Contribute to 30+ years of research on the abundance of butterflies and dragonflies at Riveredge by helping with these counts! You will have the opportunity to to shadow and learn to identify important indicator species in the field alongside conservation professionals. Participate for all or part of the day. Wear walking shoes and pack a bag lunch if you’re staying for the day.
8:30 – 9:30 will be a review and refresher. The count will take place from 9:30 to 3:00.
Ages 18+
This program is free to attend, but donations are greatly appreciated!
Pre-register by June 28 at 11:55 pm (highly recommended) or register at the program.
Follow the instructions using the button below to login to your member account for member discounts on programs and events. You can use this login to check your membership status, see your expiration date, and renew your membership as well.
If you don’t see the member price after logging in, need help checking your membership status, or you are unsure what email address we have on file, please reach out to our Membership Manager, Renee Buchholz at rbuchholz@riveredge.us or call the Riveredge office at 262-375-2715.
The Autumnal Equinox is fast upon us, alas, and even though it was a very hot one, the BugLady would like to push that Restart button and go back to the beginning of August. Failing that, here are some of the bugs that crossed her trail in the second half of summer.
BARK LOUSE – Bark lice (order (Psocidae) are often seen in herds, both as adults and nymphs https://bugguide.net/node/view/1716157/bgimage. This species, Cerastipsocus venosus, is known collectively as Tree cattle. Bugguide.net says that they feed on “accumulations of fungi, algae, lichen, dead bark and other materials that occur on tree trunks and large limbs.” And on the BugLady’s porch rails. So, they clean up after the BugLady outside, and the silverfish take care of the inside of her cottage.
YELLOW-HORNED FLOWER LONG-HORNED BEETLE – The YHFLHB (Strangalialuteicornis) is in the Longhorned beetle family Cerambycidae and the subfamily Lepturinae, the flower longhorns. Flower longhorns are often found on flowers by day, feeding on the protein-rich pollen, and many (but not all) species are wedge-shaped – sometimes dramatically so. Their larvae feed on dead and dying woody material, and certain fungi that they ingest as part of their meal then aids the grub’s ability to digest cellulose (in some species of flower longhorns, Mom inoculates the eggshell as she lays it with a yeast that becomes part of the grub’s intestinal microflora).
AMBUSH BUG – What would summer be without the extraordinarily-well-camouflaged (and voracious) ambush bugs – one of the BugLady’s favorites?
LEAF-FOOTED BUG – Late summer is True bug season (remember – only one insect order, the Hemiptera, can officially be called Bugs). This particular bug is the almost-grown nymph of a leaf-footed bug called Acanthocephala terminalis (no common name). Newly-hatched nymphs, with their spiny butts and improbable antennae, are pretty cute https://bugguide.net/node/view/933082/bgimage.
SPIDER WEB AND PREY – All wrapped up and nowhere to go.
BALD-FACED HORNET – The BugLady corresponded this summer with a man who was stung twice in his mouth by a Bald-faced hornet (now called Bald-faced aerial yellowjacket). These are the gals that build the closed, football-shaped, paper nests that hang in trees, and while they are valiant/dangerous in defense of their homes, they don’t defend the flower tops where they feed. The BugLady’s correspondent was apparently walking along blamelessly when his open mouth encountered a flying hornet. Stings on the face, and especially in the mouth, can be dangerous because of swelling, even if you’re not allergic.
An entomologist named Schmidt went around deliberately getting stung by the ants, hornets, bees, and wasps of the world and writing descriptions of his discomfort that are sometimes reminiscent of a wine-tasting. He rated the Bald-faced hornet at a 2 out of 4 on his pain scale – “rich, hearty, slightly crunchy. Similar to getting your hand mashed in a revolving door” https://reliantpest.com/north-american-schmidt-sting-index/. Not surprisingly, lots of exterminator companies have posted the scale because they want to sell us something.
COMMON WOOD NYMPH – A medium/large Satyr butterfly of sunny fields, Common Wood Nymphs are not often seen nectaring on flowers, preferring fungi and rotting fruit. They lay their eggs on grasses in late summer, but when the caterpillars hatch, they go into hibernation immediately, without feeding, to continue their development the following spring.
