Category: Readers’ wildlife

Readers’ wildlife photos

May 10, 2024 • 8:15 am

Our photo tank is running low, so while I’m gone for the next week you might consider putting together a batch of photos for posting here.  Thanks!

Here is part 2 of Ephraim Heller’s survey of the birds of Bhutan (part 1, with an introduction, is here).  His captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

Here is installment #2 of photos from my April 2024 birding tour of Bhutan. We begin with a photo of the Paro valley, including the Paro dzong. Paro is the site of Bhutan’s only international airport, as it is the only valley near the capital of Thimpu wide and flat enough for commercial passenger jets. Consequently, most international visitors enter Bhutan here.

Today I post my photos of Phasianidae (pheasants, grouse, and allies) and Columbidae (pigeons and doves). Descriptions of the species below are taken from Wikipedia.

Blood Pheasant (Ithaginis cruentus) male and female. Blood pheasants live in the mountains of Bhutan, Nepal, Sikkim, northern Myanmar, Tibet and central and south-central China, where they prefer coniferous or mixed forests and scrub areas near the snowline. They move their range depending on the season, and are found at higher elevations during the summer. With snow increasing in fall and winter, they move to lower elevations.

Male:

Female:

An Himalayan Monal (Lophophorus impejanus) female. These are native to Himalayan forests and shrublands at elevations of 2,100–4,500 m (6,900–14,800 ft). It is the state bird of Nepal. The male has spectacular colors, but I was able only to photograph the female, which is darn pretty.

A Barred Cuckoo-Dove (Macropygia unchall):

Mountain Imperial-Pigeon (Ducula badia), Bhutan:

An Oriental Turtle-Dove (Streptopelia orientalis):

A Spotted Dove (Spilopelia chinensis). While native to Asia, the species has become established in many areas outside its native range including Hawaii, southern California, Mauritius, Australia, and New Zealand:

A Wedge-tailed Green Pigeon (Treron sphenurus):

Equipment: All animal photos were shot using a Nikon Z9 camera and Nikkor Z 400mm f/2.8 TC VR S lens. Landscape and architectural photos were shot either with a Nikon Z9 and Nikkor Z 70-200mm f/2.8 VR S lens or with an iPhone 11.

You can see more of my photos here.

Readers’ wildlife photos

May 9, 2024 • 8:15 am

Today we have some bird photos by ecologist Susan Harrison. Her captions are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.  (And send in yours.)

Dry Tortugas and the perils of migration

The Dry Tortugas are the westernmost of the Florida Keys, lying just over 100 miles from the mainland. These tiny sandy islands, or cays, are uninhabited by people but essential to bird life.  They support  breeding colonies of some unusual seabirds, and they are the North American landfall for many spring-migrating songbirds.

Dry Tortugas National Park was created to protect these birds, and human visitors can go to only one island:  Garden Cay, which supports Fort Jefferson, a huge crumbling installation begun in 1846 and abandoned in 1906.  The fort saw use as a Civil War prison, a quarantine, and a coaling station, but its war-worn look is an illusion.  Somehow the engineers of the day did not realize that iron fittings exposed to salt water would expand and tear apart its brick walls.

Fort Jefferson:

Wandering about the fort’s grounds in late April, avian migrants are seen resting in the shrubby Seagrape (Coccoloba uvifera) and Buttonwood (Conocarpus erectus) trees and drinking at the tiny brick birdbath that provides the only water for many miles around.

Palm Warbler, Setophaga palmarum:

Cape May Warbler, Setophaga tigrinum:

Blackpoll Warbler, Setophaga striata:

Ovenbird, Seiurus atrocapilla:

Yellow-billed Cuckoo, Coccyzus americanus:

Purple Gallinule, Porphyrio martinca:

The fort is hardly a safe refuge for these tired flyers, however.  Bird-eating raptors circle the grounds constantly and we saw several luckless songbirds get caught.

