Prey For Me!

OK, after that last post about the horrors of Doctor Flies, I thought I should remind you (and myself!) of some of the more lovely and desirable insects that abound here in southern Belize.  Hard to beat a butterfly for starters.  This is one of the beautifully named "Sister" butterflies of the genus Adelpha.  I think it is a smooth-banded sister (A. cythera), but am not certain.  Click here for an excellent site on the sisters and tons of other butterflies.  And click here for music to listen to while you read this post - although Weezer is little confused including an earthworm with his insect friends.

This sister has a little wear (don't we all ...), but will probably last quite a bit longer.  We see them quite often on the back path, but they don't usually slow down long enough for me to get a decent photo.  Happily, this one cooperated.

Keeping with the feminine theme, I have a couple of shots of damselflies.  I think these are female and male pond damsels in the genus Argia, maybe the species pulla.  Love to have confirmation or other ID if anyone knows.

This is probably a female Argia pulla pond damsel.  Found not too far from the Smooth-banded Sister butterfly.

The striking male pond damsel on which I based the Argia pulla ID.  Gorgeous fresh-looking specimen.  It was also along the swamp path near Black Creek.

This dragonfly took my breath away with its Chinese-lacquer-red abdomen.  I had to creep up on it slowly, letting it settle back down on its perch several times as I inched closer and closer.  Still not positive of the ID, but I am pretty sure it is a species of Tropical King Skimmer in the genus Orthemis, probably schmidti.

Also representing the males - a Tropical King Skimmer.  He was about 4 inches long and had a bright red face.  My only shot of the face is so out of focus it is "abstract art".  :-(

Now for the "preying" in the title - a tiny, recently hatched praying mantis nymph.

Not even half an inch long - just a baby.

Such big eyes, the better to see you with.

It will be eating anything it can catch, preying on larger insects once it gets a bit larger itself.  This is probably a Carolina Mantis (Stagmomantis carolina) or perhaps the European Praying Mantis (Mantis religiosa).

This one seems to be asking to stay.

So, don't call the doctor(flies); just prey for me.  I know the damsels, dragons, and mantids will.  Perhaps the good sister will pray for me, too.

Time and Other Things That Fly

2013 is flitting out of our lives and making way for 2014. 

Blue morpho butterfly, always on the move, just like time. 

2013 was an eventful year for us that passed in a blur.  Dennis and Max completed their first full year in Belize and Dennis celebrated a year of being retired.  I retired at the end of June 2013 and relocated to Belize in October.  We got our car imported to Belize too.

We love Belize dragonflies because they love mosquitoes.  This isn't part of the Mosquito Coast for nothing!

We actually haven't seen too many mosquitoes around our place.  The most bothersome insects are the various flies - sand flies, red flies, bottlass (bottle ass) flies, black flies.

Fortunately the dragonflies are voracious and non-discriminating eaters of flying insects.

 I still haven't started trying to key out the dragonflies; there are so many new critters and plants to learn.  Never a dull or boring moment!

Sometimes the air is thick with dragonflies. 

They perch on every little stick or twig to soak up the sun.

Even with all the dragonflies, 2013 brought me another "first" that I could have done without - a mosquito infected me with Dengue Fever earlier this month.  That was a week of hell and then several weeks of recovery.  Seem to be just about over it now.  I think I was mosquito bitten while at the plant nursery - lots of standing water there from flooding and plant watering.

This Tropical/Couch's Kingbird is one of many that reside at our place.

They also are big eaters of insects and are quite acrobatic in their flycatching.  Great entertainment.

 Now - ringing the old year out and the new year in are 2 butterflies.  I haven't ID'ed either of them - something I can do next year!  

Old and tattered, just like 2013.

What other plans for 2014?  Well, Dennis hopes to become a Belize resident.  That means we can bring in our household goods that are currently in storage in Minnesota down to Belize without horrendous import duties.  We would like to get the construction of the addition completed and get solar panels installed.  I would like to become qualified to apply for residency.  But when you get down to it, all that is really important is that we stay healthy and happy and continue to enjoy life in this semi-functional paradise called Belize.

Fresh and pristine, just like 2014.  Notice that it seems to have its head at the top, but really its head is at the bottom.  Don't know what that means for 2014!  We shall see... 

Wishing all the readers of this blog a very Happy, Healthy, and Delightful 2014.

Rainy Days

The scene below, with the view of Greater Monkey Caye obliterated by heavy rain, has been with us off and on for the last 4 or 5 days.  And during each of those days (and nights), several inches of rain has fallen.  The good news is that our water vats are full.  The bad news is that Monkey River and Black Creek are full - and overflowing.  We hear that there are places on the Monkey River Road that are under seven feet of water!  Three or four sunny days with no rain is all it will take to dry out the road.