CANDY-STRIPED LEAFHOPPER – what glorious things sometimes come in ¼” packages! And, they have superpowers! Leafhoppers suck plant juices. Most plant sap has a sugar concentration of only a few percent, so leafhoppers have to consume a lot of it to get enough calories, and they excrete the excess (honeydew) “under pressure” with a tiny, but sometimes-audible, “pop.” Because of this, they’re called “sharpshooters.” And – they vocalize, but too softly for us to hear.
BROWN WASP MANTIDFLY – Yes, those poised, mantis-like front legs are used to grab smaller insects (mantidflies also sip nectar); and yes, this mantidfly does look like a paper wasp at first glance (but – no stinger). Scroll down to see how this very flexible species has evolved to imitate different species of wasps in different parts of the country (the mantidfly is on the left) https://bugguide.net/node/view/4825.
Their stalked eggs are attached to leaves https://bugguide.net/node/view/216544/bgimage, and when the eggs hatch, each larva waits for a passing spider, hitches a ride (feeding on the spider like a tick), and eventually infiltrates the spider’s egg sac, where it spends the rest of its larval life eating spider eggs.
WHITE-FACED MEADOWHAWK – You rarely see this species in tandem flights out over the water or ovipositing into shallow water. They often “speculate” – bobbing up and down in damp areas by a pond’s edge, with the female lobbing her eggs onto the ground. The plan is that spring rains will wash the eggs into the water.
RED-SPOTTED PURPLE – What a classy butterfly! Three Fun Facts about Red-spotted Purples: 1) the red is on the underside of the wings https://bugguide.net/node/view/557370; 2) though they are “tailless,” they are mimicking Pipe-vine Swallowtails, which are poisonous https://bugguide.net/node/view/2264557/bgimage; and 3) partly-grown caterpillars spend the winter inside a leaf that they’ve rolled into a tube and fastened to a twig, and they emerge and resume eating the following year (scroll down for a picture of a hibernaculum and for a bonus lesson about “frass spars” https://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/bfly/red-spotted_purple.htm). Within their leafy tube, they drop about 1/3 of the water weight in their body in order to avoid cell damage from freezing.
CRAB SPIDER – Nothing to see here, folks, just move along.
GREEN STINK BUG – Another common sight in late summer, along with their flashy, almost-grown nymphs https://bugguide.net/node/view/885566. Some stink bugs are carnivores, and some are herbivores, and some of the herbivores are considered crop pests. They aren’t chewers, they suck plant juices with mouths like drinking straws, which can deform fruits and seeds, damage twigs, and wither leaves. Green Stink bugs (Pentatoma hilaris) (hilaris means “lively or cheerful”) feed on a large variety of plants (they’re “polyphagous”). Newly-hatched green stinkbugs aren’t green https://bugguide.net/node/view/127137/bgimage.
TIGER SWALLOWTAIL CATERPILLAR – No – those aren’t eyes. They’re pigment spots that are designed to fool you into thinking it’s a snake. Young Tiger Swallowtail caterpillars start out as bird poop mimics https://bugguide.net/node/view/1883543/bgimage, but midway through their development, they go into snake mode, completing the effect by everting, when they feel threatened, a two-pronged, soft, orange, odorous projection (the osmeterium) that looks like a snake’s forked tongue https://bugguide.net/node/view/2214191/bgimage. Tiger Swallowtails have two generations per year. Caterpillars of the butterflies we see in June don’t spend long in the chrysalis, emerging in mid-August and getting to work on the next generation. This caterpillar will overwinter as a chrysalis. Don’t tell the other insects, but Tiger Swallowtails are the BugLady’s favorites.
As she visited her usual haunts this summer, the BugLady was dismayed at the lack of insects. Sure, the goldenrods are full of flies, bees and wasps of various stripes, and the grasshoppers and tree crickets are singing their September songs. But she saw six Tiger Swallowtails this summer. Total. And maybe a dozen meadowhawks. During one mid-summer Dragonfly count years ago, the BugLady simply stopped counting meadowhawks when she got to 250 because it was distracting her from the other species. Common Wood Nymphs used to emerge in early July by the score to filter through the grasses. Even crab spiders and ambush bugs seemed scarce this year.
