Pollinator Posts by May Chen

What difference a day makes!  I arrive at Siesta Gate a little before 10 am to find the place still shrouded in fog.  Temperatures are back in the 50s F again! Before I even enter

Whoa!  I didn’t see this large, pale Crab Spider, Misumena vatia (family Thomisidae) for a long time while photographing the insects on the umbel of Cow Parsnip flowers.  The spider’s camouflage is uncanny.  Her upraised front legs

Heading back to the Steam Train entrance, I pass some Italian Thistles in bloom.  I bend down to look for aphids along the stems.   No aphids, but I spot this Weevil on a leaf.

It’s time to check on the California Pipevine, Aristolochia californica at the Tilden Regional Parks Botanic Garden.  I never tire of observing the insect drama that plays out on the plant predictably every year.  

I apologize for a mistake in part 1 of today’s post.  Swallowtails belong to the family Papilionidae, not Nymphalidae, the brush-footed butterflies.  So they probably do not taste with their feet.  But all butterflies do

As I approach Skyline Gardens from the Steam Train parking lot this morning, I decide to make a quick stop to check on the California Buttercups, Ranunculus californicus in the picnic area across the street.

3 pm on Dunn Trail.  Some of the Acacia trees near the trail head at Skyline Blvd. have been cut down.  The debris has been piled along the trail.  Interestingly, this section of the trail

Although it is cold and cloudy, I am grateful that the rain has stopped, and I can go for a walk in the afternoon.  But where?  Since there won’t be much insect activity anywhere in

A large Crane Fly (family Tipulidae) lands clumsily on the low grasses.  Why do insects evolve such unwieldy, cumbersome long limbs? Crane flies resemble oversized mosquitos.  They typically have a slender body and long, stilt-like

There are small, uniform holes on the side of the trail.  They appear to be recently excavated, considering the darker soil that has been brought up.  I place a penny down for scale.   Here’s

Back to the more familiar ground of Skyline Gardens.  While I’m not likely to encounter new critters after two years of observation, it is comforting to greet the old friends.   Walking south along Skyline Trail

A gardener friend inquired about some small bees clinging with their jaws to the leaves of a Pink-flowering Currant, Ribes sanguinem  in one of the gardens she tended.  It got me really excited since that

A beautiful morning at Tilden Regional Park in the Berkeley hills.  I have come early as the afternoon is forecast to be hot, reaching beyond 70 F.   Walking to the glorious patch of blooming

I decide to explore the Laurel picnic area of the Tilden Regional Park this afternoon.  It’s only a stone’s throw from the Padre picnic area I visited yesterday, also blessed with an abundance of California

A friend who walks her dog in Tilden Park daily told me of “a trail that traverses a buttercup-covered knoll”.  I decide I have to check it out today. A picnic table at the Padre

I walk a narrow path through the grassy knoll, finding more Buttercups blooming along the trail.  This is a particularly beautiful spot, graced by a magnificent oak tree.   If anybody wants to observe insects

I walk back and forth along the short stretch of the trail where the California Buttercup, Ranunculus californicus grows the most abundantly.  As the morning warms up toward noon time, insect activity on the Buttercups

Longing for sunshine, I walk the open trails through the rolling hills of Sibley Volcanic Regional Preserve this cool, sunny morning.   The hills are lush with every shade of green, the grasses taking on

Another cold morning sends me racing to the little park across from the Steam Train parking lot before the Mining Bees wake up.  The sun is casting long shadows over the grassy slope as I

I have not expected to be back at Skyline Gardens again so soon, but yesterday’s cold storm had me wondering about those male Mining Bees (family Andrenidae).  How did they fare through such challenging weather?

I decide to head home at 11:30 am.  Passing the little park across from the Steam Train parking lot, I notice that the Buttercups are blooming gloriously here in small patches, under the oak trees

I return to Skyline Gardens after lunch.  Arriving a little after 2 pm I find that the morning fog has lifted but it is still overcast and cold up here, with temperatures hovering in the

Another day to seek shade.  The West Ridge Trail between the Waterloo and the Skyline Staging Areas in the Oakland hills beckons to me.   Huge Sow Thistles, Sonchus oleraceus have grown up in the areas cleared

An Empidid Dance Fly (genus Empis, subgenus Enoplempis, family Empididae) is probing for nectar from a cluster of flowers of the Pacific Sanicle, Sanicula crassicaulis. Dance Flies, in the family Empididae, get their name from