Bug Squad

Collembola! Watch the springtails spring! Over the last several days, Art Shapiro, professor of evolution and ecology at the University of Caifornia, Davis, has patrolled a UC Davis sidewalk checking out a huge volume of springtails.

Noted butterfly expert Art Shapiro of UC Davis sees about 40 yellow sulphur butterflies, aka alfalfa butterflies, during alfalfa-cutting time. We saw one yesterday. It was fluttering over by the tennis courts, corner of Russell Boulevard and Howard Way, on the University of California, Davis campus.

A field of green ribboned in yellow. Anyone who drives down Pedrick Road in Dixon, Calif., and sees the spectacular sunflower fields can't help but smile. Yellow sunflowers do that to you. They make you smile.

It's a perfect example of "the bad, the ugly and the good." In that order. Not "the good, the bad and the ugly." The yellow starthistle (Centaurea solstitialis) is the kind of obnoxious weed you wish would go away forever.

First you give them roots, then you give them wings. That's what's happening in our bee condo, a wooden block (nest) with drilled holes for leafcutting bees (Megachile). They flew in, laid their eggs, provisioned the nests with pollen and leaf fragments, and capped the holes. We had 11 tenants.