August 26, 2022

Misunderstood Insects at Fort Ridgely

Dragonflies and wasps are two of the most misunderstood insects at the park and across the world.  They both are predators and eat other insects.  Predators keep other insects from getting too common and becoming nuisances to humans and other life on the planet.  The lack of predators for deer in our area has led to them overpopulating.  Even hunting them has not kept them from eating our gardens and getting into trouble in other ways.

a. Dragonflies and Damselflies

I have heard that a dragonfly can eat 100 mosquitos each day.  They are very maneuverable in flight and can catch mosquitos and other insects during flight.  I have seen groups of dragonflies swooping into an area and out again like fighter jets into an enemy airfield.  They have no bombs or rockets to shoot in but pick off insects as they fly in and out.  Birds do the same. 

These two dragonflies show the different colors that dragonflies can have on their bodies as well as wings.  I wondered why they called the first one a widow skimmer until my wife, Becky, said widows often dress in black and as this dragonfly flies by you definitely see its black wings. The first one below is probably named because of its wings also.  It is called black saddlebags and it looks like saddlebags on its wings.  The next one is named by its tail characteristics.

Two pretty amber colored dragonflies are shown below.  Notice meadowhawk is a group of different dragonflies.  Hawks are also predators and fly in to get their prey like dragonflies so it is not surprising that this group is named after them.  I wonder if the reason they land on the end of dead stalks or grass strands is the same reason bird hawks are often seen on telephone poles.  They look down for prey and wait until they can soar down and get them.

Damselflies are closely related to dragonflies.  They have 2 wings instead of 4 and usually put them over their back when landed and not spread out like the dragonflies.  Two of my favorites are shown below.  The ebony jewelwing is mostly black, thus the ebony.  It has blue-green in parts of its body and veins in its wings as shown below.  The blue-fronted dancer is one of many blue damselflies.  One group is even called bluets,

The two photographs below show that the hunter can be the hunted as well.  I caught this female red-winged blackbird perched on a small tree as dusk approached.  I did not see until I cropped the picture that it had something in its mouth.  Another naturalist faved this observation when he saw it on iNaturalist.  He said that the long antenna on the prey ruled out dragonflies.  He thought it was an owlfly.  I had never even heard of this type of insect and this is the only time I may have gotten a picture of one.  It is another predator insect like owls are another predator bird.

     b. Wasps

Most people by the time they get to be in high school have been 'stung by a bee'.  Most of these stings were not by bees but by wasps.  Some bees have stingers but seldomly use them unless  they are defending their nest.  Only a few kinds of wasps and bees sting people and some do not even have stingers.  I am not saying you should not be cautious around bees and wasps, especially if you are allergic to their sting.  The reaction to the stuff in the sting will make it sting as a minimum, no matter if you are allergic.   People who are allergic can die if not treated quickly after a sting.  

My siblings and I got stung many times by wasps growing up on a small hobby farm just outside North Mankato.  I remember my brother's eye swelling shut from a bite by his eye.  Our mom had some special grey mud that came in a jar to put on our stings.  It was called Denver mud and supposedly drew out the stinger as it dried.  I have tried to make mud with regular soil since then to draw out the stinger.  I'm not sure if it really helped other than psychologically.  

The most common wasp to sting is the yellowjacket.  They are small yellow bees that like to hang around on your deck when you want to peacefully eat a picnic out there.  They try to get into anything that is sweet.  Be careful how you swat them away as they might sting you.  It turns out  they dig holes in the ground and may have 20-30 wasps living inside.  If you see a neat round hole dug in your lawn with yellowjackets flying in and out, be careful!! I once was right behind, on a narrow path,  several people that stepped on one of these nests and those yellowjackets poured out of there and stung me 8 or more times.  I was loopey with the Benedryl they gave me for several hours but did not swell up very much.

There are a number of different species of yellowjackets. We have the eastern variety and I have seen the western one in Montana.  