Merlin, Falco columbarius:

Sharp-shinned Hawk, Accipiter striatus:

Antillean Short-eared Owl, Asio flammeus domingensis, a Caribbean subspecies:

Lastly, here are three bird species that within the US are only seen in southernmost Florida; I saw the first one on Garden Cay and all of them in Key West.

Grey Kingbird, Tyrannus dominicensis:

Short-tailed Hawk, Buteo brachyurus:

White-crested Pigeon, Patagioenas leucocephala:

Readers’ wildlife photos

May 8, 2024 • 8:30 am

Reader Duncan McCaskill contributed some photos Australian birds. His captions are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

Here are some photos of some small Australian birds.

New bird watchers find Little Brown Birds (LBBs) frustratingly difficult to identify. Here in Australia, the LBBs are mostly members of the family Acanthizidae (Australian Warblers), and within that family, it’s particularly the thornbills (genus Acanthiza) that give new birders grief. I live in Canberra and there are 5 species of thornbill that occur in the region. They are all quite common. As can be seen from the photos, most are not brown, nor are they difficult to identify if—and that’s a big if—you can get a good look at them. They are all small, very active, and often hidden in vegetation. Most experienced birders rely more on calls to identify them.

Most of the photos were taken in the Canberra region.

A Striated Thornbill (Acanthiza lineata). They spend most of their time in the canopy, so in tall forests the most you usually see are occasional tiny hyperactive dots. Sometimes they will be lower down feeding in the canopy of small saplings and shrubs. Their high-pitched insect like tsip calls can be hard to pick out.

A Striated Thornbill in a eucalypt sapling

A Brown Thornbill (Acanthiza pusilla). An LBB that is actually brown. Just to make life difficult for birders, even experienced ones, they have a highly variable range of calls, including calls that sound very much like other species that may be hiding in the foliage with them. They also mimic the calls of other species, including other thornbill species. I have known experienced birders spend a lot of time chasing down the call of a rarity, only to find it was a Brown Thornbill mimicking.

These two photos are from down at the coast, some 120km east of Canberra.

A Brown Thornbill in a Banksia bush.

A Yellow Thornbill (Acanthiza nana). A small thornbill, generally lacking in distinguishing features. The slightly orange patch under the chin is usually the best field mark. Their call is a sharp tzit-tzit (usually, but not always just two syllables).

A Yellow Thornbill in my bird bath. The birds in the background are Red-browed Finches (Neochmia temporalis).

A Yellow-rumped Thornbill (Acanthiza chrysorrhoa). The largest of the thornbills, they forage mostly on the ground and have a bright yellow rump, making them the easiest thornbill to identify. Their call is a tinkling melodious warble.

A Yellow-rumped Thornbill on the ground. Their bright yellow rump is only visible when they are flying.

A Buff-rumped Thornbill (Acanthiza reguloides). Another ground foraging thornbill. Their calls are flatter and less melodious than the Yellow-rumped.

Another Buff-rumped Thornbill, showing its buff coloured rump.

A Buff-rumped Thornbill with a caterpillar.

Buff-rumped Thornbill

A Weebill (Smicrornis brevirostris). Often described as Australia’s smallest bird, the Weebill is not a thornbill, but it is of the same family (Acanthizidae). Their bills are shorter and thicker than thornbills. Their calls include distinctive whistles, sometimes described as sounding like “I’m a Weebill”. They also make harsher tzit type calls.

Finally, one of the most colourful members of the family Acanthizidae, a White-throated Gerygone (Gerygone olivacea). They have the most beautiful cascading musical song.

Readers’ wildlife photos

May 5, 2024 • 8:15 am

It’s Sunday, and that means bird photos from biologist John Avise. His IDs and notes are indented, and his pictures, from Portugal and Spain, can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Portugal and Spain Birds, Part 1 

In 2010, I went on a multi-stop seminar trip to various universities and conferences in Portugal and southern Spain.  In-between the lectures I delivered, there was ample time for bird-watching and avian photography.  The Mediterranean climate meant lots of sunny weather and ideal conditions for such outdoor activities.  This week’s post begins a three-part series highlighting species of European birds that I photographed on this delightful trip.

