took the fancy camera to high park this morning!

i was mostly looking for galls for #GallWeek but i also saw plenty of sand wasps enjoying the sun, and a coyote! i was walking away from it but it crossed the street to avoid me anyway and a car that was going too fast had to stop for it 🙄

(there are Plans to gradually #BanCars in High Park, people are big mad)

#galls #GallWeek2025 #bugstodon #insects #wasps #coyote #coyotes #Hymenoptera #Crabronidae #Bembicini

P. S.

Nature in one of her beneficent moods has ordained that even death has some antidote to its own terrors. Here, in a case where any shock may prove fatal, matters are so ordered that, from some cause or other, the things not personal⁠—even the terrible change in her daughter to whom she is so attached⁠—do not seem to reach her. It is something like the way Dame Nature gathers round a foreign body an envelope of some insensitive tissue which can protect from evil that which it would otherwise harm by contact.

Happy #GallWeek2025!

#DraculaDaily #ReDracula #GallWeek

I don't want to name names but apparently some of you did not go out and take photographs of galls yesterday. #GallWeek25 #GallWeek2025 #GallWeek #gall #galls #insects #inaturalist #entomology #nature #cynipidae https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/gall-week-september-2025
Gall Week September 2025

Welcome to the 8th Gall Week event! During September 6-14, please document galls = structures induced by arthropods, fungi, and sometimes bacteria on plants. Please do not document here leaf miners or other evidence of feeding, unless they are gall-related. To participate, please join the project, document new observations between 9/6-14, and upload them manually to the project. Uploading observations can continue after the event ends. More info from our earlier projects: Don't forget to add information about the host plant - as a note, or even better, in the fields: Host and Host plant ID field. You can also link to the host plant observation, especially if you're unsure what it was. If you've never done this before, you can check what the best host plants are in your area. You can use gall or insect books from your area, websites (such as https://gallformers.org/), podcasts (https://podcast.naturesarchive.com/2021/09/14/galls/), and iNat. You can view all previous Gall Week projec...

iNaturalist
Gall fans, it's almost time for this year's week in the spotlight: September 6-14, 2025. #GallWeek #GallWeek25 #GallWeek2025 #gall #galls #plants #insects #inaturalist #biology https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/gall-week-september-2025
Gall Week September 2025

Welcome to the 8th Gall Week event! During September 6-14, please document galls = structures induced by arthropods, fungi, and sometimes bacteria on plants. Please do not document here leaf miners or other evidence of feeding, unless they are gall-related. To participate, please join the project, document new observations between 9/6-14, and upload them manually to the project. Uploading observations can continue after the event ends. More info from our earlier projects: Don't forget to add information about the host plant - as a note, or even better, in the fields: Host and Host plant ID field. You can also link to the host plant observation, especially if you're unsure what it was. If you've never done this before, you can check what the best host plants are in your area. You can use gall or insect books from your area, websites (such as https://gallformers.org/), podcasts (https://podcast.naturesarchive.com/2021/09/14/galls/), and iNat. You can view all previous Gall Week projec...

iNaturalist

#GallWeek September 2024 comes to an end. I didn't quite make my target of 100 different galls (count is on 96 with 1 or 2 to come) : https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?project_id=gall-week-september-2024&subview=table&user_id=sk53

It was a bit frustrating failing to find galls from locations they were seen earlier in the year, but I also managed to explore a little further afield this year. Helped by free OAP travel.

Highlights were : Alder Tongue, evidence of spread of Dasineura aceris on Silver Maple, Pseudoneuroterus saliens and Euura viminalis #PlantGalls

Observations

Observations by SK53

iNaturalist
Gall of Asteromyia carbonifera (Cecidomyiidae) on goldenrod. The gall is made by a fungus, Botryosphaeria dothidea, which creates a hard, internal pocket (stroma) that makes it difficult for parasitoids such as Torymus capite (Chalcidoidea) to find the larvae inside. Female midges collect conidia of this fungal species and store them in special pockets (mycangia) on their ovipositors. #fly #diptera #insects #entomology #macro #fungi #mutualism #gall #galls #GallWeek

@fowp Of course you can. The records are all on iNaturalist (with a view older ones: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?nelat=52.9544763836614&nelng=-1.196930503298974&project_id=plant-galls-of-britain-ireland&subview=map&swlat=52.94015071697601&swlng=-1.2246538156769038), and I think all the photos are licenced CC-BY-SA on there, including Timaspis. I've even got one or two gall records from the Arbour Oak.

About 9 years ago I had a productive session looking for galls in the Hall Gardens with the late Peter Cooke of Coventry & District Natural History Society. Felt gall on Holm Oaks should be obvious. #PlantGalls #GallWeek #GallWeek2024 #Nottingham

Observations

iNaturalist is a social network for naturalists! Record your observations of plants and animals, share them with friends and researchers, and learn about the natural world.

iNaturalist

Seems an age ago now, but on Monday went looking for Oak Galls along Digby Avenue in Wollaton Park. Harder to find this year, and no Trigonapsis 😞, but quite a few nice Andricus gemmeus.

Highlight was an Alder Tongue on by return route (a gall I've missed out on locally).

#GallWeek RT @fowp

Found a wasp ovipositing into a Callirhytis furva gall on Saturday. Actual ID likely impossible (wasps are hard), but iNaturalist's computer vision guessed Periclistus, a cynipid genus that uses other cynipid galls as homes. But Periclistus is not, I think, a known inquiline of Callirhytis, so likely something else. #gall #galls #GallWeek #GallWeek2024 #wasp #hymenoptera #cynipidae #nature #macro #oak #inaturalist #insect
Photographed over a dozen galls yesterday to kick off Gall Week. Here's one made by the cynipid wasp, Andricus nigricens. Each little lobe has a single wasp larva, and sometime in the fall they drop off onto the ground. #gall #galls #GallWeek #GallWeek2024 #biology #plants #nature #quercus #oak https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/240567699
Andricus nigricens

Andricus nigricens from Swarthmore, PA 19081, USA on September 7, 2024 at 12:17 PM by Colin Purrington

iNaturalist