July 7, 2024: Great Spangled Fritillary

In celebration of the Star Spangled Banner, a Great Spangled Fritillary came to visit us on July 4th.

Great Spangled Frittilary

This pretty butterfly is common across much of North America and I see them occasionally around the lakes and mountains.  

The inside of its wings have brighter coloring than the outside.

The adults feed on a wide range of flowers throughout the summer and this one enjoyed both the nectar in the Black-eyed Susans as well as the camouflage the orange blossoms provided for it.

It would hard to see if I didn't know it was there.

Probing with its proboscis into the center of the blossom.

After mating in July the female will lay her eggs in late August or September.  The eggs will hatch but the larvae will burrow into the leaf litter on the ground where they will spend the winter.  (The fritillary is one of many butterflies and other beneficial insects that depend upon lawns and gardens not being raked in the fall so there will be more Fritillaries next summer.)  Unlike the adults, the caterpillars are very picky eaters:  they eat only violets; the adult always places her eggs on one of the violet species.  

It was another sad week for our loons as now the south nest in Harris Cove has been predated.  It was noted on Wednesday when Debby saw both loons out in the lake and was able to see the abandoned nest from shore. I checked in with Jayden our LPC biologist who asked me to go take a close look to confirm. I found an unoccupied nest full of mussel shells.  

The southern nest after predation.

I searched for eggs and shell fragments on the island and in the water but found nothing.  Jayden guessed it was predated by a raccoon, otter, or mink.  It's late for another attempt at nesting but not impossible.  We'll see.  As of now the north nest is still hanging in there. 

There was enough curiosity about one of the weeds I saw last week that I went out to get more data on it, and it had matured and grown enough in one week that with the assistance of our local weed expert we were able to definitely identify it as bladderwort.  I've found three types of bladderwort in Lake Wicwas; the one in question from last week's weed survey is the Greater, or Common Bladderwort.  

Greater Bladderwort (Utricularia vulgaris)  The black objects are the bladders.

Those black bladders are its distinctive characteristics, though its size is significant too - it can grow up to three feet long over the summer and sometimes forms large mats that can be confused with invasive milfoil.  On new growth at the tips the bladders are almost clear, turning pink then red as they age, and finally the dark black color.  This is all a single plant:

Pink bladders on the tips are new growth, while the black bladders on the right are older.

The second bladderwort I found is the floating bladderwort, much smaller and more delicate than the common bladderwort - also prettier:

Floating Bladderwort  (Utricularia radiata)

Like the common, this one is free-floating - no roots to tie it to the lake bed.  I lifted one up to see the floatation parts.

These upper leaves are inflated to provide floatation.

Lifting it completely out of the water revealed the full size of the plant.

This Floating Bladderwort is about 18" long.

The third bladderwort I've seen in Wicwas is the Purple Bladderwort which flowers later in the summer.  All three of them are carnivorous, using their bladders to suck in and digest small insect larvae.  I wrote about bladderwort's carnivorous ways (no Cheeseburgers in Paradise for them) in July 2020.

An added bonus for my encore weed tour was that the Watershield was blooming.

A Watershield (Brasenia schreberi) blossom.

There were no butterflies on the aquatic flowers, but plenty of other pollinators were doing their thing.

Small flies pollinate a Yellow Pond Lily.

We'll see what the second weed-watch tour discovers in a couple of months, and meanwhile hope our remaining nest can survive the next two weeks.