Azure-winged Magpie (Cyanopica cyanus):

European Bee-eater (Merops apiaster):

Black Kite (Milvus migrans) flying:

Black Stork (Ciconia nigra) flying:

Cinereous Vulture (Aegypius monachus) flying:

Black-winged Stilt (Himantopus himantopus) flying:

Calandra Lark (Melanocorypha calandra):

Cattle Egret (Bubulcus ibis) flying:

Coal Tit (Periparus ater):

Eurasian Collared Dove (Streptopelia decaocto):

Corn Bunting (Emberiza calandra):

Crested Lark (Galerida cristata):

Great Bustards (Otis tarda) flying:

Readers’ wildlife photos

May 4, 2024 • 8:15 am

Mark Sturtevant has answered the call for photos with some lovely pictures of insects and plants. Mark’s notes are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

We begin with the tail end of a trip to Ohio last summer.

There is a terrific bog at a park there which I shall always visit when “bugging” in that state. I don’t often photograph flowers, but these Showy Lady’s Slipper Orchids Cypripedium reginae were abundant, and they are rather special since this species of Lady’s Slipper is generally rare. Visitors are not allowed to stray off of the boardwalks in the park, so my long lens came in handy here. That rule was frequently broken by others, btw, and it really ticked me off:

Next up is a new species of spider, the Western Lynx Spider (Oxyopes scalaris). Lynx spiders are ambush predators that sit up high on plants. Despite its common name, this species is widespread in the U.S., although it was new to me:

At a prairie location, these Soldier Beetles were abundant on various flowers where they were feeding on pollen. Their bright colors are a warning that they are not palatable. I thought they were two species, but it turns out they are both Margined Leatherwings, Chauliognathus marginatus, a species that comes in different color morphs:

Back we go to my resident state of Michigan. At a park some hours to the south of me, there were these mini-swarms of beetles that were feeding and mating on low shrubbery. Another new species. It turns out they are Clay-colored Leaf Beetles, Anomoea laticlavia, and they have an interesting biology in that their larvae live underground where they are tended by ants:

While on the subject of beetles having sex, here are a pair of Asian Ladybird Beetles (Harmonia axyridis), a species that has a number of other common names. They are an introduced and hugely dominant species of “ladybug”, and I worry that they have displaced some native species:

But now we get into some very special items. Near where I live is a park that has several wetland areas with “fens”, or at least that is what our park service calls them. I am told they also have features for “bogs”, however. The different types of wetlands are based on chemistry and water movement, plus the presence of various indicator plants.

Anyway, I call my favorite one “Sturtevant’s Fen” since its location is well off any trail and no one else goes to it. So it is a great place and it is all mine. One of its best features is that it harbors a healthy population of our smallest dragonfly, called the Elfin Skimmer (Nannothemis bella), is a species that is very fussy about the wetland conditions upon which it depends. Ever since I’ve known of these amazing little dragonflies, I’ve had a vision to photograph them in hand in order to convey how incredibly small they are. Catching them with a net was super easy. First, here is a male. I promise he is not being harmed. Next is the very different looking female. She had recently emerged, and so was not inclined to fly. This picture is one of my favoritest pictures I’ve ever taken! Elfin Skimmers are the 2nd smallest dragonfly in the world, and the smallest is a close relative found in China:

Sturtevant’s Fen also has orchids. The most common are these lovely grass pink orchids (Calopogon tuberosus). I believe this is a bog and not a fen indicator, but they are still very nice. The strange yellow thingies up top are lures that are meant to fool bees into foraging upon them since they look like anthers. The weight of the bee then causes the petal to tip down to the central column below, where sticky pollen sacs await to attach onto the hapless bee. Darwin would have appreciated the contrivances of these orchids:

Readers’ wildlife photos

May 3, 2024 • 8:15 am

Please send in your photos. I know some of you have them, and are too lazy to put them together! But remember the hours I put in here, which you can read FOR FREE. Isn’t it worth a half hour of your time to assemble some pictures? Guilt trip over.

