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Post by Rev. Redmond Farrier on Nov 7, 2013 12:28:20 GMT -8
A gas station is where I got most of my D. tityus last year. So far, only one gas station has panned out for me, but there are a few more that I plan on checking next year that I didn't get around to this year.
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Post by Rev. Redmond Farrier on Nov 3, 2013 11:59:15 GMT -8
Thank you all for your replies. I guess I need to do a bit of research on collecting on public lands and find out where the suitable public lands are around here. There is a WMA about half an hour from here that I want to look into. I haven't been there since they closed the shooting range there a couple of years ago, but I remember the land being ideal for setting up on. I never thought to seek permission because I haven't been there since I started collecting. I may have someone I know who would let me set up on his pasture land. It is a bit awkward to approach him with what would seem to him like a sissy hobby, but if I bring my tommy gun and AR to let him do a little target practice, he will probably happily agree to let me set up for the night.
All this will be for naught though if I cannot get my setup mobile since I am currently limited to the distance my dropcord will reach from an electricity source. Anybody have any thoughts on the questions in my original post regarding this? I have my eye on a little part time job that would allow me to scrape together a little money to spend on non essentials. If I land the job, I would like to know what I need to save for.
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Post by Rev. Redmond Farrier on Oct 26, 2013 22:17:29 GMT -8
Well, this season is nearly over and it has not been that great of a season for me. Odd weather coupled with the doldrums that attack the mind when losing a job of 12 years did not add up to a good season for collecting. Carelessness and a lack of organization also cost me a huge part of my collection due to a dermestid infestation. (I didn't even notice until I glanced at my wunderkammer and saw that an entire snakeskin had turned to dust.) My collection was already small and now it is only a few dozen specimens. Rather than seeing this as a setback though, I see it as a chance to start over nearly from scratch and do it like it should be done this time. (organization, proper labeling, and proper storage!!)
I have around half a dozen sets of chest of drawers other than the one I use for it's intended purpose and plan to start setting them up as makeshift bug cabinets. The initial setup will simply be lining the drawers with styrofoam and placing no pest strips in each drawer. When I get a job, that can be improved upon by sealing each drawer and fashioning an airtight plexiglas lid for each one. By the time I fill up that many drawers I should have had a job long enough to afford to build proper insect cabinets.
I am also looking into making my light sheet set portable. Here I have a few questions though. I have a self ballasted mv light on a stand that folds up nice and compact and a sheet with the necessary poles and such that rolls up to about the size of a 2 man tent (not when the tent is up of course!) I can toss the entire set up in the backseat of my car and still have more than enough room for a couple of passengers. What I need is power. Would a deep cycle battery and an inverter keep that bulb burning most of the night, or would I need a way to feed power back into the battery for it to work more than a few hours? If so, are there options other than a gas generator for doing so? I found a few camp stove generators online and they along with the campstove take up a negligible amount of space. The most powerful I found though is a 30watt. I know next to nothing about electricity, so I don't know if that would be anywhere near enough to keep me up and running for the night. If it is, the entire weight of the system (figuring on around 50lb of battery) would be less than 80lb. That isn't light, but it could be hiked in to a relatively remote area without too much trouble
I have one more question before I close this rather lengthy post. How do you find areas to set up? I don't want to go through the trouble of hauling the gear in and setting it up only to have a cop show up and tell me that I cannot be there. Most of the land around here is private property. I have to be careful not to trespass, otherwise I may end up with Farmer John in my face with a shotgun. All of my friends that I am close enough to to ask live in areas with too much light pollution to be viable collecting spots. Any tips or tricks to land that perfect collecting area will be much appreciated.
Rev. R. Farrier
p.s. please ignore any typos, grammatical errors, etc. it is late and I am too tired to proofread! lol
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Post by Rev. Redmond Farrier on Aug 30, 2013 22:01:38 GMT -8
Thanks for the assist. As far as checking the underside of the forewings, that will have to wait since it is now pinned down and cannot be moved until it dries. I am still slightly confused by the antenna though. Every image I have found of each of the mentioned species has striped antenna with an orangish tips . Mine has dark brown with black tips.
I am also curious about the Genus name. Every search I do for "Enodia" leads me to "Lethe". I have seen the Southern Pearly-eye labeled as both Enodia portlandia and Lethe portlandia. Is one of these wrong, or is one "more right" than the other?
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Post by Rev. Redmond Farrier on Aug 30, 2013 21:40:30 GMT -8
Thanks for the kind welcome back folks. The rain has finally eased up a bit for most of this week and temps have risen a little (though still not to the norms). Hopefully things will pick back up now and my collecting will be a bit more fruitful. I am still having a major pin shortage though and won't allow myself to purchase any more until I get an income again. I found a few that were freed up after a dermestid issue took out a handful of my specimens though. I know that there are over 200 of them (pins, not dermestids!) in a tiny envelope along with my pinning block, but I have not been able to find them all season. lol I guess it isn't too bad though since I have so few specimens to use them on this year. Maybe next year will be better for collecting, and who knows, maybe by then I will be in the job I am hoping for and can afford to throw together a portable lightsheet set and move out of my back field to see what other diversity I can find in this area.
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Post by Rev. Redmond Farrier on Aug 28, 2013 20:25:24 GMT -8
It has been a rough season here for collecting, though I did manage to snag the butterfly the other day. This one has me rather stumped. I want to say it is a Lethe eurydice, but all the images I find show striped antenna with a red tip. This one is just straight black. captured Aug. 24 in Upson county GA, USA Wingspan 64mm Attachments:
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Post by Rev. Redmond Farrier on Aug 24, 2013 19:35:58 GMT -8
Greeting all! Those of you who were here last September may remember me. I lost my job and thought I was going to have to have my internet disconnected. I haven’t found a job yet, but I managed to budget myself in such a way that I was able maintain my connection.
