These tiny wasps are unique in having a long neck. Note the long ovipositor, which some people mistake for a stinger... it isn't!

Looking quite formidable!

A beautiful native plant that is growing well in parts of the FWG.

Stephen Bégin took some beautiful shots of flowers around the FWG. Lupines are usually late spring-early summer flowers, but there are always some that bloom into mid-summer. This one is a non-native species.

Looking at the Amphibian Pond today I noticed what I thought at first was the smaller of the two painted turtles, basking on a log. Something looked a bit odd though, so I looked through my binoculars and was surprised to see a Red-eared slider! This species occurs in the southern US but not in Canada. However, it is commonly sold in the pet trade, but unfortunately, when the cute little baby turtle gets big people decide they no longer want it. This is when the turtle if it is lucky, I guess, gets dumped into a pond or wetland somewhere. It looks like someone deposited their pet turtle here. It is strikingly similar to the painted turtle. I put in this photo of the painted turtle taken today as an excuse to talk about the slider as I couldn't get a photo of it.

Although these tiny bugs have been present in the garden for awhile now, it is at this time of year that they really seem to become very visible. I must have seen no fewer than 20 on one plant. They often seem associate with the Cosmopepla stinkbugs. Although in reality it is probably that they like the same plants.

From Stephen Bégin - "I got a chance to visit the FWG on Sunday and saw the backyard garden for the first time. I'm amazed at the work that must go into it, absolutely fantastic!

I included the original size of the bee on flower because I think the detail on the bee is neat."

Another non-native, this plant is in the bed closest to the FWG Interpretive Centre in the garden behind the building. The many florets also produce a good supply of nectar for bees and butterflies.

Still eating the sow-thistle!

I hung around the Butterfly Meadow quite a lot, hoping that between showers, some insects might start flying around, but apart from the ones mentioned, there were not a lot of others to be seen. The usual Asian Ladybeetles, Japanese beetles, a few Brachiacantha ladybeetles, and so on. I did take time to admire how beautiful the new section of the Butterfly meadow looks!

However, the real highlight of today was the number of birds. As often happens when there is light rain and mild temperatures, bird activity increases dramatically (not so in heavy rain). There were birds all over the place! Most were families of adults with young so there was much vocalization from hungry young screeching to be fed! Robins were by far the most abundant birds, with about 30 around the garden, including lots of spreckle breasted young. Eastern Kingbirds were also feeding young on the wing, as were House Finches, Gray Catbirds, Song Sparrows, and so on. The service road by the Birch Grove, at one point had about 30 birds lining it, mostly robins, goldfinches, house finches and a couple of flickers. American Redstarts, chickadees, and Rose-breasted Grosbeaks were calling away, and at one point both grosbeaks and robins were having a feast on Red Elderberry fruit.

Of course, not all birds have finished nesting. Goldfinches are nesting now, except for the non-breeders which you can often see in flocks, like a bunch of teenagers hanging out at the mall, raising a ruckus! Some Song Sparrows must still have young in the nest because a couple of times they became extremely agitated when I passed close to a particular site.

House Wrens are still scolding away, very vociferously. The Green Heron was flying back and forth from the pond, calling loudly. Yellow warblers, downy woodpeckers, amongst others were very visible. All in all, a great time to check out birds at the FWG.

After the FWG management meeting Diane and I did our usual check of the outside of the building to see what was around. Not much, as it turned out, although we did see a lot of graceful mayflies, a katydid, some moths including an Isabella Tiger Moth (better known in its caterpillar stage as the Woolly Bear). And one Gray Treefrog waiting to snare a passing insect.

Despite the four eyes (there are four smaller ones on top of its head) and the mouth parts that look like something from an alien in Star Wars, this tiny jumping spider is rather cute.

Many grasshoppers (and leafhoppers) can be found at the FWG at this time of year. In this closeup, you can see the armour-like exoskeleton of this brown grasshopper. Can you see the minuscule orange spider mite at the first joint of its middle right leg?

Possibly a Condylostylus sp.

Asian ladybeetle with faint spots and mostly white "face"

A green species of grasshopper. Stephen thinks this might be a young two-striped grasshopper (Melanoplus bivitattus)

As well as laying eggs, female aphids are able to reproduce by parthenogenesis - they give birth to smaller versions of themselves (all female) without the need for fertilization.

Another view of this pretty little metallic bee

Diane photographed this snapping turtle using our turtle raft!! Hooray! Now we've had three turtles of two species using it.

I thought at first I was looking at a minute jumping spider because of the way this little fly was behaving. But when I put on my glasses for a closer look at this speck, I saw it was a fly. After viewing the photo I noticed it was a Picture-winged fly, an intriguing group of flies with, in many case, beautifully patterned wings.

Later in the day, I found this really intriguing looking leafcutting bee clinging to a raspberry in the Old Field. It has extremely large front legs as you'll see in the next photo, and these very pale eyes that really stand out against the orangey colour of its body. Other hymenoptera have pale eyes, but it is the contrast that was so striking here.

These little guys are really active again now that the young are out and about too.

A beautiful little duckling

Diane said " I went back to the butterfly meadow where I noticed that the Spiderwort was blooming." Here is a shot of the white form.

Diane found this gorgeous little soldier beetle on a yellowing leaf. This species is a European import.

Accidentally introduced from Japan, probably in nursery stock. Diane got a lovely photo of this one with the raindrops on its back.