What good are insects? Sometimes it’s hard to drum up sympathy for a group that many people routinely swat, stomp, spray, or zap. But insects provide food for birds and for other insects; they’re pollinators, and they provide other ecosystem services including pest control and garbage pick-up.
Have you ever wanted to see a bird up close and in the hand, tag a monarch or learn how to catch dragons and damsels? Join Horicon Marsh as they welcome experts to showcase all the ways that you can build your community science skills! Watch Riveredge Nature Center bird bander, Jana, up close from 7-11am. Join members of the Wisconsin Dragonfly Society from 9:30-11:30am to learn tricks on identification and how to catch them. Tag a monarch at the beginning of its journey to Mexico from 12:30-2pm plus more!
The Horicon Marsh Education and Visitor Center is located at N7725 Highway 28, Horicon, WI. For additional information please contact Liz Herzmann at 920-210-9054 or elizabeth.herzmann@wisconsin.gov.
All ages welcome (Children should be accompanied by an adult)
This program is free to attend! Pre-registration is not required.
Join a naturalist for a casual walk on the trails of Riveredge. Each stroll will focus on a special aspect of nature but other things of interest will be explored as well. These educational programs will give you a better understanding of the flora and fauna of the nature center. You may even learn some of the history of the land too.
Ages 18+
All Access Members: Free | Non-members: $5
Pre-registration is not required, but highly recommended.
Be sure to sign in to your account in the upper right corner to activate your membership benefits. Membership discounts on programs will be applied to your cart at checkout. If you haven’t created an account with our new system, be sure to create one using the email address associated with your membership.
If you need to check your membership status or you aren’t sure what email address we have on file, please reach out to our Membership Manager, Renee Buchholz at rbuchholz@riveredge.us.
Join a naturalist for a casual walk on the trails of Riveredge. Each stroll will focus on a special aspect of nature but other things of interest will be explored as well. These educational programs will give you a better understanding of the flora and fauna of the nature center. You may even learn some of the history of the land too.
Ages 18+
All Access Members: Free | Non-members: $5
Pre-registration is not required, but highly recommended.
Be sure to sign in to your account in the upper right corner to activate your membership benefits. Membership discounts on programs will be applied to your cart at checkout. If you haven’t created an account with our new system, be sure to create one using the email address associated with your membership.
If you need to check your membership status or you aren’t sure what email address we have on file, please reach out to our Membership Manager, Renee Buchholz at rbuchholz@riveredge.us.
Variegated Meadowhawks started appearing in the state from the south and southwest in mid-April this year. Their appearances were brief – they have places to go – but they leave eggs behind in our ponds. Their offspring will emerge in late summer to decorate our landscapes briefly before they leave, too.
BugFan Freda contributed in-flight shots of Variegated Meadowhawks that she took recently at a local pond. Note that one of Freda’s pictures shows a pair flying in tandem, with a third dragonfly, another male, that’s investigating/trying to break up the pair. That’s the reason why, in many (but not all) species of dragonfly, the male continues to clasp the female as she oviposits (contact guarding).
The BugLady massaged this episode from 2012 – some new words and new pictures. As you may recall, spring arrived in February that year, though we bounced back to normal in May, just in time to freeze the apple and cherry blossoms. It was a long, hot, dry summer – water levels dropped, and plants bloomed early and only briefly before getting fried – and butterfly and dragonfly populations took a hit. The BugLady, who thinks 73 degrees is hot, was not a happy camper.
2012 – The BugLady found this handsome dragonfly at a local Nature Preserve a few days ago. Her photographic philosophy (necessitated by her hyperopia) is “Snap First and Identify Later;” so she appreciated the beauty of this spiffy individual in the moment (with a few soft “Wows!”). She kept thinking, as she stalked the dragonfly on that fine, April day, that it sure looked like a meadowhawk, and it flew like a meadowhawk (and Wisconsin just doesn’t have that many red dragonflies), but that meadowhawks were not due on the landscape for months. She appreciated it even more when she discovered later that she was looking at a new (for her) species – a Variegated Meadowhawk.