I was planning to come back to the forums when this collecting season started, but it has not been a good season at all for me. Excessive rain has kept me from doing much daytime collecting and has kept activity at my light to a bare minimum. Summer never really got started here either. I am accustomed to 100f+ temps throughout August. Instead it stays around 85f. The unusual weather coupled with the fact that my budget does not allow for any non essential spending (new bulbs, pins, etc…) has meant that this season has been horrible thus far.
I did manage to catch my first Eumorpha fasciatus tonight and what I believe to be a male Lucanus capreolus last week though. I still need to sit down with the beetle and verify the id to make sure.
I still have to keep an eye on my cats when I bring bugs inside as well. A little while back a cicada followed me inside and Luna quickly made a meal of it. Lol
I suppose that is enough of an update and I should cut it off before I type out my whole life story. lol
I’ll be back on with an id request when I get my camera set up. I seem to have found a butterfly that has me stumped.
Rev. R. Farrier
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Post by Rev. Redmond Farrier on Sept 15, 2012 0:59:26 GMT -8
We closed the doors for the final business day today. Every one of us were crying. All that is left now is a week of packing up everything to ship it off to another store. I will try to maintain my internet connection until the end of the month, but insect collecting is rather far from my mind in my present state. It isn't even so much the loss of income that is the hard part about it. It is the loss of a store that was like a second home for me and the separation of a crew that was as close as a family. The lady who manages the store that is getting all our leftovers was there today. This was the first time she had met any of us and we had her crying just as hard as those of us who were part of store 559's crew. Since me and one of the girls are the only ones who have been there since the beginning, they had me make the final closing announcement and had her lock the doors. They said that it was only fitting for us to close it since we were there to help set up the store to open it. I did good. I didn't start sobbing all over the mic like I expected to. When Kim locked the door behind the final customers, that is when everybody broke. The boss gave a little speech with tears streaming down his cheeks while the rest of us tried to listen without sobbing (unsuccessfully I might add). It has been a difficult day.
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Post by Rev. Redmond Farrier on Sept 11, 2012 16:15:02 GMT -8
I too am sorry for your loss. I know how it feels. Back in late march my little dog passed away. He was 13, almost 14. My grandfather brought him home as a puppy. He was here before any of the human members of my family died and he survived a few years after the last of them died. He was bound to a little K9 wheel chair for most of his life so he took a lot of extra effort to care for. I walked by his grave today and that great sense of loss welled up in me again. I still need to go let the vet know that he passed. I also need to thank him for the 13 wonderful years of companionship that would have not been possible had he not saved him when he got in the road when he was still a pup. Losing him hurt every bit as much as when the human members of my family passed.
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Post by Rev. Redmond Farrier on Sept 5, 2012 16:48:35 GMT -8
...But it looks like I am going to have to leave here in a couple of weeks. I was just informed today that my store is being shut down and I will be unemployed after the 22nd. I just don't see any way for me to afford to keep my internet up after I lose my job. I will still try to stop in on occasion when I can get to a wifi hotspot, but with the price of gas I won't be getting into town often to do so.
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Post by Rev. Redmond Farrier on Aug 25, 2012 8:13:08 GMT -8
I was walking through my back field today to see what I could find and happened upon these strange little creatures. I thought maybe they were slug moth caterpillars, but I came up empty on bugguide. I found them on some sort of thorny weed, I have no idea what the weed is called though. As always, you have but to look at the left side of your screen to see my location. It would make it easier if people would put that info in their profile when they are using the "Bug Identification" area of the forum. Then they would only have to mention location if it differs from their home local. Attachments:
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Post by Rev. Redmond Farrier on Aug 24, 2012 16:51:50 GMT -8
Thanks for the info. I know that there are plenty of catalpa trees in this area. I just don't know where any are that are not on private property or property that I would be allowed access to. There was a tree on my property when I was a child, but it was killed by the goats that my uncle once tried to raise. C. catalpae are often raised in this area to be sold as fish bait. The trees are sold specifically for that purpose. They are treated just like any fruit tree except that the "fruit" in this case is catawba worms.
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Post by Rev. Redmond Farrier on Aug 24, 2012 5:12:43 GMT -8
I wasn't satisfied with the first photo, so I tried to get a more detailed shot. I was also able to get an accurate measurement. This tiny caterpillar is only 11mm. I am guessing that it is a very early instar, but I may be wrong and it might be a later instar of a very tiny lep. Attachments:
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Post by Rev. Redmond Farrier on Aug 24, 2012 4:53:23 GMT -8
I realize that I have been asking about a lot of caterpillars lately. I guess it is just that time of the season. I was out gathering grapes for my first attempt at making jelly when I noticed this tiny guy in my box of grapes. The image quality isn't that good, but hopefully someone here will recognize this tiny caterpillar. Attachments:
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Post by Rev. Redmond Farrier on Aug 24, 2012 4:02:17 GMT -8
I found this girl laying her eggs on my lightsheet last night. First I want to make sure that I am not misidentifying her. This is C. catalpa right? If I have the correct id, then I am presented with another problem. I do not have access to a catalpa tree (called catawba worm trees around here). Apparently she couldn't find one either since she was laying her eggs on my sheet. Is there any alternative food source, or were her eggs laid in vain? Attachments:
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