June 22, 2008
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Too Many Bugs, No Frogs
Earlier this year, after the thaw, when the frogs needed standing water in the muskeg for their mating and spawning, there was none. In years when the muskeg is flooded at that season, there are weeks of frog song in the evenings. This year, we heard no more than a few isolated chirps, and the muskeg isn’t providing any habitat for tadpoles this summer.
We’re having a rainy summer so far, which is good for the garden and helps keep down the danger of wildfires. The rains started too late to do the frogs any good, but they have been quite beneficial for the mosquitoes and wasps. I see wasps and hear their buzz every time I go outside. I’m always checking the eaves and the corners of the outhouse, etc., for their paper nests. I have dreamed of wasps twice last week, but in my dream they were red and black, not black and yellow like the real ones. I’m not sure what that means.
New hatches of mosquitoes follow every rain, and it has rained 4 or 5 times a week this month. Yesterday, I was beset by two different types of mosquitoes, one soft-bodied and slow, the other quick and well-armored. Most of the latter type got away, and I slapped myself stingingly a few times overkilling the former ones.
We use transparent sticky strips on our windows to trap flying insects, and don’t use poisons. I put one of the strips on the inside of the shade on my bedside reading lamp. The previous strip lasted through two summers and trapped fewer mosquitoes than the one in there now has trapped in only about six weeks. This is a great year for flying insects. I’ll bet the dragonflies will feast themselves into fatitude when they hatch. Their hatching is always late, well after their prey’s.
There are also, in the sticky stuff, several noseeum gnats and a couple of green aphids. I do not like mosquitoes, but my antipathy toward them is as nothing compared to the way I feel about noseeums and aphids. Stealthier than skeeters, noseeums often aren’t noticed when they land on me, and even if I feel a little tickle, I look down and, seeing no bug, of course I don’t slap it. Then it bites. Their bite is truly a bite, not like a mosquito’s sting. Noseeums remove a chunk of flesh and then suck up the blood as it pools in the wound.
Gross. I don’t like noseeums. And if the aphids get into my houseplants, the plants may have to go. *sigh* Not exactly enjoying my role here as insect prey and provider.
Comments (13)
we are besieged by mosquitoes as well
Not much rain here this summer, so not too many buggies either.
I don’t keep houseplants because my cats will eat them. I planted some basil on the front porch and now hope that the bunnies we’ve seen in the yard won’t be eating it. Not sure if rabbits will eat them?
I have a bird’s nest outside my office window and it is great entertainment for the cats, watching them fly by to feed their young.
Namaste! Happy Sunday!
A little citronella goes a long way to fight the flying thingies.
“my role here as insect prey and provider.” My flowerbeds and garden too.
MN had so many mosquitoes i wonder how we after awhile went without insect repellent. My dad said you get used to it by letting them eat you the first of spring He said ” it builds resistance.” I don’t do that anymore. but I remember burning those coils a lot and getting headaches often. I found that for myself skinsosoft works.
@lacemagicke - Around here, they don’t seem to notice citronella. The only theory I have to explain it is that in places where citronella grows, the insects know it is toxic to them, so they avoid anything that smells like it. Here, they have never experienced the real thing, so they don’t react to the essence.
Our cats eat my houseplants, too. They are their only source of greens through the winter, and the only greens all year for the two who choose not to go outside. Two genera are their favorites: Tradescantia and Chlorophytum. When I raised rabbits, they liked these plants, too. I have never seen rabbits eating basil, and my domestic rabbits didn’t like it. I don’t grow toxic plants.
I’ll have to look up noseeums. I want to see what they look like. Don’t sound too friendly. The frog loss is not good. I’m glad that the dragonfly will help, but I have a bad feeling about the loss of frogs and bees. This spring my childrens bus stop that is in another neighborhood about three miles from my house was ”littered” with hundreds of dead bees. Anyway…bring on the dragonfly. Oh that reminds me…I’ll have to leave you a comment on your other site regarding Medicine Cards.
@Ikwa - skinsosoft is a popular bug repellent around here, but it aggravates my allergies. I can’t stand DEET, either. At night, when they are really thick, we sometimes burn a coil next to an open window in another room. It helps destroy the bugs without doing much harm to us mammals.
@Jaynebug - There’s good reason to hope that the frogs will return. Biologists at U of A in Fairbanks studied arctic wood frogs like those we have here, and found that they can survive at least five winters frozen underground. They had two years of abundant water in our little muskeg in ’05 and ’06, and this year are doing okay around the lakes where there is plenty of water for them.
That disease that’s killing off hives of domestic bees will have repercussions throughout the biosphere. I hope there will be enough resistant survivors to eventually repopulate. We don’t even know how many plant species depend on them.
@SuSu - I have aroma plants and pines that they love. I have a wild yard to give them a home if they choose. I share your hopes for the bees.
I think we have frogs and lizards this year… we always have mosquitoes, but they don’t seem so bad this year… yesterday I went down to the edge of the lake and there were some obnoxious flying things, but mostly they were harmless. Don’t know what they were though.
Stay on guard, you keeper of the flying things, lol!
Hugs, Tricia
I’ve noticed a lot of bugs this year, too. From noseeums to those damned green flies (their bites hurt so much). It’s crazy.
Noseeums bother me the most……..
I have mosquitoes. I seldom see frogs here in Hong Kong.
We’re thick with mosquitoes here, too. Nasty little bloodsuckers