When the BugLady wrote her BOTW about Meadowhawk Dragonflies in the summer of 2009 https://uwm.edu/field-station/meadowhawks/, she hadn’t seen a Variegated Meadowhawk (Sympetrum corruptum). Sympetrum means “with rock” and may refer to the rocks and other substrates that meadowhawks perch on to gather heat early in the day. Generically, adult meadowhawks (in the Skimmer family Libellulidae) may be found hunting away from water or hanging around the shores of the lakes and ponds where they will deposit their eggs in late summer. Instead of hatching right away, eggs of resident meadowhawk species spend the winter in a state of suspended animation called diapause and put off hatching until spring.
Meadowhawk naiads (young) are hooked and spiny, though Variegated Meadowhawk naiads have very few hooks or spines on their exoskeletons. They feed underwater for a few months on aquatic invertebrates, and maybe on a few tiny tadpoles and fish, until one fine evening when they crawl out of the water to complete their transformation into adults. Some meadowhawk species in cold northern waters are naiads for a few years.
Adult meadowhawks may chase their insect prey while in flight, but they’re more likely to spot it from a perch and take off after it, flycatcher-style. The naiads sprawl on their underwater substrate and wait for prey to present itself.
VARIEGATED MEADOWHAWKS have tweaked the meadowhawk model a bit.
The first word Paulson uses to describe Variegated Meadowhawks in Dragonflies and Damselflies of the East is “Robust” – their abdomens are much chunkier than those of other meadowhawks. The medium-size body (about 1 ½”), patterned abdomen (possibly the reason for “corruptum,” which comes from a Latin root meaning “to break”), tinted veins on the leading edge of all four wings, stigmas (pigment dots at the wing tips) that shade from pale to dark to pale, and yellow spots on the sides of the thorax are all marks of a Variegated Meadowhawk. Where the male has red markings that become more solidly red with age, the female and the newly-emerged juveniles are golden.
Compared to other meadowhawks, they spend more time perched horizontally on and near the ground, and males are more territorial.
They are early meadowhawks. While most of their meadowhawk cousins appear in July and fly through the first frosts, Variegated Meadowhawks arrive, as this one did, as early as mid-April. Legler, in Dragonflies of Wisconsin, says that “hot days in spring with southerly winds bring them into the state.” In some parts of their range, they are the first dragonflies on the scene; here, they arrive at about the same time as the first, migratory Common Green Darners.
These are migratory meadowhawks that migrate close to the ground and navigate visually, using the position of the sun. They repopulate the North Country from the south and southwest in spring – they are far more common on the other side of the Mississippi and are considered vagrants or migrants east of the Big River. Variegated Meadowhawks have been recorded in 43 states plus the southern tier of Canada https://bugguide.net/node/view/6538/data and in about half of Wisconsin’s counties, but much of the time, they’re just passing through. Sightings peak around their spring arrivals and their mid-summer departures.
Do they go back where they came from at the end of their season here?
They do not. Joined by other Variegated Meadowhawks that have drifted into the state from the west, the offspring of the Variegated Meadowhawks that stopped to breed here in April will head toward the Atlantic when they depart in late August. They leave no young overwintering in Wisconsin ponds. They migrate, often in the company of darners and saddlebags, south along the East coast as far south as Honduras and Belize (they also occur, inexplicably, in Southeast Asia) https://www.xerces.org/sites/default/files/2018-05/12-036_01_MDP_Field_Guide_4-4-2013Websec.pdf.
The next generation heads north in spring immediately after becoming adults. Most Variegated Meadowhawks seen here in spring are adults, and most fall migrants are juveniles. It has been suggested that this migratory habit could give Variegated Meadowhawks an edge during a period of climate change.
