gzaborowski's Journal

I first noticed these in Pennsylvania last summer. When in flight they appear to be much more aggressive then they actually are, and this is on purpose. Like the name implies, they are meant to mimic a bee and it even sounds like one when it flies. These flies have a transparent dark coloration on the wings that appears to follow the veins. The spaces in between the color are completely transparent. The body is completely dark with the exception of the white tufts of "fur" located on the thorax. After finding this mating pair a noticed even more of them and I questioned the possible attractants and did a little research.

According to an article from the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, the adult flies mainly eat pollen and are an important pollinator. At the beginning of summer we removed a section of grass and replaced it with wildflower seeds, which have now become 2-3 feet high flowers that I'm sure these insects visit. After the species mates, the female hunts for carpenter bee nests to lay their eggs. The larvae then hatch and consume the carpenter bee eggs. The backyard of our house has a large wooden deck and awning built by the last person who rented the property, a prime nesting target for carpenter bees. We have also noticed an increase in carpenter bees this year, and we can always tell when a new one makes a nest since they never clean up the wood shavings they discard from the hole they create. Now I know to leave these flies to their business to help control the carpenter bee population in my yard.

I have lived in a few different states, and none of them have had as many cardinals as Pennsylvania. It seems like I can step outside at anytime and find at least one cardinal. Even someone who isn't interested in wildlife is probably familiar with both the physical appearance and song of the male cardinal.

Until today I had never seen a juvenile cardinal. After a few searches to confirm what I was seeing, it seemed to match. These searches helped pick up more information about cardinals I was never aware of. Female cardinals are one of few female bird species that sing. They also do this at a time when it seems the least likely, and that's when she is incubating her eggs. It's hypothesized that this is to communicate with the male and give information to him about the nest. I also learned that they aren't always full of bright red feathers and oranges beaks either. These are features that are grown overtime.

I first heard about Scarlet Tanagers in my vertebrate zoology class last semester. It sticks out to me personally not only because it's bright red and hard to miss, but because it's the opposite coloring of one of my favorite birds, the red wing blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus). I was driving through Raccoon Creek State Park with my wife when we noticed a large number of them near the center of the park in the middle of May. This is a park I've spent a lot of time at during all seasons and I had never seen one until this year. This caused me to do a little extra research and figure out why I haven't seen one when they were all of a sudden so common. The park is also only a 20 minute/10 mile drive from my house so I was also curious why I never seen them closer to home.

The Cornell Lab website quickly told me that these birds were in Pennsylvania, as well as other northern states and Canada, for their breeding season. The breeding duration is only 2 weeks long, so I felt lucky to have seen them when I did. So why wasn't I seeing them near home? Simply because they require a large patch size and prefer the interior forest rather than the edge. While the male red and easy to spot, the female is more subdued but still stands out with a yellow body and black wings, somewhat similar to an American goldfinch (Spinus tristis. I spent a decent amount of time trying to get the picture posted here since they weren't typically in the trees. They spent most of their time eating small insects or seeds from the ground. Another bird that seemed to share the same area was the eastern bluebird (Sialia sialis). I had originally thought that maybe I didn't seem them the last few years because of low population sizes, but that doesn't seem to be the case since they have been at an increasing trend the last few years. This is definitely something I'll take the time to observe next year.