הצטרפ.ה ב:דצמ' 9, 2016 פעילות אחרונה: אוק' 11, 2024 iNaturalist
Bumble bee enthusiast, Wenatchee Naturalist, Wenatchee Valley Museum and Cultural Center docent. Trained in graphic design, and education, but always loved Biology too.
I thought I ought to explain the location of most of my photographs: I plan to go back in time, adding from my photos to get an idea about how my mostly native and xeric garden is attracting wildlife--especially native bees. It will only be a rough approximation as I have been learning along with exploring the insect life that has taken advantage of the yard. I began with the plants, then the birds, then the largest bees and now am actually "seeing" more of the tiniest ones and the cuckoo bees as well--and it's certainly possible that they have been here all along.
We have a unique location because we built our house on the side of a canyon that is surrounded by Sagebrush Shrub Steppe, but also up in the hills enough to get some Cascade Mountain habitat influence. We moved here in 2009 and have been growing many native plants obtained from Derby Canyon Nursery, but I have also spread seeds I picked around the edges of the yard, so that we have increased those flowers, especially the local lupine, but also Calochortus macrocarpus, Sagebrush mariposa lily; Triteleia grandiflora; Woolly-pod locoweed; and a little wild onion. Anyway, there are plenty of floral resources throughout the year to attract pollinators, and many are natives, but technically they fall under the "cultivated" category, so they are not allowed to be entered as observations under the iNaturalist rules, and I will name them in the notes with the insects instead.
PS: Noticed that my earliest observations went to default dates. Need to figure out when those were one of these days.