Mr. Sparkles

   I always say that you never know what you will find in the Little Bayou House.  It is filled with oddities that have come to call the place home by pure happenstance most of the time.  Then, there are the living things that somehow find their way in for a visit.  Critters that live around the Bayou are not overly picky about their living quarters so any nook or cranny will suffice.  This does not usually cause too much concern as I simply put the critters back outside where they belong with a stern warning not to return.  We have had birds, raccoons, possums, squirrels, snakes, frogs, lizards and every possible (or so I thought) insect creepy-crawling or slithering about the house at some point.  Hmmm...we even had a baby otter visit but that was not by his choice.  Back when the kids were growing up, they found critters, brought them home and called them pets.  These wild "pets" were allowed a short stay before they were returned to where they were found.  I assumed this was a learning experience since my siblings and I did the same.  I guess a house is a home to a lot more than just the human family that resides there.

  This morning, I was sweeping the dust bunnies out of the living room when I noticed a "sparkly" on the floor.  Assuming this was some random bead left over from my granddaughter's stay a few weeks ago, I reached down and picked up said sparkly.  Hmmm...beads do not wiggle.  Yep, it was a bug.  Another critter had found its way inside the house.  "Sparkles" (its name now) was unlike any critter that I had seen before.  It literally seemed like it was covered with glitter. Most of the time, it gleamed bright green but occasionally certain spots seemed gold.  Time for a few photographs before "Sparkles" headed back outside. 

  After a little research, I have about decided this is none other than a Metallic Woodboring Beetle.  There are numerous types but, thankfully, this is not a "bad" beetle.  Yes, it does gnaw on wood but only on dead or dying trees (which there are many here due to termites.  Yep, termites have infested the live trees.)  Anyway, what I found most interesting about Sparkles is that it is really not all those colors.  Its exoskeleton has divots on the surface and those only reflect certain colors.  Mr. Sparkles obviously loves green!...and maybe gold!  Actually, the whole critter is iridescent but the little divots reflect the most light...sort of like an inverse disco ball!  

  The beetle was so pretty that I had to carry it all the way down to the canebrake where Son was pulling out the dead canes.  While showing him our glittery friend, he suggested that it may have come in with an armload of firewood.  Ahh, probably right!  My first thought was to return Mr. Sparkles to the outdoor wood rack but then I had the horrible thought that he may not make it through the next cold spell.  It was pure luck that he crawled out of the firewood in time with his first adventure indoors.  He may not be so lucky next time!  So...I made the decision to let the critter loose on the old oak stump.  There, he could find lots of old wood to munch and some pretty snug places to overwinter if the weather turns cold.  Now...I can mark Metallic Woodboring Beetle off the list of Little Bayou House guests!  Like I said, you never know just what you might find here.

 

Shieldbacked Pine Seed Bug?

   I am definitely not an entomologist as I have to seek the identities of just about every critter I find in the garden and around the Bayou.  I do, however, have an interest in insects merely because I want to know which are pests and which are helpers.  Those deemed as garden pests are not high on the list of favorites.  So, if I find an insect that is new to the gardens, I pull out the camera, photograph the critter then try to catch it.  Catching it gives me the option of disposing of it or releasing it depending on which side of the good/bad list it falls.  While I hate killing anything, some infestations must be eradicated quickly.

  It was while I was hanging clothes to dry that I spied an unusual (to me) bug near the garden fence.  First came the pictures then came the capturing.  It turned out to be a rather simple catch.  The critter sort of fell into my jar then laid on its back with its little legs flailing wildly in the air.  The search for information began.

  As near as I can tell, my critter is a Shieldbacked Pine Seed Bug.  To be honest, I did not know these even existed.  Once I identified it, the bug was taken down to the water's edge and released into the palmettoes.  I was confident that a bug that eats pine seeds would not hurt my tomatoes!  Then I read more.  It seems that the bug can be quite destructive in pine forests as it renders the seeds useless.  Well, now.  I started having second thoughts about my release of the critter.  Perhaps I should not have been so hasty.  Ponder...ponder.

  That slight regret soon was replaced with a new thought.  I am not overly fond of pine trees around the house.  Those things have a tendency to break during hurricanes and have been known to put huge holes in the roof of the Little Bayou House.  Maybe...just maybe...that bug was doing me a favor by not allowing more pine trees to grow.  As long as it does not start eating all of the acorns from the oak trees, I think it is safe to say I will not have problems.  The pine trees can go. Leave my oaks.  Little buggy can go on his way.

That's FALSE!

