The purpose of this feature is to give scout leaders, educators and naturalists an idea of some of the natural events coming up each month. We will try to cover a variety of natural events ranging from sky events to calling periods of amphibians, bird and mammal watching tips, prominent wildflowers and anything else that comes to mind. We will also note prominent constellations appearing over the eastern horizon at mid-evening each month for our area for those who would like to learn the constellations. If you have suggestions for other types of natural information you would like to see added to this calendar, let us know!

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Notes From June 2023

 In June we had a couple of enjoyable nights going on backyard insect safaris. I have a relatively new macro lens from Laowa that allows zooming in to two times life-size on the camera sensor, and this often results in some very interesting surprises. You often focus without being able to fully see the details in the viewfinder. This month we concentrated on Harvestmen, often called daddy longlegs or granddaddy longlegs, and Green Lacewings.

An urban legend about Harvestmen claims they are the most venomous spider on earth, but their mouth is too small to break the skin of a human. They actually have no venom glands at all. They use the small pinchers on the tips of their chelicerae to subdue and break apart prey. Unlike spiders, they do not have silk glands and they do not spin webs.

Although I would rather not see a bee species as prey, in general Harvestmen are regarded as quite beneficial to outdoor and garden environments, keeping down pest species. I did not see the Harvestman catch this bee, so it may have simply found one dead.

Harvestmen are omnivorous, catching and eating small insects but also eating some plants and fungi. They also feed on dead material and waste.

Young Harvestmen are said to resemble adults, but go through four to eight nymphal stages before they reach maturity at 2-3 months old. Most species live about a year.

They primarily feed on the pollen and nectar of flowers, and honeydew produced by aphids. The adult at right is perching on Buttonbush.

Lacewings are members of the order Neuroptera. The order name is Latin for net-wing and refers to the strong venation in the wings. Green Lacewings belong to the family Chrysopidae (gold-faced), referring to the golden eyes of some species. There are 87 species of Green Lacewings in the United States and Canada.

Both the adult and larval forms have some clever adaptations to avoid predators. The adults are sensitive to the wavelengths of echolocation emitted by foraging bats, and they will immediately take evasive action if they encounter a bat. They close their wings, making their echolocational signature smaller, and drop to the ground.

Tiny hairs on the wings prevent the wings from sticking to spider webs and they do not struggle to get free like most insects. Instead, they quietly bite through any strands of web holding their body or feet and slide free of the web. They also emit a foul odor when attacked.

Some species can generate very low frequency sounds by vibrating their abdomen during courtship. These sounds are around 60 hz and delivered once per second to once every few seconds, depending on the species.

Some adults overwinter. In the summer months the time from egg to adulthood is only about four weeks. Total lifespan is not much longer, to around six weeks. The tiny white eggs are distinctive, attached to the bottom of leaves and on short (1/2 inch) stalks.

We often find them on the trunks of conifers. Any small patch of lichen should be checked, particularly if it is mostly circular and a little convex and appears to be slightly raised above the bark. You can often find them in the winter months.

They are voracious predators. They are sometimes called "aphid lions". Other prey include caterpillars and other insect larvae and eggs. They forage by swinging from side to side, and when they strike a prey item they grasp it.

They will sometimes bite a human, and with the jaws visible in the image below, you probably do not want that to happen. The maxillae are hollow, allowing a digestive secretion to be injected into the bite, dissolving the organs of their insect prey in seconds. But they are a good species to have around a garden. Some plant species that have been suggested for attracting lacewings are calliopsis, cosmos, sunflowers and dandelions.

Update July 23rd: Venus is still easy to see, and will be for a few more days. The crescent will be getting larger and thinner. I actually had no trouble finding Venus in 10x30 image-stabilized binoculars and with my naked eye before sunset on July 22nd. Clouds hid the Sun and that probably made it easier to spot. It was 17 degrees above the horizon, about due west. It mirrored the waxing crescent Moon. It looked like a mirror image of the picture above. See how many more days you can keep it in sight.

Some tips: Start before sunset, of course keeping your binoculars well away from the Sun, which is about 25 degrees to the north (to your right as you're facing west). Otherwise you could do permanent damage to your eyes. Use a compass and look due west about two fist-widths at arm's length above the true horizon and then scan the area down to the horizon. Start about 20 minutes before local sunset. I spotted it yesterday about 13 minutes before sunset. I was able to spot Venus with the naked eye when I thought to try about 3 minutes later. It's important to spot it as soon as you can, because as it gets darker it the crescent shape becomes harder and harder to see. Unless you have unusually good vision, the crescent shape does not reveal itself to the naked eye.

Mars continues to fade and drifts through Leo this month. Look for it above and to the left of Venus in the western sky at dusk. Telescopically the disk of the planet is less than 5 seconds of an arc in apparent diameter, making surface details very difficult to see. In binoculars you should still be able to pick up its reddish tint.

Mercury will be low in the west after sunset during the last week of the month. Look for it about 30 to 40 minutes after sunset.

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