A Little Of This, A Little Of That

Been a pretty slow week, so I had some extra time for adventure!
First up, my terrestrial run in with a Eastern Mud Turtle. While walking to my local park/wetlands, I stumbled upon what looked like a rock, but rocks don't move when one gets close. Didn't know what was in hand when I took some pictures. A quick flip through Audubon's Field Guide to N.A. Reptiles helped a lot. The only interesting pic was this one.

Mud Turtle Plastron

After this run in with a reptile, I got a lucky shot of a Blue Dasher, not that they are rare.There are just so many of them this year which makes them "King of the Count" around this park. I also netted a female Black Saddlebags, she seemed to like hanging out on my finger. I had to shake her off.

Dasher from Below

Just sticking around.

That wasn't the end of the fun though! Later that night I set up my UV system, it was kind of slow. Both the temp & humidity were low, around 79 degrees with 45% humidity. Did I mention it was really slow, not even Stick Bugs, Beetles or Crickets. Just gnats & midgets for most of the night. Then the humidity rose to about 60% and the major star of the night was this Hollow-spotted Plagodis.
I placed it on a new system that is being worked out, bark glued to plywood sheets, kinda getting tired of the weave of a sheet as my background. Feel free to tell me what you think.

Hollow-spotted Plagodis

Well that is it for now.

Late Night Guest

Once again UV Light Trapping was slow, mostly Gnats again, a few "Skeeters", couple of Craneflies and this little drop in.

A Short-tailed Ichneumon Wasp, took me a bit of time to identify it, but with the help of Bug Guide it was easy.

So if the weather holds out tonight, the lights will be back up and with this humidity, maybe I'll be posting moth photos soon. Wish me luck!