Bona Dea Update

Bona Dea has been really hot, over 100 degrees F., and sunny and humid the last few days. It rained a couple of days ago that helped some. The last couple of days has, for some reason, brought in the birds. Some Eastern Phoebes and Green Herons. Also some smaller warblers or vireos have been flying around. Also same some ducks for the first time in a long time yesterday, Tuesday. They may have been the brown Grebes. August is usually the last month you will see the Alligator at the park. However I have not seen it in a couple of months. It probably is no longer there or alive. That was really the feature of the park to a lot of people. Also the butterflies and dragonflies have been out in force in this heat. have been still feeding the fish at the Spillway and the flathead catfish have really been tearing it up. I have a photo here of a Musk Turtle holding its head out of the water to breathe but it looks like it is asking for more food pellets which I have it after taking its picture. Have not seen snakes as of late. This heat is really keeping things quite. I did see something that to me was unusual. This was on Old Shorty Trail. It was a Green Lacewing insect larvae. The Lacewings are flying insects sorta like May flies. They lay eggs which hatch into larva and go around eating the tender vegetation. But this particular larvae will coat itself with fine material that it finds along the way and sticks it to its entire body just hiding it completely. These are 2 photos of this very small thing with the white covering. This covering is called debris by experts. Today, Wednesday, I saw a yellow Tiger Swallowtail butterfly and a Spicebush Swallowtail butterfly at the Spillway. The Tiger is the yellow one. The photos shows the top and bottom view of both butterflies.