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One item of pond life omitted in the notes below was the presence of at least a few tiny transparent eel-like swimming larvae (maggots) of biting midges, alias no-see-ums. Cheers from Jim ---------- From: Jim Wolford <jimwolford@eastlink.ca> Reply-To: naturens@chebucto.ns.ca Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2007 11:24:40 -0300 To: NatureNS <naturens@chebucto.ns.ca> Subject: [NatureNS] pond life in Irving Gardens, hornets on sw. milkweed flowers, other flowers at Gardens Aug. 20, 2007 - At mid-day I did a short POND LIFE show-and-tell at the Irving Botanical Gardens for five small children and a horde of chaperones of the Wolfville/Acadia Bereavement Camp. I found only a couple of larval ³skins² from dragonflies on the emergent vegetation. And, speaking of that emergent vegetation, the leaves and stems of flowering arrowhead and flowering pickerelweed were heavily infested with tiny blackish aphids. Adult dragonflies seen were a lovely 12-spot skimmer and a red-bodied meadowhawk species. In the pond were lots of small green frogs that probably had transformed this summer from overwintered large tadpoles. Also there was an adult painted turtle. My dip-net, emptied into an enamel pan on top of an inverted bucket, yielded oodles of filamentous algae (also a bacterial scum covered the surface of the pond, whose surface was protected from the wind), backswimmers, dragonfly larvae (small immature ones that will probably have to overwinter as larvae), small crawling water beetles, a mayfly larva, a mosquito pupa or ³tumbler², and floating pupal ³skins² from flies or midges that had emerged and flown away as adults. In the botanical gardens, swamp milkweed was flowering luxuriantly, and the blossoms had attracted at least 10 bald-faced hornets, which presumably had a nest nearby. The hornets must have been there for nectar, although of course what they feed their larvae in the nest are chewed-up insects. I also noticed a bee-like hairy syrphid or hover-fly, and at least two species of bumble bees, foraging among the flowers. Other plants in bloom in the Gardens were tall coneflower, swamp? sunflower, both species of Joe-Pye-weeds (pink and white, latter also called boneset), turtlehead, harebell, tall fleabanes (species?), many-flowered aster, pearly everlasting, etc. Cheers from Jim in Wolfville
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