Washington Bumblebees 2022

During our stay in Washington in July, we signed up for a grid cell that included my grandpas’ houses. We had found out about the Bumblebee surveys from our friend Adriana Barsan. We had met her last summer in 2021 on Sauk Mountain while she was surveying butterflies with another group of volunteers. This summer, we had signed up for grid cell WA481. For our first survey, we headed to the Arlington Lavender Farm, because it would be easy to identify the plants, which was a requirement of the survey. The first time,we brought the nets, a few containers, and the cooler some ice packs. The owners of the farm agreed, so we tried to catch a few that day. My mom found a bumblebee first, but it flew out of the net as we tried to put it in one of the containers. The next time, we were ready with the containers. As I swooped down on it, I grabbed the top of the net so the bee couldn’t escape. I put the opening in the container, and waited until the insect was inside. As he crawled around the bottom of the container, I swiftly pulled the net away and my mom slid on the lid. Success! We had caught our first bumblebee. We set the container onto the ice packs, and waited fifteen minutes. We came back after no luck of catching anymore to discover that he still wasn’t cooled yet. Five minutes later, he was finally chilled. We set him onto the paper and took several pictures trying to identify him. As we were letting him go, I spotted another bumblebee a few feet away. I managed to catch that one and put him in the freezer. The first bee we caught turned out to be a Fernald cuckoo bumble bee. The second one was a Fuzzy Horned Bumble Bee, who looks similar but has a red band near its tail. The final Bumble Bee we caught that day was a Hunt’s Bumble Bee. It seemed harder than it should have been when we were identifying the bumble bees. The markings seemed unique, but when we looked at the list we had no idea. The next time we surveyed them, we were certain that a bag of ice would make it easier. However, it almost seemed harder to freeze them, probably because they were bigger. There were way more people than the last time, which was exciting because people kept asking us questions. There were lots more bumblebees than the first time, and they were bigger and mostly yellow. The first bee we caught was a Brown-Belted Bumblebee, and soon after we caught a Red-Belted Bumblebee. Very similar, just the color of the band around their abdomen is a different color. Another bee we caught was the Nevada Bumblebee, regular sized but just as hard to calm as the big ones. When we tried to take pictures of the bees, we realized that my camera was too big to take pictures of the tiny bumblebees. On our final encounter with bumblebees, I was mowing the lawn at my Grandpa Fred’s house when I saw one on the lavender at his house. I quickly shut off the mower and grabbed my net. Once he was trapped, he flew directly into my net. This time, we put him in the freezer since it was nearby. It only took five minutes instead of thirty. Again, my camera was too big, so we settled for the not as good quality i-phone pictures. This time, we identified this bumblebee as a High Country Bumblebee. This seemed like the best bet because the markings mostly matched on the app to the bumblebee we had captured. After he flew away, we packed away the containers for next summer. It was a fun and intense experience, and I hope to continue next summer. Thanks for reading my blogpost on Bumblebee Surveys! Pictures of the bees will be coming shortly, but for now please explore my U.S. Birds section at Pictures: Me at the Lavender farm with Bumble Bees

U.S. Birding 2022

For summer break, we headed to Washington State to see my grandparents. At the airport in Saudi, I realized that I had forgotten my camera back at the house! Luckily for us however, there was a one hour delay. My mom and I debated for what seemed like ages before agreeing to let me go back to RT to get the camera. Ras Tanura is 45 minutes away from the airport, so we had to hurry. We ran back upstairs and told my dad, who was hesitant at first. We hurried to the parking garage and hopped into the taxi. I rushed into the house and grabbed the camera. As I opened the closet door, something big, yellow, and furry banged into me. Blueberry had charged down the stairs from my room because he heard the door open. I almost wished he hadn’t come down so he wouldn’t have to see me leave again. We made pretty good time back to the airport. When we got back to the check in counter, we discovered that mom and sister had already checked in with all of our bags. “I can’t believe that they let you check in our bags without us!” Dad was surprised. “This is probably the only country where they’d let you do that.” Once we went through security, we had an easy time getting to Washington. My dad had a class about teaching and life skills online for the first week we were there, so one of the days, I went to Wiley Slough, a forest and marshland that was flooded to raise the salmon population. We walked a mile to the river but we didn’t see many birds. On our way back, we saw a few swallows and some Cedar waxwings, but they were high up in the trees. My sister and my mom walked ahead of me because I was looking for little songbirds in the bushes. When I was almost at the parking lot, I saw a Cedar Waxwing on the ground with something in its beak. As I got closer, I realized that it was a dragonfly. I got some very cool shots, including the picture of Bombycilla Cedrorum, the Cedar Waxwing that is pictured below.

I also had another encounter with some Cedar Waxwings at Goat Lake, a five mile hike from the outskirts of Granite Falls. There was a very short cutoff trail down to a bunch of logs spread out in a corner of the lake. There were at least 20 waxwings and several robins flying around for mosquitoes. I didn’t have my camera with me because it would have been too heavy to lug all the way up the mountain. We didn’t encounter many birds besides the waxwings on that hike. Our next birding experience was in Florida at the South Jetty on Venice Beach. On our final of seven days in florida, we headed to the South Jetty to get one final bird experience before Cape Cod We were walking towards the end of the pier, dodging all the fishing poles, when I nearly tripped over a Snowy Egret eating a bait fish a fisherman had dropped. There were at least 20 egrets on the pier, and all of them were stalking a fisherman who had just caught a bunch of fish in his net. There were also several pelicans, including two perched on a pole with a speed limit for the boaters. The pelicans flew up, and then dove into the canal, and then surfaced with a full pouch.

In Cape Cod, we visited our friends Greg and Lois Cronin, who have several feeders and bird boxes in their yard. A pair of Eastern Bluebirds had nested in their yard two times already this year, and there were more nestlings in a third box. Greg let us peek inside the nest. The chicks were very fuzzy covered in their downy feathers, and it was probably cold for them so they were nearly on top of each other. After we saw the bluebirds, we saw a juvenile from a clutch earlier this year possibly feeding his younger siblings. An osprey also flew overhead towards the lake, but it was at the wrong angle of the sun for a good shot. There were also several orioles at the orange feeder, and at least one breeding pair earlier this year. There was also a female Ruby Throated-Hummingbird at the hummingbird feeder. When we move back to the U.S, I want our yard to look just like the Cronin's yard. Pictures, Top to bottom: Female Bluebird feeding nestlings Juvenile Bluebird with mealworm Osprey on the wing Female Baltimore Oriole Male Baltimore Oriole

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