Ephraim Heller went to Bhutan to for birding, and I’m extremely jealous! I swear I’ll get there one day.   His notes are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.

My wife and I were lucky to have spent 2.5 weeks in April 2024 on a birding tour of Bhutan. Bhutan is a wonderful country with dramatic Himalayan scenery, unique Bhutanese architecture, a lovely Buddhist culture, and kind and open people. We saw >320 species of birds as well as numerous species of mammals, reptiles, bugs, and insects. I’ll share a series of posts containing photos of the species for which I was able to obtain decent pictures. I’ll also mix in a few landscape and architecture shots here and there, just to keep things interesting.

Bhutan stretches along the south face of the Himalayas from an altitude of 660 ft in the south along the Indian plain to more than 23,000 feet, creating an outstanding range of diverse ecosystems and biodiversity. This photo gives you a sense of the rugged terrain covering most of the country:

The country is divided into 20 districts each governed from a local “dzong,” which were originally designed as fortresses. Most dzongs today house both religious (Buddhist) and civil (government) administrations.

I’ll kick off this wildlife photo series with the Accipitridae (hawks, eagles, kites, and old world vultures). Descriptions of the species below are taken from Wikipedia.

A Himalayan Griffon Vulture (Gyps himalayensis) is harassed by a Large-Billed Crow (Corvus macrorhynchos). The Himalayan Griffon is the largest of the Gyps species and is perhaps the largest and heaviest bird in the Himalayas. The weight of Himalayan vultures ranges from 6 kg (13 lb) to 12.5 kg (28 lb). They live mainly in the higher regions of the Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau at the elevation range of 1,200–5,500 m (3,900–18,000 ft). On the Tibetan Plateau 64% of their diet is obtained from dead domestic yak (Bos grunniens). Historically, Himalayan vultures regularly fed on human corpses left out on Celestial Burial Grounds.

We saw a pair of griffons land, one in a tree and one on the ground. We watched for 15 minutes as a crow flew around the griffon in the tree to peck at its back and pull on its tail feathers:

Griffons and crows do not typically compete for food, so our guess for the crow’s behavior is that it was probably nesting nearby. The griffon did its best to face off with the crow and stand its ground, but the crow was not deterred:

We observed this Steppe Eagle (Aquila nipalensis) resting on a large rock in the middle of a river, probably during its migration. It, too, was periodically harassed by crows and other birds. The steppe eagle’s well-feathered legs illustrate it to be a member of the subfamily Aquilinae, also known as the “booted eagles”. This species was once considered to be closely related to the sedentary tawny eagle (Aquila rapax) and the two forms have previously been treated as conspecific. The steppe eagle is in many ways a peculiar species of eagle. It is a specialized predator of ground squirrels on the breeding ground, also taking other rather small mammals and other prey, doing so more often when ground squirrels are less consistently found. They are the only eagle to nest primarily on the ground. The steppe eagle undertakes a massive migration from essentially its entire breeding range, moving en masse past major migration flyways, especially those of the Middle East, Red Sea, and the Himalayas. Unfortunately, the steppe eagle’s population has declined precipitously:

The Crested Serpent Eagle (Spilornis cheela) is found in forested habitats across tropical Asia. They have a large looking head with long feathers on the back of the head giving them a maned and crested appearance. The face is bare and yellow joining up with the ceres while the powerful feet are unfeathered and heavily scaled. They fly over the forest canopy on broad wings and tail have wide white and black bars. They call often with a loud, piercing and familiar three or two-note call. They feed on snakes and lizards, giving them their name:

We observed this Crested Goshawk (Accipiter trivirgatus) in a tree, also being harassed by smaller birds (apparently it’s not so easy to be a raptor in Bhutan). It is primarily a lowland bird of warm climates, and is unusual at upland habitats in Bhutan. This secretive forest bird hunts birds, mammals, and reptiles in woodland, relying on surprise as it flies from a perch to catch its prey unaware:

