17 September, 2017

QR, Mexico, 2017

While in Mexico for a research trip, I also took a little time to observe some biology. :-) I would love to spend some more time in this region doing nothing but observing, but there are so many other things to do!

Highlights for me were several new snails, a cool grasshopper, three different species of scorpion, a really interesting beetle, and a beautiful Velvet Ant (wingless wasp).

http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/beschwar?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=&search_on=&quality_grade=any&reviewed=&geoprivacy=&identifications=any&captive=&place_id=7426&swlat=&swlng=&nelat=&nelng=&taxon_name=&taxon_id=&day=&month=8&year=2017&order_by=observed_on&order=desc&rank=&hrank=&lrank=&taxon_ids%5B%5D=&d1=&d2=&created_on=&site=&tdate=&list_id=&filters_open=true&view=map

Posted on 17 September, 2017 21:50 by beschwar beschwar | 0 comments | Leave a comment

19 November, 2016

Unidentified (as of November 19) moths from Devils River at Dolan Creek

Associate with this post are a number of moths that I have so far been unable to identify. If anyone knows any of these, or can help narrow them down some more, that would be wonderful! I know how much time this has taken me to get tentative IDs for all the other moths from this trip, so I very much appreciate all the help so far and in the future. In the meantime, I'll keep working on them.

The moth diversity on this trip was amazing to me, and it was fun to do some biogeeking after-hours during the field trip.

@benhutchins
@johnkarges
@gcwarbler
@greglasley
@krancmm
@aguilita

Another journal entry with a few more details for this trip can be found here:

http://www.inaturalist.org/journal/beschwar/7875-october-28-29-devils-river-at-dolan-falls-trip

Dolan Falls Preserve is owned by The Nature Conservancy and is not open to the public. Access is through special permission only. The preserve is adjacent to Devil's River State Natural Area, which is open to the public on a restricted schedule.

Posted on 19 November, 2016 17:59 by beschwar beschwar | 27 observations | 2 comments | Leave a comment

October 28-29, Devils River at Dolan Falls trip

During a Karst Hydrogeology and Geomorphology class field trip, we also made lots of biological observations, especially at night with a moth light. The observations related to with this post are mostly moths, and the number of moths and other critters attracted to the light each night was simply amazing!

If you would like to see these observations, you can search my observations for the dates October 28 and 29.

I'll also create a post that is associated with the moths that I could not figure out IDs for using the Moth Photographers Group and Bugguide websites. Some of these are real stumpers for me, even though they look like they should be easy!

I was privileged to have Alan Cressler join us, and he took a number of amazing photographs of critters during our night walks, as well as landscape photos. Those can be found here:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/alan_cressler/albums/72157674858039080

As always, it is an amazing experience to stay at the Devils River, and I sincerely thank The Nature Conservancy for allowing me to return to this area with my classes to learn about water in a karst desert environment.

Dolan Falls Preserve is owned by The Nature Conservancy and is not open to the public. Access is through special permission only. The preserve is adjacent to Devil's River State Natural Area, which is open to the public on a restricted schedule.

Posted on 19 November, 2016 17:46 by beschwar beschwar | 0 comments | Leave a comment

October 28-29, Devils River at Dolan Falls trip

During a Karst Hydrogeology and Geomorphology class field trip, we also made lots of biological observations, especially at night with a moth light. The observations related to with this post are mostly moths, and the number of moths and other critters attracted to the light each night was simply amazing!

If you would like to see these observations, you can search my observations for the dates October 28 and 29.

I'll also create a post that is associated with the moths that I could not figure out IDs for using the Moth Photographers Group and Bugguide websites. Some of these are real stumpers for me, even though they look like they should be easy!

I was privileged to have Alan Cressler join us, and he took a number of amazing photographs of critters during our night walks, as well as landscape photos. Those can be found here:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/alan_cressler/albums/72157674858039080

As always, it is an amazing experience to stay at the Devils River, and I sincerely thank The Nature Conservancy for allowing me to return to this area with my classes to learn about water in a karst desert environment.

Dolan Falls Preserve is owned by The Nature Conservancy and is not open to the public. Access is through special permission only. The preserve is adjacent to Devil's River State Natural Area, which is open to the public on a restricted schedule.

Posted on 19 November, 2016 17:46 by beschwar beschwar | 200 observations | 0 comments | Leave a comment

26 October, 2016

Big Thicket Preserve Mini BioBlitz

Whew.... I'm finally done processing our photos for observations other than snails from the BioBlitz. We had a great time (thanks to @sambiology for organizing it!) and made a ton of really cool observations, spending as much time as possible outside observing things. I think our favorites were all the reptiles we saw, including a pair of courting Southern Copperheads, followed by a pretty little Cottonmouth only about 100' away.

http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/4437965
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/4437890

I'll keep working on the snails and post them as I get ID's on them, but that may take me a couple more weeks. I see that we crossed 3000 observations posted to the project tonight, which is a tremendous number! It is amazing what a small group of excited bio-nerds can do in one weekend, eh? :-)

Posted on 26 October, 2016 04:11 by beschwar beschwar | 1 comment | Leave a comment

31 July, 2016

Odonates of Montana - July 2016

I'm grouping all my Odonate observations from my Montana trip so that I can find them easier, and also so I hope folks might be able to help me ID things a bit faster. :-)

I was and still am pretty unfamiliar with Dragons and Damsels in the north, and before going on this trip I looked on iNat and was surprised to find that there were only about 25 observations from the entire state. Seems there is a hole in the USA for Odonates on iNat! Odonate Central lists many more records for the state, but many of them lack photos, so I was still not quite sure what I would see.

