Turkey in the Thorns

I've been seeing turkeys in my backyard lately, and in the woods, too, after a few years of not seeing them. They are fun to see, because by backyard standards they are enormous birds. I've seen the male displaying his tail feathers, and naturally mating displays lead to questions about where turkeys lay their eggs, what kind of nest do they build, where do they nest, the kinds of things I just wonder about and don't go to the trouble of looking up. Any why look something up in a book or on the internet when you might just happen upon the answer when you're walking around your backyard looking for bugs?

Backyard Bird Eggs of the Day:

 There is a part of our new land that used to be a field, and has been filling up with invasive plants like autumn olive and multiflora rose for the past 30 years. We have been working sporadically since we bought it to remove the invasive plants, and right now it's still thickly thicketed, but there are paths through it where we have cut back the invasive plants. Today I was walking along one of the paths on my bug walk, and saw movement out of the corner of my eye. I looked and saw and animal under one of the bushes that I had been cutting about a week and a half ago. I realized it was a turkey, and she dashed off into the brush, and then I saw why–she had been sitting on her nest full of eggs. I took the picture and hurried away, in another direction, and I made sure to make noise so she would be able to hear that I was moving farther and farther away (I don't know what made me do that, I have no idea if that mattered). I didn't move closer for a better look, because I wanted her to get back to the nest as soon as possible. So now, I know where turkeys nest. I feel like I provided that spot for her, because that was a pretty thickly tangled spot before. I didn't look closer to see what the nest was like, or how many eggs were in it. Based on when I was working there, I know that the eggs were laid in about the last 9 days. A quick internet search tells me that turkeys will lay one egg per day for 9-11 days, and then they take 26-28 days to hatch, all hatching within about 24 hours. So I guess we can't work in that part of the field for quite some time, but they will all be gone from the nest within a day of hatching, so it's not like when the robins nest on the porch and we have to wait for them to learn to fly before we can use the front door again. On the other hand, the robins hatch much faster, so all in all, it's about the same amount of time that we have to spend accommodating wild birds. Not a problem, we have plenty of other areas that need work.

Today's bug walk was divided because I was working around rain showers. I actually just stayed outside in the rain at one point, sheltering the camera under my shirt, because the sun was out, and I figured it wouldn't keep up for long. It was one of those days when the weather can't make up its mind about what it wants to do. I have those days myself.

Backyard Bug of the Day:

 Beetle. I don't know what kind, but it's purple, so it's awesome. I didn't get great pictures, but I don't care, it's BBotD anyway because it's a purple beetle.

Other Bugs:

 Beetle on crabapple flower. It appears to be eating holes in the petal instead of feeding on nectar or pollen.

 This might be  a species of soldier beetle. I am not in the mood to try to identify beetles at the moment, after the fungus/sap beetle fiasco. I didn't see any of those today, by the way. The tree they were on has stopped oozing sap except for a tiny trickle. The fungus is still there, though, which I guess says something about what kind of beetles they were. They hung around for the sap, but not for the fungus.

There were ants everywhere today:

 On leafy spurge

 On flowering crabapple

 On unfurling leaves.

They are also building nests between the paving stones of the front walk, and crawling up the side of the house, and I am not so thrilled about that.

Stilt bugs:

Assassin bug nymphs:

 This one caught what might be a small wasp.

 Leaf hopper

I have a rule that any bug that lands on me is required to pose for pictures. Almost none of them follow this rule. This one did:

 Leaf-footed bug

 Wasp in flowering crabapple

 I found these katydid eggs a few weeks ago, and I went looking for them again today, thinking maybe that with leaves out now they might be hatching, since there's now food for them. There were only three eggs left, and since there were no traces of the others, no empty egg cases, I think probably they were food for something else instead. That has happened to every group of katydid eggs I have ever found.

Arachnid Appreciation:
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