Diary of a Madman

December 26. Having near at hand Gogol's collection of stories, I read (actually re-read since I'd originally read the stories many years ago) the short and bizarre 'Diary of a Madman.' This story contains some very amusing passages, plus there are striking similarities to Dostoyevsky' s 'Notes from the Underground' and Melville's 'Bartleby, the Scriviner." Perhaps, at some point, I'll return to these journal pages and recognize that same mad grin invented by these mad protagonists... 'Journal of a Mad Naturalist.'

Another frigid day. The forecast is for the final week of 2017 to be below zero, consistently cold. I set out some dried mealworms for the Chickadees and Nuthatches but they have yet to find them. My order of live blackworms arrived at the pet shop, food supply for the overwintering dragonfly nymphs in my office. I dropped a small, writhing glob and as they dispersed slowly through the cold water I watched, with satisfaction, the large Macromia nymph capture one with ease.

Photographed another trap nest. Again it looks to be an Aphid Wasp nest, but the inner most cells held empty pupae, so the nest had held another species earlier in the year, the Aphid Wasp that provisioned this nest was the second wasps to make use of this particular segment of Joe-Pye Weed stem.

I also photographed a batch of exuviae that Janet Nelson had collected in June from Lake Kabetogama. This batch consisted of four Ladona julia and twelve Epitheca nymphs (probably E. spinigera).

Posted on 27 de dezembro de 2017, 01:51 PM by scottking scottking

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Fotos / Sons

Observador

scottking

Data

Dezembro 26, 2017 05:35 PM CST

Descrição

Aphid Wasp, larvae prepupa stage
Joe Pye Weed stem section
Northfield, Minnesota

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