butterfly raising guide, giant swallowtail caterpillars have a few defenses. One is their poop-like appearance. I’m embarrassed to admit that I’ve been excited to find what I thought was a giant swallowtail, only to take a closer look and discover that I was excited about bird poop.

Another defense is the chemicals they secrete when sticking out their tongues, like it’s doing here. I’d never seen the tongue of a first or second instar- it gets more red and snake-like later on (another defense). To see photos and video of that behavior, check out this post.

Long-tailed skipper (Urbanus proteus) in its fold on a bean leaf.
Long-tailed skipper (Urbanus proteus) in its fold on a bean leaf.

During daylight hours, I’m more likely to see evidence of long-tailed skipper caterpillars than I am to see the caterpillars themselves. At this early instar stage, they make little tents for themselves on bean plant leaves. Older instars will roll the leaves over themselves, earning them the name “bean roller.”

Monarch egg under a milkweed leaf.
Monarch egg under a milkweed leaf.

I observed monarch 15 eggs on July 20, which I reported to the Monarch Larva Monitoring Project. That’s 35 eggs observed in 2019. I seem to miss eggs now and then, or maybe I sample too infrequently. I counted ten eggs on April 13, and then had nineteen caterpillars a week later. It’s been another busy year for monarchs, even if I can’t seem to find where a lot of them are making chrysalides.

Giant leopard moth (Hypercompe scribonia) caterpillar
Giant leopard moth (Hypercompe scribonia) caterpillar.

Another generalist moth caterpillar, which I’ve seen on a variety of plants in the yard. This is a younger instar of a giant leopard moth caterpillar; you can see in a photo from the May Backyard Blog how they get much thicker and fuzzier looking. I looked up the moth, and it’s cool looking, but I’ve never seen one. Which is odd, because I so often see the caterpillar.

Is it a weed, or a valuable part of the habitat?

That’s the real question, isn’t it? I like to let a lot of plants grow in the yard, but I’ve been taking a closer look this year. In February, I made the choice to let several non-native plants live because they had redeeming qualities- they hosted butterflies, fixed nitrogen, etc.

In July, we had a mixed bag of uninvited plant guests.

Chamberbitter (Phyllanthus urinaria)
Chamberbitter (Phyllanthus urinaria)

This is chamberbitter, and it grows everywhere. It’s not native, and it’s kind of invasive. Taking a closer look, it’s easy to see why:

Chamberbitter seeds.
Chamberbitter seeds.

So many seeds! This had colonized a lot of the area where I pulled up he pavers, along with Florida pusley (which I like), and this plant:

Asthma plant (Euphorbia hirta)
Asthma plant (Euphorbia hirta)

This plant is found in tropical climates across the world. I’ve seen different articles claiming that it’s a central American native, or possibly that it’s from India. It’s used medicinally in Africa and Asia, to, as the name suggests, treat asthma.

Currently, I’m letting the asthma plant stay and pulling the chamberbitter. I want vegetation to cover the ground, just to keep the yard from getting dusty (or, in the rain, muddy). I went to Native Nurseries to buy some native ground cover plants: turkey tangle frog fruit, and a sensitive plant. Both will vine out and spread over time, and both flower. They’re tough and able to take a mowing. I’ll gradually remove the asthma plants as these other plants spread.

The puffy pink flower of the sensitive plant (Mimosa genus)
Sensitive plant (Mimosa genus).

I’ve iNaturalized these little pink flowers in the Apalachicola National Forest, Fred George Basin greenway, and in Louisiana on vacation this summer. I like the possibility of pink powder puffs covering my yard.

Aside from ground cover plants, the increased space in our yard has allowed me to let a few plants grow into shrubs. Two are of interest to me:

Little yellow flower of a groundcherry plamt, likely Physalis cordata, the heartleaf groundcherry.
The flower of a groundcherry plant, likely Physalis agulata, the cutleaf groundcherry.

I have a few of these spike-leaved plants in different spots in the yard, and they started flowering mid-month. The initial iNaturalist ID is that this is a groundcherry, the Physalis genus. This genus includes tomatillos, and when you see the husked fruit, you’ll see a resemblance.

Groundcherry fruit.
Groundcherry fruit.

An iNaturalist user left a comment that it was either Physalis cordata or angulata. It didn’t have any fruit when I made the observation, but the commenter said that cordata would be “strongly 5-angled,” and that angulata would have ten ribs. Now that it has fruit, I can count ten ribs. Researching further, I see that angulata has an edible fruit, with the texture of a tomato and the flavor of a strawberry or pineapple. I look forward to trying it!

Here’s a better perspective of the whole plant:

Groundcherry plant from above, a crown of spikey leaves.

It volunteered into that pot, so another iNaturalist user made it a casual observation, which is how cultivated plants are classified.

Cuban Jute (Sida rhombifolia)
Cuban Jute (Sida rhombifolia).