  Sometimes we can be mistaken about things and the best thing to do is research the subject to find the facts.  I did just that today.  The Bayou Princess Cat has been ill and needed to go to the Pet Hospital.  That involves getting her in the carrier case which is quite the ordeal.  First the crate had to be retrieved from the shed attic and cleaned.  It was that cleaning that gave me the first inkling that I needed to do a bit of fact-finding.  In the carrier, there was a critter.  A rather unusual looking bug was staring back up at me.  Well, now!  Just who are you, bug?

  The bug was flipped out of the carrier and onto the floor.  It stared at me as if to say "Woman!  Why are you evicting me?  What have I ever done to you?"  The bug did not look particularly mean so I had intentions of letting it go outside.  While it sat still for a photograph, that critter could move when it wanted!  Now, instead of cleaning the cat crate, I was hopping around the kitchen trying to catch a critter!  While I had no intentions of killing the thing, I sure did not want it in the house!  After a good many fruitless attempts, I was finally able to capture said bug and toss it out the back door.  Then...then!  I had second thoughts!  What if that was another of those critters that eat garden plants??  Time to investigate yet another bug.

  Well, thankfully, this was not a garden pest.  This critter is called a False Bombardier Beetle.  (Yeah, I felt bad for the bug, too.  It cannot even get a "true" name...False Bombardier Beetle.  Crazy!)  It seems that this is one of those critters that use mimicry to keep from being eaten.  The (true) Bombardier Beetle shoots some pretty toxic substances at its predators (and humans) but our little buggy just pretends to be the other so it will not be eaten!  After finding out it was harmless, I read further to discover that this is actually one that is good for the garden!  It seems that our little "false" friend eats garden pests...especially caterpillars and larval stage bugs (like those squash bugs and cabbage worms!)  Well now, Little False One, you can live happily in the garden because you will definitely catch more caterpillars there than in the cat crate!

The Bayou Chorus

  The weather has been a tad cooler for the past few nights making it nice to linger outside a bit longer and to open the windows to air out the house.  Unless you do either of these things, you can be blissfully unaware of what happens on the Bayou at night.  Open that window, however, and the "peace and quiet" of being this far away from neighbors becomes nothing but a myth.  The Bayou is a noisy place!  Most folks think that the variety of buzzing, clicking and chirping noises are made strictly by crickets but that is not the case.  We have our share of crickets, for sure, but a lot of those sounds are made by cicadas and katydids.  They all join in with the symphony of frogs, owls, alligators and coyotes.  The cacophony can be nigh on deafening.

  It was a katydid that caught my eye this morning.  I had recently snipped back the roses on the arbor and obviously took the hiding place of one, fat katydid. The critter was not truly happy at being homeless and was moping around hunting for a new dwelling.  Katydids use camouflage as one of their main defense tactics so this poor creature knew it had better find a new dwelling right quickly.  In fact, a katydid on the ground is not in its best interest as they are slow and rather clumsy.  In the trees, they are hard to see, have plenty of food (leaves) and are much safer.   They are agile fliers so my little friend had best take flight and find a new home!

  Katydids are nocturnal and prefer to stay out of sight as much as possible.  The only evidence you may see is a few holes in the leaves of your favorite tree.  This does not harm the tree so my advice is don't try to rid the place of the katydids...just enjoy their nightly serenade.

Zombie Earwigs

  Earwigs!  Have you ever stopped to wonder about these little critters?  Nope? Well, don't feel bad.  Most folks don't.  I do, however, as I ponder most critters.  I ponder about the whys and wherefores of each thing that creepy-crawls, flies or swims around the Bayou.  Why?  I don't know but maybe it is just because they are there.  The earwig just happened to be crawling around under a bag of potting soil and begged to be pondered.

  First, where in the world did this thing get its name?  Break that word down and you have ear and wig.  The bug does not have ears like ours (has tympanal organs but not ears) and it definitely does not wear a wig.  That procedure was no help, whatsoever.  So pondering the name became a moot point and was soon abandoned.  The critter was not.  I watched the little one scurry about as it searched for a place to hide.  I already knew that the earwigs eat other insects and sometimes a bit of plant matter so that pondering was out.  I knew that they are mostly nocturnal as it provides some protection...another no go.  Aha!  The folklore!  There is a pondering point!