Hornets are in the same subfamily (Vespinae ) as yellowjackets.  They are generally fatter and less thin wasted (a wasp characteristic) than yellowjackets.  The most interesting hornet to me is the bald-faced hornet.  It is often found in the woods of Fort Ridgely.  It has a large Winnie the Pooh type paper hive that is often thought to be a honeybee hive. The one below is falling apart as the picture was taken in the middle of the winter.

Wasps also are predators of other insects.  They go to flowers for the sweet nectar but also eat other insects for protein.  Their bodies are usually much smoother and less hairy than bees.  Very little pollen is carried from one flower by wasps to the next so they aren't as important for flower pollination.  The one below hunts cicadas for its young.  It digs a hole in the ground and when it catches a cicada it paralyzes it with its sting and brings it back to its ground nest.  It lays its eggs by the live cicada and when the larva hatches they feed on the cicada.  These wasps are large (1.5 inches from end to end) and many people assume they are dangerous so they try to kill them.  They are not interested in people and I have never heard of one stinging a person.  The second wasp below I have only seen once but it is a very interesting one.  I have seen many black wasps but none with antennas like this one.  It is called bent-shielded besieger wasp.  It has a much thinner body than the cicada killer but is almost as long.  This one eats mainly caterpillars of other insects.

The last wasp I will show you is another very unique wasp that I have only seen once. It is called the black giant ichneumonid wasp.  Its distinguishing feature is the 5 inch long ovipositor.  Many people think this is a long stinger and are afraid of it.  It actually uses it to deposit its eggs deep inside a dead log near the larvae of another wasp.  Its larvae eat the other wasp's larvae and so are parasites that then control the spread of the other wasp.

Improvements at Fort Ridgely

If you have gone for a hike or horse ride around the park recently you have seen that workers have sprayed thistles and some other invasive plants.  More recently crews from the Conservation Corps have chewed up brush like buckthorn in many areas of the park. It leaves the area looking poorly for a while but the plan is that other more native plants will grow in these areas.  They did the same last year near Airplane hill with the cedar trees but instead of chewing them up they left them in piles. They plan to burn the piles this winter. Below are a couple pictures of their work on the buckthorn.

On our walk earlier this week we were confronted with an orange fence and the sign in the picture below as we came down the path from the Fort to the camping area.  Trees blocked our view of what was happening but we obeyed the sign.  I talked to Joanne Svendsen yesterday and she gave me some details of what is happening.  Last week construction was started on the lower bathroom and shower facility.  They have been taking down trees that are in the way and preparing the area for construction of the building.  She said the building will be similar but smaller to the building that Flandrau State Park in New Ulm has in their camping area.  There will be 4 rooms with toilets and 2 with showers,  There will also be an outside dishwashing area and a parking lot.  The projected finish date is July 4, 2023.  Please keep out of this area so that construction can proceed as quickly as possible.

Upcoming Interpretive Programming

Fort Ridgely State Park Program - August 27, 2022

Walk through the Prairie - 10:00 - 11:00 am There is much interest in native plants and planting them for pollinators and other native insects and animals. Walk with Bix Baker, volunteer naturalist for Fort Ridgely, and see how many of these plants are in the park and how they give us a picture of what life was like hundreds of years ago in this area. You may see some plants, insects and animals that you have never seen before. Meet in the chalet parking lot. We will walk through the prairie in the valley below the chalet.

Fort Ridgely State Park Program - August 27, 2022

Cell Phones in Nature - 2:00 - 3:00 pm  Technology, like cell phones, can be used to help you appreciate the natural things at Fort Ridgely. Meet Bix Baker, volunteer naturalist for Fort Ridgely, in the upper picnic shelter to download a few apps onto your cell phones and take them out to help you identify birds (by their song or a picture), plants, insects, mushrooms, rocks and animals.  Good information about each item is often there on the app to give you new insights into how they fit into the beautiful ecosystem we live in.