Mead, in Dragonflies of the North Woods, warns us against attempting to show off our netting skills by capturing a Variegated Meadowhawk, “as they may make a fool of you. This is one of the most difficult dragonflies to net; it is very shy and wary (and seems to possess a level of telepathic ability).”
Nota Bene: The most common butterfly on the BugLady’s landscape these days, the Red Admiral, is also a migrant to these parts. Red Admiral, Painted Lady, and American Lady butterflies, all in the wandering genus Vanessa, are cold-intolerant. They return to our area in spring, and some years see huge population booms and mass migrations. You can report spring migration sightings at: http://vanessa.ent.iastate.edu, where you can also find out some neat stuff about Red Admiral behavior.
There are a lot of Red Admirals around in 2023, too.
2012 Go outside – it may be early; it may be eerie; but spring’s happening.
When the BugLady asked BugFan Freda what she should write about for BOTW#700 (!!!), the answer, not surprisingly, was dragonflies. In this case, a very cool family of dragonflies that the BugLady hasn’t seen yet, but that Freda has photographed.
The Cruiser dragonflies, aka River Emeralds or River Cruisers, are not shrinking violets – they are powerful dragonflies that have a reputation among dragonfly fans as the most difficult of the dragonflies to net (maybe because they’re highly maneuverable and they can hit flight speeds of up to 40 mph). Older books include them in the Emerald family Corduliidae, but they are now listed in the family Macromiidae, a small family with 9 species in two genera in North America, and about 120 species worldwide.
Look for Cruisers around shallow, sunny rivers, streams, bays, channels, and lakes with good water quality. They’re found from coast to coast except in the Rockies and Northern Great Plains.
These are dark, shiny, long-legged, darner-sized dragonflies (2 ¼” to 3 ¼” long) with a pale thoracic stripe and with light markings on a long, slim abdomen that, in males, may be slightly clubbed toward the tip (or not) https://bugguide.net/node/view/1326249 (a field mark that can be seen when a Cruiser flies overhead). Most adults have green eyes that touch on the top of the head https://bugguide.net/node/view/1326250/bgimage (the eyes of the Emeralds, the Darners (Aeshnidae), and the Skimmers (Libellulidae) also meet on the top of the head). Their wings are thin and unspotted, and except for the size of the abdominal appendages, males and females are pretty similar.
Female Cruisers don’t have an ovipositor, so they can’t insert eggs in plant stems or rotten wood. Instead they fly near the surface and release eggs directly into the water as they tap it with the end of their abdomen.
The aquatic, immature dragonflies – naiads (“nymphs,” if you must, but never “larvae”) – are large, long-legged, and round https://bugguide.net/node/view/827176/bgimage. They’re called “sprawlers” because of their habit of sitting quietly, camouflaged by the debris on the bottom of the pond or stream (hairs on their exoskeleton encourage the detritus to stick to the naiad.), waiting for their prey (freshwater shrimp, tiny fish and tadpoles, and mosquito larvae) to wander past. They typically spend two to three years as naiads.
Like other dragonflies, adult Cruisers feed on flying insects that they grab out of the air, but they may also “glean” their prey – pick perched insects off of vegetation.
Cruisers are known for speeding straight down the middle of rivers and roads, a few feet off the surface. When they land, they may hang down vertically or perch at an angle.
The Wisconsin Odonata Survey (WOS) lists four species of Cruisers for the state –two species are found in the northern half of the state, one lives along the Mississippi in the southwestern part of the state, and one species exists as a historical note. Good descriptions of all can be found at the WOS site https://wiatri.net/inventory/odonata/SpeciesAccounts/ – click on the Cruiser family and then on the desired species. Dragonflies of Northern Virginia is also a great resource http://www.dragonfliesnva.com/; for the species list click on “65 Species” in the first paragraph and scroll down for the species list.
The STREAM CRUISER (Didymops transversa) is the only Cruiser in its genus in Wisconsin. These early flyers can be found over much of the continent east of the Great Plains. The WOS lists them as “common” and describes their habitat as “streams, rivers, and lakes that are slow, forested and sandy-bottomed, not still or vegetated. Sometimes they are found in uplands, along edges of forested trails or fields.” One Canadian dragonfly fan has seen them along woodland trails so often that he thinks they should be called the “Trail Cruiser,” and he says that this species takes relatively short flights and then perches at an angle.
