I’m not sure if you all are experiencing the same thing, but so far this summer, I have noticed a real resurgence in two things that I have not seen in abundance since I was a kid- fireflies and monarch butterflies. I’ve seen more in the last couple weeks than I did in the last ten years combined. Not sure what is prompting that. Hopefully it means they are recovering and the bees will too.
On another note, remember this story from a little while back:
They were young males on the make, and they struck out not once, not twice, but a dozen times with a group of attractive females hovering nearby. So they did what so many men do after being repeatedly rejected: they got drunk, using alcohol as a balm for unfulfilled desire.
And not one flew off in search of a rotting banana.
Fruit flies apparently self-medicate just like many humans do, drowning their sorrows or frustrations for some of the same reasons, scientists reported Thursday. Male flies subjected to what amounted to a long tease — in a glass tube, not a dance club — preferred food spiked with alcohol far more than male flies that were able to mate.
The study, posted online in the journal Science, suggests that some elements of the brain’s reward system have changed very little during evolution, and these include some of the mechanisms that support addiction. Levels of a brain chemical that is active in regulating appetite predicted the flies’ thirst for alcohol. A similar chemical is linked to drinking in humans.
I must have the fruit fly equivalent of the Big Bang Theory cast in my backyard, and apparently the horniest fruit flies on the planet live here. I set down a glass of wine for about 2 minutes to go turn off the sprinklers, and when I got back, there were easily a half dozen fruit flies in my beverage. I drank the remains anyway, thinking the booze and my goat like stomache could handle it. CLASSY!
Also, too, the godson in his Texas Rangers gear:
He’s seriously the cutest little thing. I’m so grateful Ryan and Sarah allowed me into his life, and every time I see pictures of that little pudgy fella with his ear to ear smile, I, for just a second, understand you breeders.
Keith
It means you just dropped acid.
beltane
I’ve noticed something similar. We are seeing more fireflies than last year though not necessarily more than we’ve seen in other years over the past decade. Same can be said for the Monarch butterflies. Not so many bees, unfortunately.
katmaus
In April we had an abundance of monarchs in the back yard. Nothing like it since, but it really sparked up our Friday night happy hour.
BGinCHI
“And not one flew off in search of a rotting banana.”
I can’t tell you how many nights that’s happened to me.
cathyx
One of the many things I like better about living on the west coast as opposed to the eastern half of the country is how few annoying flying insects we have here. Not many moths or beetles to speak of. We can leave our doors open without a screen and not have too much problem with anything coming in.
BGinCHI
@cathyx: Thanks Monsanto.
cathyx
@BGinCHI: If that were the case, then the east wouldn’t have insects either.
ryan
Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana
BGinCHI
@cathyx: Stop with your crazy logic.
w3ski
We have Honey Bees again. Hardly any the last two years, the tomatoes did poorly, squash too. This year there are lots around, but I haven’t got the tomatoes or squash up, Oh well.
Alison
Ah, monarchs. One of the main things I miss about one of my past places of residence – Santa Cruz – was the monarchs coming through in October. Walking through the Monarch Grove at Natural Bridges was freaking amazing…
TaMara (BHF)
That is the cutest baby evah. Is he ever unhappy?
cathyx
@BGinCHI: I actually think it might have something to do with humidity. What exactly, I don’t know, but I wouldn’t be surprised if humid weather is beneficial to insect populations.
PurpleGirl
Yes, JC, he is adorable. That grin…. could probably light up a house.
BGinCHI
@cathyx: Thread needs an entomologist.
JoyfulA
I saw the first Baltimore oriole since my childhood, which was a very long time ago. It was going from one flower to the next on a tulip tree.
gelfling545
Many butterflies this year; also songbirds. The last 5 years or so most of the birds have been crows & seagulls. It’s nice to hear the “dawn chorus” again.
jl
@cathyx:
” One of the many things I like better about living on the west coast as opposed to the eastern half of the country is how few annoying flying insects we have here. ”
Where on west coast you talking about?