Here’s a plant native to the southern US and into Mexico. It has a few common names, such as Cuban jute, Queensland hemp, and Indian hemp. The Sida genus is larval food for checkered-skippers, like the one I’ve found in our yard. So that’s something to keep an eye out for.

cuban jute flower.
Sida rhombifolia flower.

I have seen a butterfly or two nectar on the flowers, though it’s not as popular as the salvia, coneflowers, or loosestrife. The thing to watch for with this plant is that it does get kind of large and woody. It grows in several spots in the yard, so I have to decide if I want to keep all of the plants.

Odds and ends

Cardinal after molting, part of its head is bare, and you can see its exposed black skin.
Cardinal after molting.

At first I thought this was one of the juvenile cardinals molting into its adult feathers. But evidently, they molt their feathers every summer.

House sparrows (Passer domesticus)
House sparrows (Passer domesticus).

While we were on vacation this June, our bird feeder went empty, and the flock of house finches that swarmed it every day had gone absent. A few days after replacing the seed, we had a flock of house sparrows. Both are non-native to our area. House finches are native to the Western US, but were introduced in the east and spread out. House sparrows are European.

Blue Dasher (Pachydiplax longipennis)
Blue Dasher (Pachydiplax longipennis).

This dragonfly is not far from the bird bath, where mosquitos breed. Dragonflies hunt mosquitos, which we love. This is a blue dasher, which is common throughout our area. I iNaturalized a few of these during the City Nature Challenge.

Likely a blu-ringed dancer (Argia sedula), a damselfly with blue rings around its tail.
Likely a blue-ringed dancer (Argia sedula), a damselfly species.

This is, based on my initial iNaturalist observation, a blue-ringed dancer, a type of damselfly. There is a similar looking blue-tipped dancer as well, which has more observations locally. But the blue-ringed has also been observed in other parts of north Florida and south Georgia. Honestly, some species aren’t heavily observed on iNaturalist, so you can’t go entirely with its range maps in determining species. But it is a good tool to springboard you into further research.

Click to subscribe to the WFSU Ecology Blog

Click to browse Backyard Blog posts

An iPhone with the iNaturalist app open.

Apps and Citizen Science mentioned in the Backyard Blog

iNaturalist

Identify plants, animals, lichens, and fungi in your yard. Other users correct your identifications if you’re wrong, and even if they don’t, it can be a good springboard to further research.

Seek by iNaturalist

Instant identification, and it doesn’t record your location. This is a good option for kids with phones.

Monarch Larva Monitoring Project

Enter information about monarch caterpillars in your yard, and help researchers get a sense of the health of the monarch population that year, and how and when they’re migrating.

Great Sunflower Project

Record the number of pollinators visiting your flowers, and help researchers map pollinator activity across the country.


Close up of monarch proboscis sipping nectar from Brickellia flower.

Dig Deeper into Backyard Ecology

What can we do to invite butterflies, birds, and other wildlife into our yards? And what about the flora and fauna that makes its way into our yards; the weeds, insects, and other critters that create the home ecosystem? WFSU Ecology Blog takes a closer look.


Facebook Comments
Share
FacebookTwitterRedditEmail

Search

Subscribe

Subscribe to receive more outdoor adventures, and an in depth look at our local forests and waterways by Email.

If you do not receive a verification e-mail, check your spam folder.

Category

WFSU-FM Environmental Stories

  • Tallahassee’s latest urban reforestation effort brings new trees to Governor’s Park
  • Hurricane Ian’s estimated damage to Florida agriculture tops $1B
  • America’s largest underground springs gets even bigger with the discovery of another cave connection
  • DeSantis outlines second-term environmental plans
  • Deep freeze breaks pipes, creates water crisis across South

Twitter

Tweets by wfsuIGOR

iNaturalist

iNaturalist became a part of the WFSU Ecology Blog during the EcoCitizen Project in 2019.  Since then, we’ve used it to help identify the many plants and animals we see on our shoots.  And on the Backyard Blog, we show how it can be used to identify weeds and garden insects, to help figure out what’s beneficial or a possible pest.  Below is the iNaturalist profile belonging to WFSU Ecology producer Rob Diaz de Villegas.

iNaturalist


View robdv’s observations »

Most Recent

  • The Wakulla Springs Wildlife Survey- a decades long look
  • Welcome Liesel Hamilton to the WFSU Ecology Blog!
  • My Year in Bugs: the 2022 Backyard Blog
  • Timberlane Ravine: learn to love dead trees (and trillium!)
  • The strange and dangerous love lives of zebra longwing butterflies

Archives

March 2023
M T W T F S S
 12345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
2728293031  
« Jan    

WFSU Ecology YouTube

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Flickr
  • Youtube

@2017 - PenciDesign. All Right Reserved. Designed and Developed by PenciDesign