More from Rugosa World

A July bioblitz of the Rosa rugosa alba in the yard would take hours and hours, and could be done every day and produce new results each day. And this rose bush, about 2 metres high and almost as wide, is mere steps from the front door.

I've been watching a number of Misumena vatia over the past few weeks (inspired by Spider WebWatch). These spiders, ambush predators, stay in one spot for extended periods, making them excellent subjects for long observation. I can see what they're eating, how fast they're growing, and even guess as to when they're pregnant, and then eventually see their egg cases. There's one on the Rugosa now I've been watching for some time that has a prodigious appetite. She moves occasionally as blooms come and go and I can usually find her again by looking for the sucked-dry rose chaffers she's dropped onto the leaves below her chosen spot. This morning she has a moth, and twice now she's had a small bumblebee, which surprised me: small, but not compared to her.

Misumena vatia at Lunch
So there I am, staring at the rose bush, looking for spiders, and now that I'm developing an eye for them I'm seeing that there are many other spiders (and many other critters all together) living there. I was startled by the one below because of its white abdomen. Most of the M. vatia I find on the bush are white, so that's what I look for in a scan, but this little one was no crab spider.

What long, spindly legs you have
The spider is sitting just below a developing rose hip (not an apple), and in the upper left of the picture you can see the leg of the rose chaffer it was wrapping up when I first spotted it, which gives an idea of how small this spider is.

I couldn't see a web, just a few random strands of webbing, and the obvious silk production and webbish behaviour of wrapping prey. I hunted around for an ID, gave up and sent an image to BugGuide. In very short order I had a response (click on the link to see just how short). Take a look at Enoplognatha ovata, a member of the cobweb spider family. I did, and I think they got it!

I really think it is Enoplognatha ovata

Blogger Bioblitz Starts Today!

Finally, suddenly, it is warm here. I went for a walk yesterday along the road through the Stoco Fen, and got downright hot. The skunk cabbages are up, leaves just starting (this is a few weeks later than last year: here is my post on them from April 3, 2006).

April 2, 2006--Way ahead of 2007
They're mostly further back from the road than they were last year because the water level is way down. Saw no turtles, but was treated to the din of a chorus of mink frogs--in water just close enough to the road that I could see them dashing about--not close enough that I could identify them by sight. Mink frogs (Rana septentrionalis) aren't all that easily identified by sight, apparently--easily confused with both green and leopard frogs--so perhaps it just as well I could hear them better than see them. I saw a frog too--reddish brown back, grey underneath. I don't yet know what it was. Too large, I think, to be a tree frog. No mask, so I think not a wood frog... No camera, hence the words only. Browsing as I write I came across wood frogs at Burning Silo--no mask! So perhaps that's what it was--according to other accounts the colouration is within their range of possibilities.

Today, another warm one, is the first day of the Blogger Bioblitz. Should be lots more to see than there would have been last Saturday. On the right, an intrepid crocus braving the snow last Saturday morning. That snow, which fell the Thursday and Friday before was gone by the afternoon, then Sunday night the nor'easter blew in and there was snow on the ground once again. Now we are spending a few days in summer, with cooler temperatures forecast for the early part of the week. As I think I've mentioned before--we are constantly surprised by our weather in southern Ontario, year after year, in spite of its constancy of variation.

The rabbits continue to visit the yard. I now think that there are one or more enterprising males taking advantage of the fact that the availability of bird seed through the winter has made this a regular stop for many rabbits. So they hang around ready to dance with whomever comes along. Because I see them so often, I've got a rabbit search image seared into my brain. Walking yesterday evening I was sure I saw one that turned out to be configured from a combination of grasses and a clod of earth. but then I saw the one below--just about the way it looks in the photo, and this time, rabbit indeed.

See the rabbit? Look for the reddish patch at the back of its neck.
Maybe one or two will turn up to be listed for the Bioblitz. I'm heading out this morning--and have decided to include a little patch of the swamp in the cedar bush as well as a piece of the edge of the far field. So we'll see what we see.