Its Aug. Where are the mosquitoes? There are only just a few, and they are those New daytime ones, that are so slow and carry so much of our blood.

Seen a couple of swallowtails, um last year.
Seen a couple of beetles, but not familiar ones, except some lightening bugs. Could some of them look a little different?

There seems to be fewer birds around too...

Theres EEE and Bird flu around, Is it being treated by swamp donut or something, with out wanting to bother the worrywort populace?

Where is KT? Isn't he sciencey? He strikes me as someone who could explain how bugs, flowers, trees and mammals, evolved together after the big dinosaur dieoff.

So, is keeping our old fashioned bugs around, important?
Is it mandatory to kill off the 'evildoers', if it's at the cost of many of our own?

Yes, I have seen strange-to-me perhaps never before seen bugs this year. That has happened in other years too.

We have Japanese beetles now. Horrible things. We've been knocking them off the plants into soapy water. I tied sprinkling Green Ban leftover from our kitty days onto some rose buds, a JB favorite. It seems to help. The JB's are declining right now, so I'll have to continue this experiment next year.

Other populations seem normal. The praying mantises are bulking up, the females changing colors and getting ready to lay eggs.

I have seen less snails, more bull snakes, more spiders, tons of tiny gnats and other flies...

Fairly normal, really... except the June Bugs were missing this year.

Not too many bees. Lots of spiders. I know autumn is coming by the proliferation of spider webs - great, artistic things in trees and power lines and doorways.

No praying mantises on the azaleas yet, I usually see a few, but lots of butterflies on the butterfly bushes. Even have a couple of Monarch butterflies - something we don't see too often. Usually just beautiful black and yellow swallowtails.

I'm waiting for the ladybugs and asian stink bugs to move inside in the fall. :( Yuck

Yeah, they're just getting started, too.

BAIT! :-)

Seriously-- I know what you're talking about, but I can't think of it off hand.

Bellwether was the term.

We're finally getting a good rain today, so we'll see what hatches shortly, I guess.

I call it bait, too! Nice pictures, Frank! To see that here in Illinois is very encouraging! As I said, we're getting a good rain today, too... the first in a long time! It's just pouring out there! But we need it so bad! I'd like to see some lightening to go along with this rain, to help the plants grow... but right now, I'm happy with this! :-)

These beasties lay tiny eggs under leaves and, worse, into soil openings. The first few stages of the bug are so small as to be near invisible. I was laying on the ground yesterday watching these tiny red hatchlings scampering around on the soil surface looking for a seedling for lunch.

Depressing. Most of the mustards and cole crops I planted over the past month are succumbing to the pest pressure.

Not this year, with all the forest fires in the mountains which surround this valley continuously burning, we don't have the mosquitos or gnat problems either due to continuous smoke.

There have been a few days where the smoke pollution has been so bad that the mountains haven't even been visible. At night the smoke from the mountain fires goes down low to the ground and drains, exactly like a river, down into this valley basin where it remains trapped.

No pest which cannot survive pollution problems will summer here - the air quality has been simply terrible for the past two months and is likely to stay that way until the rains begin in late fall/winter and the some of the forest fires finally burn themselves out.

Within 6 years, they have successfully survived and mated, laid more egg cases, and spread from one end to the other of our rose and perennial bed area, which covers a good 5 to 8 acres, I'd guess. In early spring, I'm very careful when pulling debris from the gardens, and I save every egg case I find and leave it on the ground next to the white garages and buildings, or somewhere toward the back of a bed so nothing happens to it.

By mid spring, the babies look like little green grasshoppers, and as summer wears on they grow into beautiful, large specimens... the males were bright chartreuse this year, and the females ranged from grays and browns to greens of all shades with large bronze or coppery colored abdomens which I'm sure are filled with eggs. Soon, they should begin building their egg cases again.

They're not expensive... I think we paid under $12 including the shipping. It might even have been less. I can't remember at the moment. I know you can order them, though, but I'm just not sure when the right time of year is to buy or ship them. I would send you some if I knew for certain when the right time to do so was... I'd hate for them to die in transit, or to ship them at the wrong time, and have you open a box filled with tiny green hoppers! :-)

I'll see what I can find out...

They're beautiful additions to the garden, and are excellent predators once reaching some size. My son found a large female up north in his yard, so I'm going to assume that Illinois is well populated.

I've also seen a few of those stick bugs, the ones that resemble little twigs. Very neat looking insects. I've also been seeing a lot of grub worms when digging, which would explain the moles... and lots of caterpillars and worm type insects are beginning to show themselves, munching on everything.

One thing I haven't seen very many of this year are toads... I can hear tree frogs at night, but I haven't seen more than one or two toads in the gardens this year. I haven't seen many slugs, either... so, perhaps there's a correlation.

Aphids are usually an early spring issue, but I recently saw bunches on the hybrid milkweed - butterfly flower seed pods.

As I said, snakes have been plentiful this year... mostly the brown bull snakes... but I also saw a corn snake hunting mice in the kennel. Creatures in the kennel kind of freak me out. There's been a large population of small rodents this year... we trap moles, and I normally set up poison stations in the kennel to keep mice out of the feed. The barn cats are supposed to be hunting, too... but they get lazy when fed too well. :-)

I don't have a pond or water feature in the gardens, though I have always wanted to set up a small half barrel bubbling fountain. I've had a small pump sitting here waiting, but haven't found an affordable receptacle that I like. We do have a large creek that runs through the property, but it's been slowly going dry over the drought we've had. Perhaps today it has some water in it from the heavy rains we got yesterday. For the sake of all the neat wildlife that uses it, I hope so.

We've had one of the best fishing seasons ever this year, but to get the big ones, you've gotta hike into the wilderness areas, or fish the lakes at night, so mosquitoes are an issue.

Dead calm days and nights can be brutal if you don't have protection from, or tolerance of mosquitoes.

Leeches, Dobbies and Chubbs outfish them 10 to 1.

I still never see but a very few each year, I think the neighborhood is back to what it was pre-ladybug purchase, too. I think they must have packed their little bags and bassinets and have flown off to a neighborhood that somehow provides better or easier eats - the aphids in my flower beds are plentiful each spring, they should come back to their old neighborhood for at least a yearly visit!

Mylab..I love ladybugs too and haven't seen any of them this year either.

Swallowtails are scarce as are Monarchs. A few hummers are around everyday - they love the red salvia and lobelia cardinalis.

Could what you have seen have been tent catapillars? We have them every few years in the PNW. They are harmless to trees, but ugly.

There are tons of places you can purchase from... it appears as though early spring is when shipping occurs. The actual date depends on where you live. They appear to be very reasonably priced, and you can order a single egg case, up to entire cases of egg cases, depending on how much territory you have to cover. If the egg cases survive the winter in your area, the population should grow steadily, increasing every year.

Like I said, we began with a single egg case, and now, 6 years later, they're everywhere! I love it! They're beautiful and interesting, and so fun to watch! They are fabulous hunters!

This is the first year I have had them and the ladybugs have been flocking from all over the city to visit my plants, I swear.