This is Not Happening …

Not here, anyway.

Not within the 30 square yards or so where most of this blog happens. 

Not in the rest of Ridley Township or Swarthmore Borough where Little Crum Creek flows.

And not, as far as I can tell, along Crum Creek from Swarthmore down to the Delaware River.

So far.

So, I traveled about an hour north up the PA Turnpike (I-476) to Green Lane Park in Montgomery County to meet a friend and track down Brood X before it’s “gone”.

Brood X is the generation of Periodical Cicadas (Magicicada) emerging en masse this spring. 

Feeding underground for the past 17 years, cicada nymphs are now surfacing to molt a final time (leaving old skin behind like shells), take wing, sing, mate, and produce a new generation of eggs.

Once hatched, new nymphs will find their way underground to resume the 17-year cycle.

How about you … happened to see a cicada lately?  I’d love to hear where!

Here’s some of what we found at Green Lane Park:

 

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Cool Resources

• Informative & Exciting Video from PBS NewsHour:
  https://youtu.be/HdV-V777JMA 
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• Interactive Description of a Cicada’s Life Cycle from The Washington Post
  (select “Allow audio” for cool sound effects!): 
  https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/interactive/2021/cicadas-lifecycle-brood-x/ 

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A matter of time, part 2

Larger, more colorful, and stronger hoppers than earlier,
late-stage Spotted Lanternfly nymphs are nearing adult flight.

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A matter of time

Spotted Lanternfly nymphs, hatched from an overwintered egg mass,
gather upon a black walnut tree branch.

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Native to Asia and reported in growing numbers across southeastern Pennsylvania since 2014, these nymphs are the first I’ve seen on our small patch of Little Crum Creek — first individually in the milkweed garden and grass, and now most frequently together (in the absence of their preferred tree-of-heaven) in this black walnut.

Normally, I’d wait to collect and post images of each life-cycle stage.  But you might be seeing these early nymphs too. If so, posting sooner seems better than later.

The Penn State Extension provides all we might like to know about identification and management of these invasive newcomers.

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Early October …

a leaf-footed bug                          each leg let fall                          portending leaves to come

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Ours for …

hours

on the hydrangea –

a common buckeye butterfly (Junonia coenia).

 

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busily

     busily                                             bumblebee                                            blue lobelia

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Paper wasps

Paper wasps scour milkweed leaf tops, hungry for aphid “honeydew” frass
(noted in this 2017 post) dropped from leaf bottoms above.

Clockwise from top left:
Guinea wasp (Polistes exclamans),  Northern paper wasp (Polistes fuscatus), Metricus paper wasp (Polistes metricus), European paper wasp (Polistes dominula).

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Signaling succeeding seasons

Fall webworms make a nursery of the mulberry tree, devouring leaves under silken cover.
How many will survive fall and winter, pupating on the ground below,
to emerge as moths (Hyphantria cunea) in spring?

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flea beetle

The rhythm of their lights still freshly impressing the mind, I thought
I’d discovered a late season firefly. But its sudden spring from sight left
a more telling impression: Disonycha glabrata, the pigweed flea beetle.

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Cuckoo wasp

A cuckoo wasp (Chrysis angolensis species, I believe) takes a shine to the milkweed leaves.

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