Sometimes you’ve just got to scratch an itch:

This male Eurasian Sparrowhawk (Accipiter nisus) is a small bird of prey. Though it is a predator which specializes in catching woodland birds, the Eurasian sparrowhawk can be found in any habitat and often hunts garden birds in towns and cities. Males tend to take smaller birds, including tits, finches, and sparrows; females catch primarily thrushes and starlings, but are capable of killing birds weighing 500 g (18 oz) or more:

The Himalayan Buzzard (Buteo refectus). It was only on this trip that I learned that while buzzards are types of vultures in North America, in other parts of the world buzzards are types of hawks:

Equipment: All animal photos were shot using a Nikon Z9 camera and Nikkor Z 400mm f/2.8 TC VR S lens. Landscape and architectural photos were shot either with a Nikon Z9 and Nikkor Z 70-200mm f/2.8 VR S lens or with an iPhone 11.

You can see more of my photos at https://www.instagram.com/hellerwildlife/.

Readers’ wildlife photos

May 1, 2024 • 8:15 am

Today we have photos from reader James Blilie, whose captions are indented. You can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

Spring has sprung in southern Washington state, where we live.  All of these are shot in our yard (or from our house).

We have a glorious showing of Empress Lilies Fritillaria imperialis that were (we assume) planted by a previous owner of the property.  These flowers give a huge early spring show and then die back to the ground quickly.  They smell strongly of skunk (very like skunk cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus).

As Steve Simon (a photographer whose work I admire) says:  Work the scene.  And I did.  Some of these photos will show some camera technique which I will try to highlight.

A close-up with a telephoto lens and large aperture to blur the background (short depth-of-field; bokeh):

Then two shots showing the effect of lens focal length:

In this shot, I am going for the framing of the scene by the tree trunks and branches and I am including Mount Adams in the background.  A telephoto lens helps keep the foreground and background on a similar scale in the photo.  A small aperture (f/8) helps keep it all in focus (enough).

Last of the Empress Lily photos is another wide angle shot where I got very low to look up into the bells of the flowers and I got very lucky to capture a sunburst as well (this was not planned; the other 3-4 shots did not have it; luck is your friend)

Next are two shots of Mount Adams at sunset from a few days ago.

Some local wildlife:  A flock of wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo) with the Tom displaying for the ladies.  (These are a little fuzzy and have glare because I shot them through our windows.)

More local wildlife:  Early morning visit from our usual gang of Black-tailed Deer (Odocoileus hemionus), a sub-species of the Mule Deer (same binomial).

Early morning shots of our local mountains:  Mount Adams and Mount Hood.

Equipment:

Olympus OM-D E-M5 (micro 4/3 mirrorless camera; crop factor = 2.0)
LUMIX G X Vario, 12-35MM, f/2.8 ASPH.  (24mm-70mm equivalent, my walk-around lens)
LUMIX 35-100mm  f/2.8 G Vario  (70-200mm equivalent)
LUMIX G Vario 7-14mm  f/4.0 ASPH  (14-28mm equivalent)
LUMIX G Vario 100-300mm F/4.0-5.6 MEGA O.I.S.  (200-600mm equivalent)

Readers’ wildlife photos

April 29, 2024 • 8:50 am

Athayde Tonhasca Júnior has returned with a text-and-photo lesson in biology—in this case, strawberries.  His narrative is indented and you can click on the photos to enlarge them.

Red Treasures

In the treasure trove of the garden’s heart,
strawberries play the sweetest part.
In their red, a work of art,
in their taste, a love to impart (anon.).

