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Finally, the weather has been more favorable for our six legged friends! On my most recent visit to Mount Pisgah, I saw bees, butterflies, flies, lacewings, a snakefly, beetles, an earwig, a caddis fly, and several true bugs, including this interesting shield bug: Aelia americana.

The Golden-crowned Sparrow is a fall and winter resident along the Pacific coast and commonly encountered at the Arboretum. They migrate north in the spring to nest in Alaska and western Canada.

The western calligrapher is a small fly that looks like a bee.

Tree squirrels are amazing acrobats. They fearlessly climb out onto the tips of branches to reach seeds or take fearless leaps between limbs. They chase each other up, down, and all around the trunk of trees with speed and agility. Their lives seem to involve a great amount of risk or chance.

The honeysuckle sawfly, or Abia americana, has a shimmering copper sheen, and its round, striped body mimics a bee. But if you get close to one, you’ll notice it has knobs on the end of its antennae, which is something butterflies have, but bees don’t.