You mean out in SF peninsula where anything not nailed down is blown away by a fog blizzard once a week?
You want bugs out in Western US, I can take you on an interesting tour, and find you plenty of bugs.
The Fat Kate Middleton
Funny you’d say this about the fireflies (what we called lightning bugs when I was seven) – last night, after watering the grass, ’cause we now have a drought here in this part of the Midwest , I looked over the back yard from our deck, and saw all the little, flickering bugs. It was so beautiful.
Omnes Omnibus
@gelfling545: A huge red-tailed hawk lurks on the light post in my parking lot. We have few small birds or mammals that spend much time in the area.
grishaxxx
Someone is screwing with access to BJ – I’m getting some kind of “Untrustworthy Site” from what is supposed to be Symantec0: I don’t believe them. I suspect you are under attack….{could it be the malkins….?…:-)}
Please check it out.
best – G
Yutsano
@Omnes Omnibus: There’s a pair of nesting bald eagles just north of downtown Seattle. They’re wonderful to watch even just perched chirping at each other.
jl
@grishaxxx:
What kind of software does BJ, or WP, have to find and clean out malware? How often?
cathyx
@jl: I was talking about insects, not fog blizzards. Yes, come over to my house and take me on a tour and show me all the annoying flying insects that are all over the place but don’t want to fly into my home.
Omnes Omnibus
@Yutsano: I see eagles in Madison every once in a while. Raptors and wolves fascinate me. Yeah, I am weird. Sue me.
jl
@cathyx:
I have no bug problems where I live either, but that is because I live right where the fog blows inland from the ocean, and I think that reduces bugs by a factor of ten.
But if you go hiking away from the coast, there are plenty of places in CA that are very buggy.
Example: Hike into Mount Montara area above strong ocean breeze. Lots of bugs. Which can be very nice or a pain in the neck, depending on the particulars of the bugs.
jharp
@w3ski:
And.
In central Indiana I have noticed a ton more honeybees in my yard.
I really don’t remember any the past 10 years.
And I did notice about a year a few hundred yards from my house (a 20 year old development) some dude trying to get a beekeeping operation going.
It has got to be that is worked.
Mnemosyne (iTouch)
Didja know that you can buy beer and wine at the snack bar of your Amtrak train? I am very relaxed now, and still have another hour or so to go before we’re at my home station.
@jl:
Having grown up in the Midwest, I know exactly what cathyx is saying — there are not nearly as many annoying flying bugs in So Cal. Mosquitoes are very rare in Los Angeles, but when we were in downtown Chicago, I had to buy big spray because I was getting eaten alive.
In exchange, we do have more really nasty spiders. Yay.
RossInDetroit
We just walked Doglius at dusk and the place is just flat covered up with fireflies. They’re 3-4 weeks early this year. One reason is the Emerald Ash Borer killing all of the ash trees. Dead trees are a great environment for fireflies. We also have a lot of woodpeckers for the same reason.
Mike in NC
We used to see fireflies (AKA lightening bugs) all the time in NoVA and in WV. Nothing like that at all in our part of NC.
Origuy
@Mnemosyne (iTouch):
Yes, yes I did, and quite good, too. I took Amtrak from San Jose to Tacoma a few years ago. The beer was some regional microbrew, I don’t remember the brand.
RossInDetroit
We get flocks of 20 to 30 turkey vultures in our neighborhood around halloween. Colossal things that will completely cover a good sized tree when they roost. I think they’re cool but they creep people out with their soaring and lurking.
RossInDetroit
@Mike in NC:
But NC has black widow spiders, which are boss.
jl
@Mnemosyne (iTouch):
Maybe you are right about what goes on in cities.
But, for example, if you are ever out in CA and want to get eaten alive by mosquitoes, I can show you where to go.
You want horse flies? We got horse flies!
As far as bugs go, three are places in the South and New England where there are more bugs, maybe, but I don’t think the Pacific Coast is less buggy than the country as a whole.
Maybe, in California, you have to go out into the boondocks to find them.