  There is a bit of folklore that still lingers in some folks' brains.  "Earwigs seek out human ears and bore holes through the eardrum to infest the human brain."  What??  Well, that is ridiculous!  Where did that bit of hogwash originate and why?  Well, it seems that recorded history of the 1700s relates people were sure that the critters had a fondness for human ears and eventually brains.   Their gnawing away at the brain gave great pain and potentially death.  This was a common way that doctors of the day explained migraines.  An occasional discovery of an earwig actually being in the ear did nothing more than keep the myth alive.  Why would an earwig ever seek out a human ear?  Commonsense would tell us that the critter was seeking refuge from an otherwise terrifying situation of finding itself on a human in the first place.  Most reports of an earwig even being near an ear come from those camping out in the earwigs' territory.  The poor, hapless critter was lost and scared and, well, here was this handy dark hole in which to hide.  The earwig had no intention of being trapped in earwax and surely did not wish to eat a brain.  (Leave that for the zombies.  Earwigs are not zombies.)  

  Yeah, my ponderings take weird turns at time but, after long nights with an frail dog and even longer days cleaning up after him, I need some sort of distraction.  The earwig provided that so I happily accepted.  

Oh, How Fortunate!

  I always figured that the Bayou could be seen as my little piece of paradise.  The Little Bayou House is nestled back from the main road and the lane twists and turns as it meanders through the woods.  Our place is sort of isolated since the Bayou is on the east, the Back Bay is on the south, the woods is on the north and my brother's place is to our west.  People visitors are far and few between.  Critter visitors, however, abound.  Some, we like.  Others...well, we could do without.

  This morning as I was wandering about the hillside, I noticed a critter high up under the eaves of the shed.  This shed sits near the canebrake so it does not surprise me that a myriad of critters are in the area. This one was one of those "could do without" ones.  A huge cockroach was settled in for the daytime hours up near the roof edge.  Being nocturnal, the roach was ready for a day's sleep before becoming active again.  This was a Smokeybrown Cockroach so it was rather large. Not one that I want anywhere near the house!  

  I got to thinking about roaches and did a bit of research.  There are nearly 3000 species of roaches in the world!  That is enough to give just about anyone a good case of the willies!  Thankfully, we can pare that number down to 50 species living in the United States.  Still, that is far too many for me!  Then, I read how fortunate we are down here in the Deep South!  We only have 4 species of the nasties in our area!!  Somehow, that still did not make me feel joyous.  Having any roaches at all is not to my liking.

  The Smokeybrown Cockroach is one that prefers to live in wooded areas.  Key word here is "prefers".  They will move indoors given the opportunity so it is best to keep up with any roach eradication methods that are in effect.  With the size of this critter, I am thinking perhaps we should double or maybe triple our efforts!

Destructive Little Critters!

  Occasionally, a strange beetle or other creepy-crawly critter will catch my eye as I wander around the woods or creek bed. The fallen logs and leaf mulch are a haven for the critters and, if one has a keen eye or is just interested, one of the insects can be spied.  This afternoon, I, once again, escaped the confines of the sick house and made my way down through the mire to the creek.   Tomorrow, torrential rainstorms will pound the area making this particular hike inaccessible.  Most of the area will be flooded making it unsafe to tread there as footing would be unsure.  Once I found a sunny spot beneath the leaf canopy, my search for any critter life began.  Most of the insects are still dormant but telltale signs of their past activities was rampant.

  On a felled pine limb, the bark was crumbly and easily removed.  Slowly peeling back the outer layer, a network of tunnels was revealed.  A good bit of the sealed tunnels was intact.  Sawdust ladened excrement "roofs" laid neatly above each burrow.  This was the work of the woodborer larvae as they chewed their way through the wood.  These larvae can ruin more of the pine wood forests than any other critter.  

  As I sat inspecting the damage done to this one piece of wood, it made me almost thankful that our woods are not heavy with pine trees.  Hurricanes took their toll on the tall trees plus we have recently had a number of lightning strikes on the remaining few.  Perhaps these particular beetles will find little to infest and die out on their own.  Destructive little creatures!

The "Dressing Room"

  It is that time of summer when I have to meander out to pick figs at dawn and then again at dusk.  There is a reason behind this madness and that reason is birds.  While I love my songbirds, they need to stop eating my fruit!  The two large fig trees stand between the garden fence and the greenhouse but even in those close quarters, dozens of assorted birds gather to munch on the ripe figs.  So, if I wish to make any jam for this winter, I have to "be up before the birds" and then do a second picking in the late afternoon. 

  It was during that late afternoon picking that Mark reached up to bend a tall limb down so I could reach the uppermost figs.  As soon as he took hold of the branch, he called my attention to a visitor...or maybe we were the intruders in this case.  An Obscure Bird Grasshopper was perched up among the leaves.  We had interrupted a very important time for this critter.  The grasshopper was still a bit sluggish from shedding its outer layer much like a crab sheds its shell during growth.  The grasshopper had outgrown its outer layer and need to shed into its adult size.  The process is called molting and is the way insects grow.  

