Bug Squad

It's a native bee. It's a pollinator. And it's a leafcutter. This morning we admired this female leafcutter bee, Megachile fidelis, as identified by native pollinator specialist Robbin Thorp, emeritus professor of entomology at the University of California, Davis.

So you're walking through a sunflower field and you're seeing lots of honey bees foraging on the flowers. But wait, look over there. Are those beetles? They are. Melyrid or blister beetles (Melyridae family) and spotted cucumber beetles (family Chrysomelidae) are frequently found on sunflowers.

If you're around creeks, ponds and irrigation ditches, watch for the dragonflies. We spotted scores of variegated meadowhawks (Sympetrum corruptum) last Sunday along an irrigation ditch bordering a sunflower field in Winters, Calif.

So you want to capture an image of a praying mantis. You have to find one first. Sometimes it's a case of hide 'n seek--it hides, you seek. Mantises, or mantids, are camouflaged.

You can't drive by a sunflower field without smiling. Their golden heads turned toward the sun, their fringed petals aglow, sunflowers set an amicable scene in a world sometimes darkened by strife and sorrow. Take, for example, the sunflower fields along Pedrick Road in Dixon, Calif.