A SUBURBAN THICKET

     Several years ago, I dug a hole in the ground between a tall pussy willow bush and a forsythia in our suburban yard in southeastern Pennsylvania.  I placed a 100 gallon, plastic fish pond in that cavity under the shade of that shrubbery.  

     Over the years, several other kinds of vegetation grew around that pond, including a wisteria, a few rose-of-Sharon bushes and a deadly nightshade vine.  And an English ivy vine crawled up and spread across the pussy willow.  That ivy begins to bloom early in September.  Although that jungle of greenery around the pond is trimmed back every year, it still is about twelve feet across and approximately forty feet in circumference.

     On the sunny afternoon of September 4, 2021, we were sitting on our back deck, which is about thirty feet from the pond.  The rose-of-Sharons and English ivy were blooming and the ivy blossoms were swarming with small insects there to sip nectar.  Looking at those flowers, and the green foliage among them with sixteen power binoculars, I could identify many insects on those blooms in that thicket of plants.

     Over the years, I saw insects on the pussy willow, including a cluster of willow aphids on the bark, Japanese beetles chewing on leaves, lady bug beetles and fireflies flashing through the night.  But I never saw so many insects on the pussy willow and its English ivy hanging from its limbs as I did on September fourth.  

     Four kinds of butterflies fluttered among the rose-of-Sharon flowers to sip nectar, including cabbage whites, yellow clearwings, a monarch and a type of small skipper.  The monarch was a real beauty in that jungle of plants.

    A variety of buzzing bees, wasps and hornets visited the ivy blooms to get nectar.  There were a few each of honey bees, bumble bees, carpenter bees, digger wasps with their reddish abdomens, yellow jackets, bald-faced hornets and cicada killers.  

     Female digger wasps dig underground to find June beetle larvae.  They paralyze grubs they find and lay an egg on each one.  The wasp larva consumes the beetle larva, pupates and emerges as an adult.

     Worker female yellow jackets and bald-faced hornets capture flies and other small insects and feed them to their larvae in their large paper nests, the jackets underground and the hornets in the trees.  

     Female cicada killers paralyze annual cicadas, a few of which were whining on the pussy willow, deposit them in underground tunnels and lay an egg on each cicada.  The wasp larva eats its cicada.

     Several each of iridescent green bottle flies and long-legged flies, and hover flies were also on the ivy blooms.  The long-legged flies were there to capture and ingest tiny insects. 

     There were a few other kinds of insects on the pussy willow and the other plants in that thicket of vegetation.  A grasshopper was there for whatever reason.  A praying mantis lurked among the foliage to capture and eat whatever insects it could catch.  And there were a few each of black carpenter ants, lady bug beetles, lacewings and spotted lanternflies.  The lady bugs and lacewings were there to eat aphids.  And the lanternflies probably sucked sap from tender willow twigs. 

     Our suburban thicket of vegetation certainly was filled with insects that warm afternoon in early September.  One can only imagine how valuable those jungles, larger or smaller, are to all kinds of wildlife.  Even thickets on lawns are valuable to them.         

     





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