Mnemosyne (iTouch)
@Origuy:
I had the private label Pinot Noir. Not too bad. I’m not a big beer person, but I saw they had Arrogant Bastard in the case alongside the usual suspects.
asiangrrlMN
That kid is too freaking cute, Cole. What a smile. I bowled three strikes in one game today and still barely broke a hundred. It cracked me up.
LT
There is something wrong with that kid. You just do not get that level of cute/wise/kind/hilarious-looking without paying some dude at the crossroads.
Do you?
S. cerevisiae
The Monarchs may be migrating further east due to all the GMO corn and little milkweed in the midwest anymore.
Mnemosyne (iTouch)
@jl:
There seem to be more crawling bugs than flying bugs out here, generally speaking. It’s nothing like it is in the Midwest where moths cover your porch light the instant you turn it on.
muddy
I have had a downy woodpecker come and bang his gong the last 3 days. I hear this dreadful clanging, and came out to find him up at the top of a steel pipe (vent for food smoking under the porch that goes above the house), pecking away. He was right by the top and had a real ringclang going. I told him the kind of lady downy woodpeckers that were attracted to that crazy sound were probably going to be troublemakers. He only does it once a day, around 4pm. More cowbell?
The Fat Kate Middleton
@muddy: I throw things at ours – they ram that pipe twenty times a day, which I mind most when I’m napping on the porch.
MikeJ
@muddy:A downy or hairy ( I can’t tell from a distance) has come to my feeder for the past three days, and the pileated’s call rings through the neighborhood morning and evenings. I’ve caught the pileated at the feeder several times, but it’s not an everyday thing.
Last place I lived I had trouble with red shafted flickers banging on the house, but suet seems to distract them.
Marcellus Shale, Public Dick
for some reason i am thinking back on the sally quinn abscinthe of dinner party culture. i think there actually is something of a point in what she was saying. some part of what is shitty in dc journalism is that people never have to hear how shitty they are in their little cliques. when they have to work a big room they better have their facts straight. some of the most laughable aspects of purple prince david brooks of machiavelcro might not pass unchallenged in a proper asshole driven culture.
Omnes Omnibus
@muddy: A couple of years ago, my brother had one that decided it liked the drain pipe outside his bedroom window at first light. He was not amused; he thinks the bird was.
aubergine
Too many birds killing too many insects – introduce cats. Introduce cats – too few birds – too many insects. The wild card is GM. Data is collected, but after it has been introduced. It’s a little like Russian Roulette. The first two mods have passed, the next three mods are live experiments. Data to follow.
muddy
Your guys must be really horny. This one gives it a real go for about 2 minutes, and that’s that until the next day. Of course now that I have said this he will torment me tomorrow. So far it’s just been cute, and too brief to get a photo.
muddy
@MikeJ: I have also an owl(s?) that sits and hoots near constantly. At least it’s not a sharp sound, but you’d think he’d need to sleep in the daytime.
muddy
@Omnes Omnibus: This one actually is near my bedroom window, altho I have only seen him from below. I like his current schedule, I hope he doesn’t start too early.
jl
@Mnemosyne (iTouch):
Maybe you are right. I have to admit, I have not found a place in CA where a person is gang attacked by moths.
Any Californian has, let me know so we can maintain regional pride here.
But, you are ever out here and feel homesick for mosquitoes, gnats, grasshoppers, army worms and assorted caterpillars, horse and other biting flies, let me know and I can help you fix that.
Edit: and fun bugs too. Last couple of times I hiked up Montera Mountain, it was swarming with bumble bees and butterflies.
Mnemosyne (iTouch)
@jl:
Oh, I know where the gnats are — there’s a huge swarm of them that hang around midair in our parking lot at work. I am guaranteed to get a faceful of them at least once a week when I ride my bike to work.
jl
Probably the CA microclimate thing. So many little geographically, at least from a bugs point of view, isolated regions. The little buggers cannot get to critical mass and overwhelm the place.
