Arboretum Butterflies and other odd insects

Walking the UW Arboretum allows many opportunities to see flowers, insects and animal in their own habitat. Here are some recent pictures I took on my last visit near Seminole Road.

Yellow flowers were blooming!

Japanese beetle finding lunch.

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail!

Dew drops

Crane on duty.

The Great Web Escape

On a Friday evening, my daughter, daughter-in-law and I walked around the backyard with the dogs darting through the woods. All of a sudden, my dauther stopped in her tracks and screamed. There in front of her was one of the largest spider webs I had seen in the backyard. We all sort of freaked out for a second trying to think how big the spider might be. It had woven its web starting on the corner of a swingset, but yet it hung through the yard, away from the swingset. We could not see where that tricky spider had attached its silky web, but thought it must somehow be connected to a tree a few feet away.

The next morning it was cold, wet and just starting to rain when I walked the dog to the backyard again. Out of the corner of my right eye, I saw a movement. I jumped back thinking it must be that giant spider out cruising on its web.

I was wrong. It was a dragonfly that was caught in the web. It was struggling so hard to get loose. I flew back to the house and grabbed my camera as the rain started to come down harder. I tried to set up a couple pictures of the dragonfly, but it kept moving so fast and the rain was coming down, so I didn't do a good job getting a picture of it.

I realized that I didn't want the spider to eat the pretty dragonfly, even though I know how the food chain works. I took a stick and moved it through the web, freeing the dragonfly. It fell though, rapidly to the ground. Thrashing and turning, the web was still holding it captive. I moved the stick under the dragonfly until it could get its legs on the stick. Then it shook once and off it flew. Freedom!

I have now been told, that since I stole the spider's food, that it will come looking for me!

Ladies in the sky

As a biologist, sometimes I think I know enough about trees to understand them. I know these grand ladies have leaves and branches and xylem and phloem and roots that sink into the soul of the Earth. I understand photosynthesis and how trees give us life through sharing their circulation of gases with us.
What I don't understand sometimes is how the ladies in the sky survive year after year without someone tending to them. We worship to our roses, pluck pests off our tomatoes and mow the grass into neat little rows. But the trees are just there, doing their thing for us day after day. Of course, these ladies are also engaging habitats for the birds providing nooks, crannies and hollows for nests. They stretch their high wire branches just close enough so the squirrels can leap to safety. At the same time, some insects are chewing at her center, and yet she proudly stands. They shake, creak, and groan even bowing down to the ground in a grand curtsy to the wind.
Here is a poem about trees, that seemed to fit my thoughts on trees.

Think Like a Tree

by Karen I. Shragg

Soak up the sun
Affirm life's magic
Be graceful in the wind
Stand tall after a storm
Feel refreshed after it rains
Grow strong without notice
Be prepared for each season
Provide shelter to strangers
Hang tough through a cold spell
Emerge renewed at the first signs of spring
Stay deeply rooted while reaching for the sky
Be still long enough to
hear your own leaves rustling.

Pictures were taken in Livermore, CA at a winery.