Microcosmos 1 - Camping out in the Quarry Corner

By late summer Halibut Point has a southern feel where a light breeze is welcome. With courtship and nesting behind them, and all that foliage in the trees, the birds have become hard to see. It's a time when the insect realm comes to full buzz. I decided to invest in a close-up lens for a better look at their lilliputian world. Since insects so vastly outnumber all the other inhabitants of Halibut Point, the lens opened a portal of discovery below our usual scale of awareness. 

As you can imagine, chasing insects through the landscape, or even to the other side of a leaf, resulted in few trophies and a lot of frustration. I found that I had better luck staying stationary in a good spot with the camera steady. When the when the water level was low in September one corner of the quarry provided just such a place, an ecologically diverse habitat where I could crouch at bug level. Folded up like that and focused within a world only a few feet in diameter, my sensory experience felt miniaturized like a dot on the edge of enormous surroundings. The looming granite walls circled away. Great gulls splashed behind me and chattered on about gull business. Astonishing little creatures hopped, crawled, and flew around.

Oribatid mite (left) beside a Two-striped Planthopper, Acanalonia bivittata

The quarter-inch size of the planthopper pictured here dramatizes the tininess of the mites which are "by far the most prevalent of all arthropods in forest soils, and are essential for breaking down organic detritus and distributing fungi." (Wikipedia) The photograph raises limitless curiosities about biologic success. I have learned that winged, six-legged planthoppers are true insects, while the flightless eight-legged mites are more closely related to crabs and spiders. 

Eastern Forktail Damselfly, Ishnura verticalis

A damselfly perched with its wings either partially open or pressed together above its narrow abdomen looks delicate compared to a muscular dragonfly with wings outspread. Damselflies have the prominent eyes of an aerial hunter. The eyes are separated by more than their own width, on a head wider than long.

Broad-nosed weevil with winged (R) and nymph aphids

Weevils are a type of beetle, which are distinguished from other insect groups by the hardening of their forewings into shell-like covers protecting their abdomens and are held aside while flying. A pair of membranous flight wings lies folded underneath the 'shell.' Beetles have well-developed mandibles and chewing mouthparts. 

Aphids, as is characteristic of the true bug group, have needle-like, sucking mouthparts and forewings hardened at the base becoming membranous toward the tip, useful for flight. 

An ichneumonid wasp, Diplazon laetatorius

Many ichneumonid wasps are dramatically shaped and colored with long ovipositors to insert their eggs into the bodies of other insects. Diplazon laetatorius larvae develop by feeding inside the host, usually a syrphid fly, eventually consuming it alive. Adults sustain themselves on  flower nectar. 

Females of this species have the unusual ability to produce more of themselves from unfertilized eggs (thelytokous parthenogenesis) by which they can increase their numbers prolifically without the bother of satisfying a mate. Males have become extremely rare throughout most of its range. However one supposes they retain an important role in the genetic vigor of the species, a fundamental principle of organic life, as well as occasionally satisfying the fuller potentials of relationship with fortunate females.

Minnows beside me

In this state of being quiet and motionless the animated world apparently didn't recognize me as human. Little fish swam into the shallows beside me, giving pleasant thoughts of a Peaceable Kingdom. Then splashing sounds just to the rear alerted me to their true motivation. A sapphire-eyed maritime fish hunter had discovered easy prey in the pond.

Double-crested Cormorant

The bird and I happened on this Quarry Corner from the macrocosm, it could be said, devouring the inhabitants of a secluded world for our own sustenance. In my case the physical consumption came from sources beyond this location but my psychic appetite was satisfied here in witnessing grandeur on another scale and stage.