I’ve seen a couple of mass bug invasion messes on the farm growing up, where some kind of bug took over and was everywhere, but that was in Central Valley, probably more like Midwest than most of CA.
Hey, I survived two army worm invasions in my time.
Edit: Them damn armyworms covered everything like countless, little swooshes of bright green crawling everywhere, the whole earth moving like a waving green carpet. Then later in the summer, clouds of butterflies, but they stayed out in the fields. Not interested in coming near the house.
lacp
That is one happy baby. Happy babies, happy dogs – either one works for me.
Jennifer
I never “lost” my fireflies – I think because I don’t put any chemicals on the lawn. Fireflies live in the ground so lawn chemicals can make a yard uninhabitable for them, and there are a lot more lawns being chemically treated now than there were 30, 40 years ago.
I’ve got some of the downy woodpeckers – in fact, they had three babies this spring; I got to see mama and papa downy introduce the young ones to the suet feeder in the back yard. I’ve also got a pair of red-bellied woodpeckers and at least one northern flicker. The flicker was doing the drumming on the metal fireplace cap early in the morning back in the spring. It took a few times of it waking me up to determine that the neighbor wasn’t doing something weird in the driveway next door at 6:30 am. He’s given up on it now; either he found a lady as a result or whatever dirt daubers or whatever that nested in the fp cap got eaten.
My favorite back yard critters are the squirrels, though. I’ve got one young female squirrel that’s pretty tame and about a half-dozen total that will visit the porch if I’m outside, looking for a handout. It’s really fun to see the cat deal with it – the tame squirrel is very curious of her, will walk right up to her and sniff at her. The cat long ago decided that she doesn’t really want to tangle with a squirrel, so when this brash tame one gets practically right on top of her, it freaks her out. The other day, the tame squirrel tried to climb up into the cat’s lounge chair with her. The cat will raise up to look menacing when something like that happens, but that’s about as far as she goes. She will, however, make a wild dash around the yard if there are a bunch of squirrels on the ground, just to drive them up the trees. It’s her way of asserting her authoritah, I guess.
With the chipmunks, though, she shows no mercy.
RoonieRoo
Sadly we have a lot fewer honeybees this year. Our drought last year did sombre real damage to the Texas honeybee population.
Chet
Global warming is the reason. Many insect species overwinter as larvae or pupae (I think, I’ll have to check with my wife) or migrate to avoid the cold, and either way it’s likely that the warmer winters mean that more individuals survive to the spring and summer. That’s why you’re seeing these high populations of various insects. We’re just not having the kind of winters that would keep these populations in check, anymore.
scav
Late to the CA bug fest, but where I grew up there was a place the ladybugs wintered and you could you could pick them up in grapefruit-sized handfuls and they’d just sort of dozily wiggle a little. And there was a place near Santa Barbara where the Monarchs could be found in the hundreds in the Eucalyptus. Come to think of it, there were a fair number of mothy type bugs in SB. For the Lightning bug / Mosquito mixed blessing one had to come to the Midwest though.
Steeplejack
@jl:
Well, then, wouldn’t California in fact be less buggy, because back East you don’t have to go looking for the bugs. QED. (LOL.)
jl
@Steeplejack: Not my fault if these eastern people put their cities in buggy places. In some parts of the country, folks have more sense.
And in golden state lala land, as scav above notes, the mass quantities of bugs that we do have near cities, are nice bugs, thank you very much.
Scav: thanks for reminding me. I went to see the Monarchs out by Santa Barbara once. Amazing sight. Very beautiful.
Edit: but when I went, there were thousands of Monarchs. The trees and air were full of them. Like something out a dream.
JGabriel
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John Cole @ Top:
Don’t know how the weather has been in WV, but in NYC the temps have been more seasonally appropriate (typically mid-60s to low 80s) for June than they have been in a number of years. Seems like June temps have been soaring into the mid-90s quite frequently for the past decade or two.
So the more moderate temps may be the reason you’re seeing more fireflies and monarchs — they’re not getting baked out.
Or maybe there’s some other reason. I’m just guessing.