It seems that July 10 was a good moth day at the FWG! In the morning, Cathy found this gorgeous tiger moth in the BYG! These moths are medium sized Arctiidae, with beautiful brightly coloured underwings in various bright shades.

Feeding away.

I found this moth caterpillar climbing up the wall of the centre in mid-afternoon. They are fairly common around FWG, very pretty, but turn into a fairly nondescript brown moth!

Initially it was thought this was Confused Haploa, because the moth has so many varied patterns including one that looks very similar to this. However, I have just learned that this is Reversed Haploa, a species critically imperiled in Canada, according to Nature Serve.

To our surprise, about 10 p.m., this dragonfly showed up and stayed until we packed up at just past midnight! It was quite large and very lovely but we couldn't immediately put an ID to this night-flying odonate! However, thanks to Chris Lewis, we learned that this was a Prince baskettail. Apparently it has several wing pattern variations and this one didn't fit the usual description which caused confusion when trying to ID it. Chris says it is a crepuscular species but it is very unusual to see it out late at night.

These interesting little bees cut pieces of leaf from plants to create a tubular nest case in which they lay their eggs and provision it with food before sealing it off with a perfectly circular piece of leaf at either end. They usually make their nests inside wood, such as wooden decks, benches, trees, but will also use bee boxes. They also sometimes create their nests under stones and that is where I have found their nest cases. These bees also, unlike many or even most, bees, carry pollen on their belly (can you see the yellow pollen?)

Then there was the phenomenal number of mating Asian ladybeetles all over the garden. And a profusion of larvae. So we're going to see successive generations of these beetles, which is good, because the aphids are also phenomenal this year. In this photo you can see the colour variation in this species.

Lots of other insects such as the Cosmopepla bug on Figwort, which seems to be a particular favourite of theirs. In fact, I spent about 40 minutes hanging out next to a big patch of figwort just below the FWG near the Mallow Bank. There were many different species of Syrphids, the above Cosmopepla, bumblebees, vespid wasps, bald-faced hornets, etc.

Lots and lots of moths, including the very delicate white plume moth, the Large lace border and the White-striped black.

A peculiar looking moth in the Pterophoridae family.

Baby birds are everywhere, which is wonderful. First of all, the House wrens nested successfully and now have at least 3 well-fledged young, and possibly 4. I saw three young together with one adult, and a fifth flew in to join them but I couldn't see whether it was a juvenile or an adult. Young catbirds were begging for food, as were young crows, song sparrows, and yellow warblers. Young robins have been around for a long time now and they robins are on their second broods at least, if not their third. Cardinal families are quite visible, and young chickadees are exceedingly vocal. On the other hand, the goldfinches are just thinking about nesting and will soon be in full breeding mode when the thistles bloom. I did see one gathering cattail fluff yesterday.

I spent a few hours at FWG today, taking a look for interesting observations. While standing at the pond talking to a couple of visiting birders, one of them spotted a dark shape amongst the cattails. Through the binos we could see it was a muskrat. After they left I kept watching it and soon a second one appeared. They were having a great time eating the cattails and I spent an entertaining 15 minutes watching them. Unfortunately, they were just that far out of range that my camera couldn't do a good job of picking them up. Here is the best of a bad lot of photos.

Over in the Backyard Garden (BYG), chipmunks were busy eating the serviceberry fruit, sharing it with a few cedar waxwings.

These very tiny flies with the pretty wing patterns, are fairly common at the moment around the FWG.

Even in the rain these insects were not at all deterred. On this one small section of the Wild parsnip flower you can see many plant bugs, an ant, and the nymph of another bug sp.

The Butterfly meadow is looking truly beautiful now! If you haven't visited it, you should. Compared to last year when it was just being cleared and planted the change is dramatic. The plants are flourishing and are attracting all sorts of neat insects. For those of you new to the FWG, new that is, in the last few years, I'd like to mention that Gillian Boyd started the original Butterfly Meadow and did a phenomenal job on it. Between her and Diane and all the volunteers who have faithfully come to work on it on Wed. evenings these last few years, we have one of the most insect and bird rich areas in the garden.

A short while ago, Diane found a lot of caterpillars of this species on the nettle she'd planted in the Butterfly Meadow. And on July 3rd she found an adult of the species.

Diane caught this little fellow having a rest!

In addition to this little beetle, there were green lacewings, various moths, a few long dash skippers, a nice fresh summer azure butterfly, a large northern pearly eye, and about 30 European skippers. As well, there were all sorts of plant bugs, wool carder bees, megachilids, bumblebees, honey bees, sweat bees, and so on. All this despite the showers that came on suddenly. Since they didn't last too long, once the sun came back out, so did the insects.

I was passing by this nest box when a youngster stuck his head out. I stopped a little ways off and watched for a few seconds, Sure enough, in came Mum with food which she transferred to her hungry youngster. I took a couple of photos and quickly moved off.

These birds are becoming more numerous around the garden and in another few weeks, once the thistle blooms, will start nesting. This one was sitting in the midst of two related plants, DSV or pale swallowwort and common milkweed. One native and a good plant, one non-native and definitely not a good plant.

This is one of the larger mayflies and it might have been newly emerged as it seemed to be pumping its abdomen quite a lot, as if just getting everything into working order.

I came across quite a patch of this garden escape in a different location from last time. In some areas it is considered quite a nuisance in natural areas, but so far, at least at FWG, it hasn't spread very much at all.