The area that I could see the rusty patch bumblebee daily is now totally bereft of any bumblebees Every other day I’ve been walking different areas, cursing honeybees and lowly singing “where have all the cowboys gone?”

Mental health recovery success: Going photographing in prairie remnants with a friend and watching bees climb into gentians with equal excitement

hello from a megachile friend I made today, deeply lost in the sauce at Marquette Park

Prairie evening sounds

prairie fact of the day: the first prairie garden made post-settlement was Jens Jensen's* American Garden at Union Park. He harvested plants from roadsides outside the city & planted them in flowerbeds...... among tree-of-heaven & buckthorn. You might those now as major invasive species of Chicago!

Early "native gardens" and "restorations" tended to just be "we drove around, dug up some plants, and put them all together" Here's Olmsted in 1893, talking about the lagoon edges at Jackson & Washington parks in Chicago, which took 75 rail-car loads of wild plants from all over

Here's similar stories from Jens Jensen about The First Prairie Garden Ever™️ at Union Park & from Ted Sperry (1936) about The First Prairie Restoration Ever™️ at UW Arboretum Imagine there being so many bottle gentians in Chicago city limits that you could just grab some nbd

ok but actually, I need a bodycam to capture all the honeybee-on-bumblebee assholery I see when I'm out. We've especially had issues with honeybees bullying the rusty-patch bumblebees, but haven't been quick enough to document any of it! Next year, I'm determined to put honeybees on blast

Happy bee butt season everyone Video: a bombus impatiens wiggles out of a white gentian

I am determined to turn my @inaturalist.bsky.social obs into a square over Chicagoland. Starting next on northwest burbs. Unfortunately, most of the time I spend in the center-northeast is on the highway. You can see my commute on Dundee Road VERY clearly, but there's no evidence of I-290 or I-294

Big news if true: It’s gentian season

Plants of Concern volunteers had only seen smaller bees visiting low bindweed until Gretel’s observation this year. Knowing who is pollinating our rare native plants can help us better understand how to protect them. Learn more: plantsofconcern.org

🐝 Bumble bee self-care: groom… nectar… groom… Gretel Kiefer, manager of the Plants of Concern program, found this half-black bumble bee (Bombus vagans) visiting low bindweed (Calystegia spithamaea), a rare Illinois native plant. 🧪

ICYMI: I found a prairie remnant actively in the process of being destroyed. There's not much left, but if anyone is on the hunt for some dry-friendly plants, you might as well go pick some of these up before they're all killed. 1040 Marquis St, Montgomery, IL www.inaturalist.org/observations...

Had a guess there was some remnant over here and finding the last of it literally in front of a fleet of construction trucks is TOO ON THE NOSE Reality is so tacky

Anti-turf buyback Utah State professor Kelly Kopp is part of the expert team for the lobbyist org "Healthy Green Spaces Coalition" They CLAIM to be supporting water-smart landscaping. They actually advertise all the lawn reduction legislation they've shut down I wonder how much $ she gets

Join me in having a good laugh at this Utah State professor who claims "Well actually, turf buyback programs in desert areas are bad because .... people stop watering their trees." Two very connected ideas, clearly. When turf researchers are funded by the industry... smartrain.net/blog/turf-bu...

💛 this new @sophietaddeo.bsky.social Urban Ecosystems paper on combining/comparing herbaria, lit, & @inaturalist.bsky.social plant observations in Cook County. Citizen science gives us a window into private property, while lit is biased towards conservation areas. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

I commented on the observation, but I suspect b. vagans :) great diagrams made here: wisconsinbumblebees.entomology.wisc.edu/online-guide... Even tho MI has different species, I use these diagrams to train new folks.

Im behind this year, but Bee Palooza planning is in full swing with 4 days left to do all the overly ambitious things i always wanna do 😂 This Sunday, Bee there or be square.

Society for Ecological Restoration folks!!! SER World is coming up & understandably, things are... diminished. You can't have a World conference if people cannot safely fly here & budgets are being cut. SER sent out a survey asking about your conditions to problem-solve this issue. Please answer!

My ghost pipe bumble (no idea of ID) says cheers

Please share widely. Let's counteract the dismantling of public trust in science and research infrastructure with creativity and community. Apply here by 9/5. Link also in bio. bit.ly/comicscollabfall2025

Seeking scientist volunteers for this fall! Want to practice science communication and help author a 🌟comic🌟 about your research? I need collaborators for the next cohort of SciComm & Comics art and design students. All countries and scientific fields eligible.

omg check out this very cool new observation, not mine, of a bombus on ghost pipe! Please id if you recognize them! www.inaturalist.org/observations...