Their flight period is late May to mid-July in Wisconsin. In the northern part of their range, the flight season stretches from early May to mid-September, with a peak time in early spring.
The SWIFT RIVER CRUISER (Macromia illinoiensis) is made up of two subspecies – the more northern Illinois River Cruiser (Macromia illinoiensis illinoiensis) and the more southern Georgia River Cruiser (Macromia illinoiensis georgina). The northern subspecies is said to be more boldly colored of the two (for pictures of the Georgia River Cruiser, see https://www.marylandbiodiversity.com/view/692, and for the Illinois River Cruiser see https://wiatri.net/inventory/odonata/SpeciesAccounts/SpeciesDetail.cfm?TaxaID=128. And yes, where they overlap, they interbreed. Their status in Wisconsin is “Fairly Common”
This powerful dragonfly can be found flying fast and straight over large rivers, rapid, rocky streams, and shorelines with some wave action (all well-oxygenated waters) in a patchwork of states in the northeastern quadrant of North America https://bugguide.net/node/view/130228/data. On his Dragonflies of Northern Virginia website Kevin Munroe says “Watching Swift River Cruisers in the field is a treat – they’re Olympic athletes, even by dragonfly standards. Watching one patrolling his territory, jetting down the center of a sunny river a few feet above the water, you almost except to hear him break the sound barrier. A flash of his yellow abdominal band and brilliant green eyes, and he’s gone. His linear patrols are long, but regular – just wait a few minutes and he’ll be back for another pass. They also hunt for hours high over meadows and ball fields. Watch them as they zip, dip and dive circles around other feeding dragonflies.” They are also seen above roads and paths.
Their flight season in Wisconsin is between early June and early September.
The ROYAL RIVER CRUISER (Macromiataeniolata) likes rivers and large streams and is found in southwestern Wisconsin in a few counties along the Mississippi, and across the eastern half of North America https://bugguide.net/node/view/39700/data. Males patrol lengthy stretches along shorelines or over open water, and they perch vertically in vegetation near the water’s edge. Munson calls it one of our largest dragonflies – larger, heavier, and slower than the Swift River Cruisers – and says that it prefers slower water and marshy river sections. Royal River Cruisers may join feeding swarms of other dragonflies in late afternoon.
In the northern part of their range, the flight season is from mid-June to early September, and they’re a WOS “Most Wanted” species (documented, but more info about range, habitat, numbers, etc. is needed).
There’s one old, Milwaukee County record for the GILDED RIVER CRUISER (Macromia pacifica) https://bugguide.net/node/view/477031/bgimage, but whether this was a single, wandering individual or whether the species’ range previously included the state is unknown They don’t occur here today (and their present range is pretty disjointed https://bugguide.net/node/view/477069/data).
Munson cautions hopeful Cruiser netters to be careful in their attempts because the Cruisers and the Emeralds are easily damaged. Discretion is the better part of valor.
FUN FACT ABOUT CRUISERS: The BugLady doesn’t know about the rest of the Cruisers in the world, but when the naiads of these four species emerge from the water, ready to metamorphose into adults, they trek 40 or 50 feet inland before settling on a good spot to climb out of their “skin” and start their aerial life.
Thanks for the pictures, Freda – the BugLady is adding these dragonflies to her wish list (Road Trip!).
Join a naturalist for a casual walk on the trails of Riveredge. Each stroll will focus on a special aspect of nature but other things of interest will be explored as well. These educational programs will give you a better understanding of the flora and fauna of the nature center. You may even learn some of the history of the land too.
Be sure to sign in to your account in the upper right corner to activate your membership benefits. Membership discounts on programs will be applied to your cart at checkout. If you haven’t created an account with our new system, be sure to create one using the email address associated with your membership.
If you need to check your membership status or you aren’t sure what email address we have on file, please reach out to our Membership Manager, Renee Buchholz at rbuchholz@riveredge.us.