.
henqiguai
Bunch of wannabe entomologists (me, I haven’t noticed any fireflies or monarchs yet; north-central Massachusetts).
But over fifty replies and no-one picked up on
I’m disappointed. Read that and was expecting all sorts of comments on tappas.
RedKitten
A couple of months ago, I received some reports at work saying that there are going to be a lot more red admiral butterflies this year, due to extremely favourable wintering conditions further south.
I hadn’t heard anything about monarchs or fireflies, but it’s not unreasonable to think that those same conditions would benefit them as well…
RedKitten
Oh, and wee Cole is absolutely adorable. What a dumpling!!!
Nate
Re: bugs in California. Flying bugs are not as prevalent in places where there’s lots of wind, for the fairly predictable reason that it’s hard to fly in strong winds.
But generally speaking, California is the most ecologically rich state because of the altitude changes and the ocean create loads of micro-habitats that promote diversity. Lots of bugs, just not necessarily flying ones near the ocean.
As for the apparent increase in some species, @Chet is right. The winter was mild, so more insects survived. Good for fireflies (which are really beetles), butterflies, etc, but also good for ticks and other pests too.
Singular
Seriously cute bambino. And what’s not to understand about breeders? My daughter is coming up for her first birthday and her (pretty constant) smile is worth every bit of attendant hassle :)
Beth in VA
John,
You might have vinegar gnats (or called vinegar flies), that look much like fruit flies. Being attracted to wine makes sense.
Last year we had all these fruit flies in the house and couldn’t figure out why–no fruit in sight–but my friend the entomologist said it was a good year for vinegar gnats. You can get rid of them by putting out a small bowl of vinegar with a drop of detergent (that traps them).
maryQ
As a former fruitfly geneticist who was very fond of opening a beer when I sat at the ‘scope for my evening flywork sessions, when I had time for such things, I say that anyone that has never drunk a fly-infused beverage or swallowed a few flies is a wimp.
SectarianSofa
@John Cole
Well, I don’t understand us breeders, so I’m glad you do. I like the kids, love them, really, but the thing is they still have to grow up in this dumb fucking world. Case number eleventy-billion-seventy-fucking-five: It blew my mind a couple days ago when I found out that a person I talk to regularly, thinking I was making some sort of progress in expanding his worldview, started talking about the Republican Colbert providing balance to Democrat Jon Stewart. He didn’t believe me at first when I, aghast, explained that the Colbert persona was an act. I am surprised, unpleasantly, when I least expect it. I should move to the country, look at the stars. I guess it’s the best thing for the kids.
MonkeyBoy
Country hicks are famous for drinking their beverages out of mason jars. What is rarely mentioned is that one reason for this is that the jars accept screw on lids which are good for keeping bugs out – sort of like the lids on beer steins.
Barry
@JoyfulA: “I saw the first Baltimore oriole since my childhood, which was a very long time ago. It was going from one flower to the next on a tulip tree.”
In 2010/11, I saw the first ones I ever saw (SE MI).
And the same for fireflies; when I was a kid they were rare and mystical. Now they are common.
LiberalTarian
If the fruit flies are really bothersome, you can DIY trap then with a bottle/jar, a piece of paper and some vinegar (or decrepit wine). Fill the bottle/jar half full with the vinegar/wine. Form a cone w the paper and invert it onto the bottle/jar. Make the end of the cone a small hole so the fruit flies can get in, tape to jar. The fruit flies will go in, but the generally don’t get back out. Add some sugar once in a while to refresh it. They are attracted to the smell of the fermentation. They won’t all fall for it, but it will drive down their pesky numbers!!
Lex
More spring rain = more fireflies. Also, more mosquitos. Ah, well.
Also, forgive me if someone upthread mentioned this and I missed it, but fireflies actually are a variety of beetle. Just not the bothersome kind.
I posted 60 seconds of video of fireflies in my fiancee’s next-door neighbor’s back yard on YouTube Friday night just because it looked cool and relaxed me to look at it.