Society for Ecological Restoration folks!!! SER World is coming up & understandably, things are... diminished. You can't have a World conference if people cannot safely fly here & budgets are being cut. SER sent out a survey asking about your conditions to problem-solve this issue. Please answer!

i genuinely meant to go to Big Marsh, but Big Marsh is basically Indiana, and as soon as I got into Indiana, all the billboards said I was basically in New Buffalo, Michigan (and I should buy weed there) the billboards did not get me to buy weed but they DID get me to cross the border into MI

the thing is like.... going to iowa really screwed up my home inat map. Chicago kept getting hidden behind my recent observation boxes. I definitely didn't drive all the way to michigan to fix it. for sure.

Some folks have been asking how I find new areas to explore for iNat & one of my tricks is just adding one string to my search url: &geoprivacy=open&taxon_geoprivacy=open Now those transparent vague observations go away & I can see where the actual gaps are ex: www.inaturalist.org/observations...

ICYMI This weekend I stumbled across a remnant prairie in the middle of dense suburban Downers Grove. I've been pretty in-the-know about the area & neither I nor friends had heard of this remnant So I got nerdy on it, looked up aerial archives & did a site visit: www.inaturalist.org/posts/116020...

Some folks have been asking how I find new areas to explore for iNat & one of my tricks is just adding one string to my search url: &geoprivacy=open&taxon_geoprivacy=open Now those transparent vague observations go away & I can see where the actual gaps are ex: www.inaturalist.org/observations...

Does anyone have any experience transferring existing iNaturalist observations to projects like BeeSpotter and BumbleBeeWatch? I want to do the #WildBeesForSheila but uploading 300 bee observations to two other websites sounds like a hassle

Oh??? Did everyone know there was a giant remnant in the middle of Downers Grove? And that it’s 100% fenced off Pepperidge Farm property? maps.app.goo.gl/jRf9Ks9NjFFp...

Oh??? Did everyone know there was a giant remnant in the middle of Downers Grove? And that it’s 100% fenced off Pepperidge Farm property? maps.app.goo.gl/jRf9Ks9NjFFp...

Who all is headed to SER World in Denver?

I WANT TO BREAK FREE (dw, that's hibiscus pollen on this rusty-patch bumblebee)

the young man came with me to go looking for bees we didn't find much, but he did have a fun time

🌿 Most of Bell Bowl Prairie, an 8,000-year-old remnant in Rockford, IL, was removed in 2023. Before its loss, 20 truckloads of soil were moved to Cedar Cliff Nature Preserve. See how its plants are rebounding and what it means for prairie conservation: wildones.org/lessons-from...

soooo I was not expecting to met this fuzz tonight but uhhhhhh Is there a blonde colorway for affinis?

Need some photos of Bombus affinis aka the federally endangered rusty-patched bumblebee? I just uploaded a ton of high res photos of some recent observations I've made. Under CC license, use for non-commercial with credit! www.flickr.com/photos/19985...

how many photos of rusty patched bumblebees is the correct one I'm uploading them to Flickr so people can have full access to the full sized photos for non-profit use

Happy monday, please enjoy two "SERIOUSLY? THAT's the only photo???" awful shots of rusty-patched bumblebees from Wayne, Illinois and Coralville, Iowa

IVE FIGURED IT OUT People go to Vegas because it’s statistically possible in that location to get the big monies so they keep hitting the button in front of them What I’m hearing is: Going to a giant monarda patch, knowing there’s a rusty patch nearby

I had a flub of a conference presentation a few months ago (it was FINE just not GOOD) in order to slam-dunk this presentation today i think I can say i rocked this. had lotsa followups. it's nice to be reminded I am good at something also ppl gotta stop doing dry academic talks at non-academics

LOOK AT MY PIE!!! My beautiful boy turned out perfect in goldenrod

goldenrod

i mean like.... that's a pretty delightful shot, even if it is just another bombus gris everyone should get a 105mm lens, they make everything look so damn good

Guess who literally got her foot stuck in a literal prairie pothole? Like I thought they were like “oh there are cute depressions that collect water” not actual 2ft wide HOLES hidden under water and grass that tried to eat my foot and/or steal my shoe. Fell on my ass most elegantly

I love y’all, but if one more person responds to that stranger’s jokey horticulture bumper sticker about horticulture industry practices with a “WELL ACTUALLY, my NATIVE annuals…”, I’m going to grab you by the shoulders and shake you, lovingly, until you stop

Live update from the parking garage next to the Perennial Plants Association conference!