Multicoloured Asian Ladybird, Harmonia Axyridis

Day 206: Harmonia axyridis has more common names than it has spot patterns, notably "Hallowe'en ladybug," "harlequin lady beetle," "multicoloured Asian ladybird" and assorted variations on those and other themes. It can appear in an entirely red or orange form, or it can have as many as 22 spots on its shell. The identifying feature which sorts it out in the field is its size. It is quite possibly the largest ladybug you'll see in the Pacific Northwest. A typical specimen (i.e., one which shows numerous distinctive markings) will have a white pronotum marked with black, as is the case here.

Introduced to the US to help control aphids and scale insects, these ladybirds frequently appear in large numbers during the spring and fall. Despite their abundance, they are not considered an invasive species, although anyone who's ever picked 38 of them off their shower walls before having a wash as I once did might disagree with that assessment.

Confiding

Day 205: Old birding guides will often refer to Chickadees as "confiding." The word in this context doesn't mean that they're telling you their innermost secrets; rather it refers to their confidence around humans. My little Black-capped friend is becoming more confiding as he/she makes the connection between my activity and food replenishment. In fact, when the feeder ran dry in the evening, Dee-dee perched on the shepherd's-hooks directly outside the living room window and gave me the pointed eye. Obedient as always, I responded by delivering another cupful of small seed mixed with nyger, just enough for a bedtime top-off. I have not seen more than one 'dee in the tree, but I keep hoping that the confidence of one will draw others.

The Business End

Day 204: The term isn't used much in today's vocabulary, but fifty years ago, you might have heard a shovel described as an "idiot stick," which is to say it has a blade on one end and an idiot on the other. In some regions, it applied to other manual tools as well, the principle being exactly the same regardless of what the "business end" might look like. I tend to think of weed-wrenches in much the same light. You have to be a few crackers short of a barrel to volunteer for a weed-wrenching work party, and I guess I qualify as prime crumb material. I spent the morning pulling Scotch broom with a weed wrench as part of a Nisqually Land Trust restoration project at Powell Creek near Yelm. The idea is simple: you set the jaws so that the stem of the offending weed is between them, then step on the tip of the tool and pull back on the lever which closes the jaws on the stalk. Once the stalk is pinched (sometimes not as easy as it sounds), you lean on the lever using the ground as your fulcrum, and if Archimedes is smiling, the earth moves as the roots are withdrawn. That's the theory, anyway. In practice, it's never that simple. The jaws slip, the stalk breaks, leaving the roots in the ground, thereby ensuring that you'll have a job again next spring. That said, we removed a lot of the nasty stuff, but it may be days before I can stand upright again.

A Spoonful Of Spring

Day 203: I had occasion to be in downtown Puyallup yesterday, so took a swing past Watson's Nursery to pick up some bedding plants and a few things for hanging baskets. As always, I walked through their outdoor racks and was happy to discover that they'd received their stock of "Spoonflower" Osteospermums. I'd already purchased two standard Osteos, and I can't resist Spoons. They were only available in one shade of purple, but any Spoon is better than no Spoon at all. In fact, I've had the greatest success with this hue. With nighttime temperatures projected to stay in the 40s, I felt confident in putting them into their permanent home in the big pot at the end of my sidewalk. If we do get a cold snap, I'll build a bubble-wrap tent to protect them.

Concealment

Day 202: While walking around in my yard yesterday, I spotted a specimen of Misumena vatia on a dandelion, but my shadow fell across the flower as I knelt down to take a picture, startling the spider and sending it into concealment. I went out again today and on the same dandelion, saw what I presume to be the same spider, but once again, some vibration or fluctuation in the light alerted it to potential danger and it disappeared beneath the petals where it was out of sight from my eyes, but not from my lens. This species has often taken me by surprise when I've gathered ox-eye daisies (an invasive which should carry no guilt about picking) or other light-coloured flowers. It has a particular affinity for dandelions in western Washington and although its colouration is highly variable, the whitish-yellow form is arguably the most common. The pigmentation observed in any individual spider can change over the course of a few days, depending on the colour of the flower it inhabits.

No Shingles, No House

Day 201: In areas where the two species occur together, there's an easy way to remind yourself of the difference between Purple Finch and House Finch: if it doesn't have shingles, it's not a house. The breast markings on House Finch are distinct flecks, as opposed to the soft, blurry, muted pattern worn by Purple Finch. Otherwise, the two birds look pretty much the same, or as Roger Tory Peterson puts it, "like a sparrow dipped in raspberry juice." The females of both species are even more difficult to distinguish, with both being your typical "little brown job" or "LBJ" as they are lovingly known in birding circles. A trained eye can pick out narrow wing bars on a female House Finch (not as well-defined on Purple) or on Purple, a straighter culmen (dorsal ridge of the bill) than on House, but you'd better have good field glasses and hope for a quiet subject if you wish to make either of these observations.

May Day Bouquet

Day 200: Sound & Fury Morris is dancing the sun up at Gasworks Park in honour of May Day, and I will have been on the road for several hours before dawn. That won't prevent the May faeries from carrying out my instructions to leave this lovely May basket on your doorstep, though. Okay, in some cases it will arrive a little early; we must make allowances as the need arises. It would seem that the practice of leaving May baskets for friends and neighbours has all but gone by the wayside, in my opinion a sad thing for such a lovely old custom to fall from use. I have fond memories from my childhood of constructing paper baskets and filling them with pretty posies, sometimes purloined from the flowerbeds of the very neighbours who were the intended recipients of the baskets. And if no cultivated blossoms were to be had, there were always dandelions and forget-me-nots and the occasional fern to brighten someone's day with a floral consideration. It was the thought behind the remembrance: you are my neighbour and my friend. Here is a gift from a simpler time, my May basket for you.