With this in mind, I set a silly goal of doubling the number of iNat Odonate observations while on this trip.

As luck would have it (or not, for Ode hunting), I spent much of my time at higher altitudes on a caving expedition, and the weather was pretty cold and rainy the entire time - not great for finding these guys. I also think that the higher altitude was too early in the season for them. I did see a couple damselfly larvae in a mid-elevation stream, but never saw any adults.

In any event, I'll keep working on IDs for my unknowns, but if @jimjohnson , @greglasley, @scottking, or anyone else who might be familiar with this area has the time to look at some of these, I sure would appreciate it.

Posted on 31 July, 2016 19:35 by beschwar beschwar | 25 observations | 5 comments | Leave a comment

Trip to Pagoda and Turtlehead Mountains in the Bob Marshall Wilderness, Montana, USA

This Journal entry is really a way to group all my observations for plants and flowers (mostly) that I have tried to identify, but have relatively little confidence in, because I don't know much about flowers in Montana.

Much of the information I have learned is from the Montana Field Guide, which is a very nice resource.

http://fieldguide.mt.gov/default.aspx

If anyone knows plants in this region, or knows of someone who does, I sure would love to know whether any of my IDs are correct, and what some of my unknown flowers/plants are.

Posted on 31 July, 2016 05:32 by beschwar beschwar | 80 observations | 0 comments | Leave a comment

17 June, 2016

Trip to Virginia: May 28 to June 10

I headed east for an annual speleology research trip, and was determined to make some more above-ground observations this year than in the past. I was especially determined to see some new Dragonflies and Damselflies.

The trip started off less than inspiring, with flooding rains for the first 500 of 1250 miles, and rain at our forest campsite for the first week causing huge mud issues. But my work was in caves, so we really didn't care too much.

I kept an eye out for dragonflies during the first week or so, and only got a photos of a Common Whitetail. I did briefly see what I believe was a large Cruiser of some sort, patrolling a woodland road, but it flew away and never returned.

At the end of the trip, I had a couple days when I had some spare time, and I visited some local US Forest Service lakes and a large beaverdam complex in a fairly isolated headwaters stream. These sites were much more satisfying, and I saw many, many Odonates, only 50% or so of which I was able to photograph. One group that I never managed to photograph a single individual in were the Darners; I saw a number of them, but they refused to perch for me, and every time I scared one up in a meadow or along a trail, it didn't land again in sight.

The observations linked with this entry also include plants, flowers, herps, a few birds, a few fungi, and terrestrial snails. Sorting and ID'ing will still take me a few days, so it is not yet a complete set of observations for the trip.

Posted on 17 June, 2016 04:02 by beschwar beschwar | 66 observations | 0 comments | Leave a comment

14 May, 2016

Hunting for Dragons with Greg Lasley, Eric Isley, and Robert Salinas.

After a long semester, I decided to take a day off and spend an entire day looking for critters and other interesting things. Greg graciously offered to show me around Southwest Metro Park, and later Hornsby Bend.

As soon as I got out of my vehicle at SW Metro Park, I met Eric and Robert for the first time, and was treated to several new and exciting dragonflies, for me at least. Banded, Halloween, and Marl Pennants, Eastern Ringtails, and Widow Skimmers were all found and photographed in the first 30 minutes.

Another real treat was to see a Four-striped Leaftail, another first for me, and many Sulpur-tipped Clubtails (I had only ever seen a single female before this).

The odonate diversity was probably the highest I've ever seen in a single site so far in my early 'career' hunting for odonates: I documented 21 species at SW Metro today (6 new species for me), and 12 at Hornsby Bend (one new species for me) later in the afternoon (the weather wasn't very good for odonate hunting later in the afternoon), with only a couple species found at Hornsby that were not at SW Metro. Another new dragonfly for me was the Thornbush Dasher in an old sand pit near Hornsby Bend. Thornbush and Blue Dashers were everywhere in the pit, and I only saw two other dragonflies there: a Roseate Skimmer and a Widow Skimmer.

Overall, this was a wonderful day of nature fun. Thanks very much Greg, Eric and Robert for sharing your knowledge and this site with me!

Posted on 14 May, 2016 21:42 by beschwar beschwar | 67 observations | 2 comments | Leave a comment