During my talk on garlic mustard, I discussed the issue of biocontrol. One success story in recent times is that of the release of the purple loosestrife beetle, Galerucella which is going a long way to controlling this invasive species. Here, you can see one of the tiny beetles.

Another view of this hard-working little beetle.

Today was a day of birds in pairs. A pair of green herons looking very much like they are checking out nest sites. A pair of eastern kingbirds, a pair of Baltimore orioles, a very active pair of American redstarts who were singing endlessly, yellow warblers checking out one of their favourite nesting areas, lots of tree swallows nesting, chickadees happily on the nest in some nest boxes

Apart from the wrens and the other birds mentioned, there was a barn swallow zipping across the pond, a flock of cedar waxwings, and all the other usual birds. A few days ago a merlin was in the Ash woods making quite a fuss. On that day I also saw an accipiter, moving too fast to see whether it was sharp-shinned or cooper's. It flew (zoomed) across the pond and then down the ravine.

Today there were a lot of insects around, including about 8 cabbage white butterflies, two clouded sulphurs, 4 silvery blues and another 3 blues which flew by very fast and vanished. Both silver blues and spring azures are flying now, although the latter are almost at the end of their flight season. Near the pond was a very freshly emerged damselfly. It was far too new for me to ID it. These just emerged odonates are really tough to put a name to as they often bear no resemblance to what they will look like very soon. As well, bumblebee queens, lots of nomada bees, polistes, yellowjackets, and so forth. This kingbird will be happy with the abundance!