  Just yesterday, I had remarked to Son that something was munching the upper leaves of the fig trees.  I now realize that the Bird Grasshopper was trying to "fill up" so it would survive the molt.  Most critters that go through such a molting stage as this, do not eat during the entire process.  Their bodies are too soft to seek out food and because of this softness, they try to stay hidden.  During their soft stage, they are easy targets for any predators even those smaller than themselves.  

  Even though these grasshoppers can do much damage to plants, I decided to let it go on its merry way.  We let the frightened critter ease its way under a thick batch of leaves as we continued picking figs around it.  It was a rather nifty find, though, as seeing both the freshly molted grasshopper and the old shed is a bit unusual.  You just never know what might be lurking in the fig trees!

The Water Walkers

  Have you ever thought of just how neat it would be to walk on water? If not, take a moment to think about it!  Say I wanted to head over to the other side of the Bayou, I would just step off the pier and stride right on over.  There would be no need for a boat and I would not have to worry about stepping on a stingray!  What could be nicer?  Yep, I do think about these things occasionally.  Usually it is when I see some interesting object on the far side of the Bayou and I am just too lazy to paddle the boat over to investigate.  Walking would be much easier and quicker.

  The thought occurred to me again today while I was out by the little Frog Pond.  I was pondering if I needed to thin out the Water Hyacinths again since they are (as Pop would have said) as thick as the hair on a dog!  Anyway, while checking the hyacinths, I noticed several little critters skittering about on the surface of the water.  Now if I tried that, I would be ten feet under!  What gives?  Why can a bug walk on water and not me?   Anyway, come to find out, it is combination of the way the insect is created and the condition of the water.  A thin film usually accumulates on still waters and since the water walkers weigh practically nothing, they can stay atop.  The long, thin legs of "Pond Striders" allows them to literally walk on water!  If this water had been moving, either by current or wind, the critter would be washed under.  

  It does amaze me just how critters do this.  Think how practical it would be to have this ability.  I made my pondering evident to Son who made the remark "Just wait until the pond freezes and you can walk on it."  Nope, not me.  I would fall right through the ice or slip and slide around like a greased pig.  I guess I will leave the water walking to the critters.

Look Into My Eyes!

  "Look into my eyes!" said the critter!  "Look into all FIVE of my eyes!" he crooned!  He was just waiting to woo some gorgeous female by staring at her with his two large and three small red eyes.  Such a handsome fellow was he!  Although, by the looks of it, he was a tad clumsy on his feet.

  While out picking okra today, I spied a large male cicada squirming about on the ground. (The size of the abdomen told me this was a male.)  The poor thing was upside down and wiggling so much that the ants would be sure to find him if I did not help.  So, help I did.  I gently scooped up the cicada and placed him on the side of one of the planter boxes.  Bloop!  He fell to the ground.  Well, Little Guy, if you want my help, then you have to help yourself as well, I gently scooped him up again and replaced him on the box.  Bloop!  Down he went once again. Alrighty then! I picked the critter up for the third time.  With this, Son took notice of my predicament.  "Set him on the peach tree." he said from his position amidst the fig branches where he was harvesting what was left on the tree.  So, the bug went on the peach tree limb. Bloop!  What was wrong with this goofy thing?  Could he not cling to anything?  I snatched him from the ground and had a brilliant idea!  I will place him on the herb shelf!  This outdoor shelf should provide him with plenty of surface to gain control of his legs.  No soon had I let him sit, than, BLOOP!  He was on the ground once again.  By this time, Son had decided to join me in my quest to find a suitable perch for the bug. A twig braced between two herb pots on the shelf seemed to steady the critter. (Yes, I do go to this much trouble for an insect!) Now, I could get back to picking that okra!

  And, yes, Cicadas do indeed have five eyes.  There are the two most noticeable compound eyes on either side of the insect's head and, then in a triangle between those two, are three much smaller "simple" eyes. These five eyes give the critter a keen sense of vision.  When they crawl out from beneath the ground to molt into an adult, they have to crawl to the nearest vertical object.  This is usually done at night and the critter can spy a tree or post quite a distance from them.  The insect will make the trek to the post (tree, house, leg, whatever) and crawl up to shed. There it will cling as it allows its wings to harden.  The empty case stays put.  

  So even though this almost sounds like some zombie invasion with things crawling out from beneath the ground, it is more an emergence. These critters have been underfoot for quite some time just waiting for the right moment to crawl out, mate and start the whole process of life all over again. Look into his eyes!  You might be mesmerized by the entire life cycle of these critters.  There is much more to them than just their loud buzzing and beautiful eyes!