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Aug. 8, 2006 - I joined 4 others for the weekly evening walk at the Irving Centre in Wolfville. Present were Mary Schofield, Nancy Nickerson, Harold Forsythe, Tony ? of the Irving Centre, and myself. In the Botanical Gardens on SWAMP MILKWEED (still in bloom), Nancy found 2 tiny MONARCH CATERPILLARS, but unfortunately one of them had been caught and impaled on the extended beak of a nymphal STINK BUG. She also found a second stink bug nymph on the same plants. Nancy also told us that at her home in Port Williams, she had just released a second batch of 10 hand-reared adult MONARCH BUTTERFLIES, after having found them on the swamp milkweeds in her yard. Also in bloom in the Botanical Gardens were BONESET (white Joe-Pye-Weed), pink JOE-PYE-WEED, 2 varieties of BLACK-EYED SUSAN, TALL CONEFLOWERS, TALL SUNFLOWERS, PEARLY EVERLASTING, etc. Along the Woodland Trails, blooming were FIREWEED, WILLOW HERB species, PRICKLY LETTUCE, various GOLDENRODS, MANY-FLOWERED ASTER (last week we found NEW YORK ASTER), JEWELWEED (TOUCH-ME-NOT, IMPATIENS), TALL WHITE LETTUCE, etc. Nancy also spotted a DEAD FEMALE HUMMINGBIRD lying on the Gardens path along the stream. At the cattail pond a DARNER DRAGONFLY (GREEN?) was patrolling. At least one other DRAGONFLY was seen hawking insects along the Woodland Trail; hopefully it was eating MOSQUITOES? At the cattail pond there was a very disturbed-sounding ROBIN, and along the Woodland Trail we heard a GRAY CATBIRD and heard and saw a group of 3 EASTERN PEWEES. In the coniferous woods east of Univ. Ave. we found a BLACK-CAPPED CHICKADEE seemingly stuck in/on the end of a horizontal broken tree-trunk about 2.5 metres off the ground, and there may have been a cavity in that trunk -- the chickadee allowed our approach to armıs-length, and it seemed undisturbed by us, even when we prodded it away. Nancy spotted a swollen fleshy GALL on JEWELWEED (touch-me-not or impatiens), and then we found such galls were common; either the flower or ovary is greatly swollen, and a totally different shape from the fruiting structure of impatiens. I cut open one gall to show several chambers inhabited by orange-coloured (why?) maggots/larvae of GALL MIDGES?? (or possibly gall wasps?). Elsewhere a single GREEN LACEWING was seen.
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