Bug Squad

Mexican sunflowers. Gaillardia. The Hagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility on Bee Biology Road at the University of California, Davis, is awash with autumn colors, despite the persistent rains.

You don't have to travel to Africa to go on safari. You can go on a "bug" safari in your own backyard. And you can stay as little or as long as you like without incurring such costs as air travel, hotel stays, and food expenses.

The locusts are coming! The locusts are coming! No, not the one below, a banded-winged grasshopper (family Acrididae and subfamily Oedipodinae) that we spotted west of the UC Davis campus--and identified by Steve Heydon, senior museum scientist at the Bohart Museum of Entomology.

A gold rush of sorts. When the female Valley carpenter bees forage among the passion flowers (Passiflora), they turn from solid black to a mixture of gold and black. The pollen on their head, thorax and abdomen stands out like magical gold dust, as if sprinkled by the Good Fairy.

The California Buckeye (Junonia coenia), with its bold eyespots and white bars, is an easily recognizable butterfly. The problem: getting close enough for a photo and then patiently waiting for it to open its wings. At the first indication of danger, it flutters away.