The Dutch painter Hiëronymus Bosch (c. 1450–1516), the master of nightmarish landscapes and odd creatures, apparently had a thing for strawberries: the fruit is depicted thrice in his famed The Garden of Earthly Delights. The painting’s symbolism and the role of strawberries have been debated for a long time. The plant may be an allegory of sin and temptation, as it grows by creeping low on the ground, just like the Garden of Eden’s serpent. Strawberries were seen by some overimaginative medieval commentators as sensuous, erotic or virginal: Shakespeare’s Desdemona sported a handkerchief decorated with strawberries, a representation of fidelity. Others saw the fruit under a pious perspective, representing drops of Christ’s blood, while the plant’s tripartite leaves symbolised the Trinity. This religious angle explains the abundance of manuscripts, carvings, paintings and heraldic symbols decorated with strawberry fruits, leaves and flowers.

Detail of The Garden of Earthly Delights © Museo del rado, Wikimedia Commons.

Strawberries have a rich history of cultural symbolism in Medieval Europe, but they are scarce in culinary references. The main reason for that was the organoleptic shortcomings of the species available then, namely the woodland (Fragaria vesca), musk (F. moschata) and green (F. viridis) strawberries. These wild strawberries can be tasty, but also tangy, acidic, bitter, small, easily bruised and damaged by insects and diseases. So they were not on people’s lists of most desired fruits. All that changed in the 1700s, when European horticulturalists crossed two imports from the Americas, the Chilean (F. chiloensis) and Virginia (F. virginiana) strawberries. The resulting hybrid, Fragaria x ananassa, is the garden strawberry known to us today, and the source of all modern varieties cultivated around the world.

The garden strawberry has an agreeable balance between sweetness and acidity, and a complex blend of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) gives the fruit its distinct aroma and flavour. Other appealing traits such a hardiness, uniform shape and large size helped make the garden strawberry one of the most popular fruits in the world, and not only as a table staple: natural or synthetic strawberry extracts made their way into hundreds of products, from ice cream to cakes, jam, jelly, hard sweets, alcoholic beverages, non-alcoholic beverages, chewing gum, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics. The demand for fresh and frozen strawberries has been growing steadily for many years, and is not abating: strawberries are grown commercially in 76 countries, generating significant income for local economies. So, naturally, strawberry pollination has enormous importance. However, some of the plant’s morphological aspects renders this process less than straightforward.

Strawberries and cream feature at the Wimbledon Tournament since its debut in 1877. Each year more than 30 tons of strawberries are consumed in a fortnight © Paige orenze, Wikimedia Commons.

Strawberries, just like raspberries and blackberries, are aggregate fruits – or etaerios, if you want to be fancy – meaning that the succulent part we eat (the receptacle) develops from several ovaries fused together. In other words, each strawberry consists of one plump receptacle; the yellowish pips embedded on the strawberry’s surface, which are often assumed to be seeds, are in fact the fruits. Each one is an achene, a type of single-seeded, dry fruit. So, a strawberry is not a berry at all: berries are simple fruits, that is, they derive from one ovary that produces a single fleshy bit. A tomato is a berry, and so is a banana. Botany is complicated.

A close-up view of a strawberry’s achenes © rich caulton, Wikimedia Commons:

Strawberry flowers have male and female structures – they are hermaphroditic – and most varieties can self-pollinate: wind, rain and gravity take care of that. It may sound like the plant has its reproduction requirements sorted out, but that’s not so. The stigmas (the parts that receive the pollen) are usually ready before the anthers (the parts that produce the pollen), so that a plant may need to cross-pollinate with neighbours. But that’s the least of its difficulties.

A large strawberry fruit holds about 200 achenes, and each one of them contains an ovule. Most of  them must be fertilised so that the tissue around the achenes develops fully to form the enlarged receptacle. Unfertilized ovules do not stimulate tissue growth, and if there are too many of them, the result is a misshapen strawberry. These malformed fruits are perfectly healthy and edible but have little commercial value.

Left: Main parts of the strawberry flower – a: receptacle; b: pistils; c: anther; d: sepal; e: petal. Right: Structural features of the fruit – a: achene; b: stamen; c: receptacle; d: sepal © Poling, 2012.