We run to lower the sun shades and get them lashed down when see rain like this approaching!  They do a good job of keeping the driving rain out of the veranda. 

The heavy rains and high winds have pushed in some higher than usual tides for us; a beachcomber's delight.  Below are a few of the items of interest that have washed up.  This site is wonderful for exploring sea beans.

Except for the green striped sea urchin, the rest of the objects are loosely called sea beans and are seed of various sorts.  There are 2 sea hearts (middle or top row and bottom right), 2 very different coconuts (top left and top right), a hamburger bean, Mucana sp. (bottom left),  bull's eye (bottom right).  Still haven't ID'd the one in the middle. 

During the rainy spells, we do chores inside the cabana.  Dennis is putting little foam sheets behind all the wall cover plates for electrical outlets and switches since they seem to be an entry point for small insects.  Behind one outlet cover plate he found these little pieces of shell.  They are gecko eggshells.  Apparently the geckos also realized that small insects where coming entering through the wall plates.  We love the geckos because they do eat the insects; we love to have them in the cabana.

Delicate shells leftover from gecko eggs fell out of the wall outlet.

It looks like all but one of them was successfully hatched.

The rain has not been constant.  In fact there has been some very pleasant sunshine.  I get outside whenever possible to see what is going on.  The sun drew out this wonderful pair of baselisk lizards.  They are also called Jesus Christ lizards because they can run on water.  They have an extra row of wide scales on the long third toes of their hind feet that give them this ability.  You can see the scales in the photo below  and on the photo of the female if you click on them to see them bigger.

This guy held his ground as I took pictures.

He let me get quite close for a good look at his crest, which is folded back here.

This female does not have a crest, but is more richly colored than the male. Look at the scales on the long toe of her left foot.  These scales enable her to run on water.

She, too, let me get quite close, although she was poised to run into the wood pile if I made any sudden moves! 

The rains also brought out lots of small flying insects, which brought out lots of dragon flies!

The air was thick with dragon flies! 

Nice photo ops when they would land. 

I have not delved into dragonfly ID's yet, but there are at least 4 different kinds.

During breaks in the rain, I managed to walk along the jungle path and saw a large butterfly or moth flitting along.  It finally landed and I was able to take the photo below.

Owl moth with a great eyespot!

Dennis came out of the generator shed after turning the generator off and said "get your camera!"  So I did, and followed him back into the generator shed to see another  impressive moth.

Ascalapha odorata, Black Witch moth.

This moth also likes to fly into our window screen at night when we have lights on. At such a large size (4 to 5 inches across), it looks and sounds like a bat or a bird trying to get inside.

With all the rain also come rainbows.  This one arched across Greater Monkey Caye and seemed especially broad. 

 

 At this point we will forego the pot of gold and settle for some dryer weather!  Of course, we will look back on this rain fondly when we are in the midst of the dry season, so I will try to enjoy the rain while we have it.

Dragons of Autumn

The sun came for about 90 minutes on Sunday and that brought out hordes of dragonflies.  I was able to get a few digitally immortalized and even managed to put names to them, although I stand to be corrected by anyone who knows better.

Meadowhawk, Sympetrum species.  Not sure which one.

Meadowhawk, probably Sympetrum internum - the Cherry-faced Meadowhawk

Aeshna umbrosa - Shadow Darner.  At 7.5 cm, this is a huge beast of a dragon.

Green Darner - Anax junius - female.  Also a beast at 6.8-8.0cm!

Can you see it there toward the bottom?

a cropped view of  the image above.  Looks like the common green darner again, impersonating a drone bomber.

The sun disappeared and with it the dragons.  I hope to see them again in a few days when the weather warms briefly and the sun reappears.

More Belize Dragonflies

Back on October 25^th  I posted some Belize dragonfly photos and asked for help with IDs.  Doug Taron of Gossamer Tapestry kindly used his expertise to ID some of them as tropical dashers and a great pondhawk.  Thanks, Doug! 

After that post, I continued to take photos of the incredible dragonfly activity and got a little more experience in sneaking up on them.  Below are some of the later photos.   

Here is the great pondhawk again.  I just love that green.

This one has some pollen on one of its wings.

They seemed to like to perch on the clothesline.

When you enlarge this image, the wing patches seem to be a dark green color.

    

Is this the same kind as the one that has the pollen its wing?

So many dragonflies in the air almost made me feel that I was suffocating.

This one has a purplish thorax and mauve abdomen.  Never seen one like it before. Randy Emmet has suggested this is a roseate skimmer and after looking at on-line references, I am inclined to agree.  Thanks, Randy!

Additional ones can be seen in my Belize Dragons 2010 Picasa Album. I am hoping for more help from Doug. ;-)