LDD moth 2022 update🐛

🍃 Invasive Spongy Moths🐛 <= my data!

They have a new name: spongy moth! They are officially the Lymantria dispar dispar (LDD) moths. It's the caterpillars that give the most trouble.

The egg masses are throughout the forest. What I have read is that they die in colder winter temperatures, above the snow line. That made me curious. I cannot scrape the 16 acres of the egg masses. I did collect some.

The trees were covered in the spongy egg masses. 

May 8 – Deciding to conduct an experiment, I scraped some eggs off the trees, and brought them up to the house. They did not hatch. 

There were some on the spruce tree, though. This was May 12th. You can see the silken threads all around the tree top. I wondered. I'd scraped quite a few egg masses off this tree, and popped them in soapy water.

I noticed the first ones May 15th last year. It was May 16th this year. Thing is, we had a long, hard dump of rain. Then I didn't see anymore.

I'm hoping they have been killed here by the winter cold. This is the 2022 prediction range by the Ontario ministry.

2021

♩♪♫♬ A Sunshiny Day!

It was a tough day, yesterday. I don't know why. I felt unmotivated and sad. A walk was just the thing.

I let Cinnamon out for his afternoon ablutions, he waited impatiently for me for walkies. He kept peering in at me!

     "Mummy. Mummy. Mummy..."

Off we went. Cinnamon was concerned with this man. Turns out it was JB who had fetched the mail after his walkabout the property! 

Cinnamon was happy as a clam. He'd stop, roll on his back waiting for a belly rub, make dough in the leaves. Later, down in the forest, Cinnamon stopped at this tree for a pee.

While I waited for Cinnamon to cover up his business, I noticed this on the branch of the tree.

tree fungus from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

I saw a dark something on the far side of the pond. Thank goodness for the zoom on the videocamera!

ducks on pond from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

I had an idea, to snap a photo every hour of the horse chestnut leaf buds. (I thought I'd make a movie.) I set it on timer, so as not to jiggle the camera. JB helped out, too. It was a failure. There are too many photos to take during the day, requiring taking the camera off the tripod! 

The horse chestnut leaf buds are so beautiful.

The hosta is coming back. It's not in a good spot, as it gets too hot and sees too much sun in summer. I suppose I could move it. Somewhere!

Great Leopard Moth Caterpillar

I found this little guy under the lip of the doorstep. I realized I'd seen quite a few over the years, but never the actual adult moth. Wiki had one for me to see. For me, capturing moths requires more night work than I like. (Remember those mosquito larvae in the frog pond?!)

By Jeremy Johnson - CC BY-SA 4.0, Link

I found one in October, 2020. My research told me it was a giant leopard moth caterpillar. It is beautiful, as it walks you can see glimpses of the underlying red colour📹.

Hypercompe scribonia
Great Leopard Moth

Putting it in the aquarium, I'll see if I can get it to metamorphose.

LDD Moths

Then, there are the LDD moths, now called 'spongy moths.' I've scraped some of the spongy egg masses off of the tree. You can see the eggs in the spongy masses. I've read that they don't survive if the eggs are laid above the snow line, we had -25 C. at one point. See what I've found – they seem viable. I hope not.

The primrose are smiling in the sunshine.

I am a bit late with the celebration of SPRING, but I'd lost the "R" and found it yesterday. It was in a different drawer from S-P-I-N-G. 

Yard work!

 

 First, a non-critter tale. Poor JB had the dropsies last week. He broke two dishes. One was a spoon rest. He ordered a new one from Amazon. It arrived. The box was empty! How weird is that?!

Amazon was no help. He phoned Mikasa. They wanted details of his order, date, order #, etc., which I screen captured for him and sent it in reply. 

Mikasa got back to us the next day and we got our replacement in a week!

LDD moths

I spent some time with my spruce tree. Beginning with the heavy sheers, that was a failure, back to the garage. I tried the long heavy lopers, but they were too heavy and useless, even after sharpening them. 

I tried my dad's old hedge clippers, stopping to sharpen THEM, not strong enough. Finally, I used the long-handled grass clippers. 

Before and after:

The moths are mating, and while I can't scrape eggs off of all the trees on our 16 acres, I could do some. 

After the caterpillar stage, they pupate and change into male and female moths. The females are whiter, and don't fly. The males are a dirty beige colour. 

The females are laying eggs in the crook under the tree branch. Also, on the underside of my spruce. It was awful, really. I fetched some soapy water and scrape it all into the can.

I spotted a monarch chrysalis under a branch of the spruce. Then, I lost it. I kept clipping, and found it again. By now my legs were pretty sore, up and down the ladder. 

Out and about

I saw a cicada on the lower deck. Once, I snapped a photo of a pair mating!

Also, the wood frogs are out of the pond and in the woods.

The goldfish pond now has two green frogs. There are three water lilies, as well. I am so pleased. I even counted all 5 fishies. 

Flowers and summer growth

He is getting big, this goldfish.

I'm so happy to see my lilies! 

'Clover' is quite keen on my garden blossoms. (Thank you Yam, you are wonderful at naming them.)

I think I've foiled her! (Spoke too soon, she's been in and eaten the tops of some hostas.)

Clover was keen on watching the cats sitting on the deck. She began hoof stomping to warn them off! I clapped, and chuffed at her, and tried to make her move on. She was reluctant. Those cats bear watching! The cats ignored her.

Brown-eyed Susans!

Robin update

Things are hopping. I can hear both the phoebe and the song sparrows singing again. They must be doing a 2nd brood, as well as the Robins.
There are still three little beaks to fill. I snapped the photo with the door closed. Momma had some lunch for them. I really should wash the glass door. Opening the door, momma hesitated, then flew off. She seems to understand that - door closed = no worries. 

LDD Caterpillars

The LDD caterpiglies have done in my spruce. It pains me to look at it! It's much worse than when it had spruce budworms (2017). The tree is beginning to grow over the bird bath, as well as the goldfish pond. I don't know if I should trim it, or what. 

They've almost all morphed to moths. You can see them flitting all around us. LDD moths  

Many trees are beginning to grow back.  This is one tree in late June [LDD caterpillars –July 1st], Vs. July 9th. 

Some amusement

Soccer and tennis have been fun. We were very proud of our Canadians who made it a good long way in Wimbledon.

I had fun watching the planes last weekend. Airplanes Sunday 

 

Ya think you had a bad day?! JB went into town and saw this incident coming and going. (We really need to upgrade our dashcam!) incident