The large number of ovules requiring pollination is a challenge because wind, rain and gravity take care of 60 to 70% of them. The rest must be done by bees and other insects. So, a fully formed, marketable strawberry is the result of autogamy (self-pollination) and allogamy (cross-fertilization) where insects are the vectors. But insects do much more to a strawberry than just pollinate it.

A: Fully formed fruit. B, C: Malformed fruits resulting from poor pollination © Klatt et al., 2014.

Fertilised achenes produce auxins and gibberellic acids, plant hormones that stimulate growth and thus are responsible for increasing the fruit’s size and weight. But these hormones also slow down the process of tissue-softening, so the fruit is firm for longer. This delay increases shelf life, which is hugely important for strawberry commercialisation: more than 90% of the harvested fruits can become non-marketable after four days in storage because of excessive softness, which induces fungal infections and mechanical injuries (Klatt et al., 2014). About one-third of the global food produced for human consumption is wasted during handling, transport and storage (Gustavsson et al., 2011); by increasing the number of pollinated achenes, insects do their bit to reduce these losses.

A strawberry flower. Most of the pistils (grouped inside the circle) must be pollinated for a fully formed fruit © Wikimedia Commons:

There’s a considerable range of strawberry varieties grown under different agronomic practices, but overall, Gudowska et al. (2024) estimated that insects contribute to 25% of fruit weight, a benefit worth US$ 5.4 billion per year to the producers worldwide. This ecological service is often attributed to the European honey bee (Apis mellifera), but bumble bees, honey bee-mimicking drone flies (Eristalis spp.) and the green bottle fly (Lucilia sericata) are among the most efficient pollinators of strawberry. And some other visitors could be even better: in Canada, MacInnis & Forrest (2019) observed that flower visitation by Augochlorella spp. and Lasioglossum spp. sweat bees resulted in fruits ~40% heavier when compared to flowers visited by honey bees. Here, insect sizes made all the difference: the relatively small sweat bees (5–7 mm in length) forage for pollen and nectar without disturbing the anthers, whereas the larger honey bees (>10 mm), which are after nectar only, often bend the anthers towards the stigmas. By doing so, honey bees may accidentally promote self-pollination, which may reduce fruit set when compared to cross pollination.

A Lasioglossum sp. sweat bee © David Cappaert, Invasive.org:

The garden strawberry is a case study of the role of pollination for crop production. It’s not an indispensable service in most cases, but without it, yields, produce quality and revenue can suffer significantly. A bowl of strawberries would not be as tasty, visually appealing or affordable without insects.

The Sweety Viper is most thankful to insect pollinators © Sin Amigos, Wikimedia Commons:

FROM JERRY:  Athayde forgot to mention the very quintessence of strawberry products: Tiptree “Little Scarlet” Strawberry Conserve: the best jam in the world, made with tiny wild strawberries grown on the Wiklin & Sons property. It was a favorite of James Bond.  It’s not always available in the U.S., but you can buy it now on Amazon for only $9.69 per jar. Take my word for it: you won’t find a better jam (or”preserves” as the Brits call it).

The proof:

“Breakfast was Bond’s favourite meal of the day. When he was stationed in London it was always the same. It consisted of very strong coffee, from De Bry in New Oxford Street, brewed in an American Chemex, of which he drank two large cups, black and without sugar. The single egg, in the dark blue egg cup with a gold ring round the top, was boiled for three and a third minutes.

It was a very fresh, speckled brown egg from French Marans hens owned by some friend of May in the country. (Bond disliked white eggs and, faddish as he was in many small things, it amused him to maintain that there was such a thing as the perfect boiled egg.) Then there were two thick slices of wholewheat toast, a large pat of deep yellow Jersey butter and three squat glass jars containing Tiptree `Little Scarlet’ strawberry jam; Cooper’s Vintage Oxford marmalade and Norwegian Heather Honey from Fortnum’s. The coffee pot and the silver on the tray were Queen Anne, and the china was Minton, of the same dark blue and gold and white as the egg-cup.”

Ian Fleming, Chapter 11, From Russia, With Love (1957)