Fauna vs. Flora

It's a season of transition, spring fading toward summer.

The sky was brooding, but no rain would fall on us ('tis not the season for that).

There was more green to be seen closer to the Guadalupe Reservoir. And even on a familiar hike (a little more than five miles), there is something new to find.

I paused to snap a photo of this flower (yellow star-thistle), and was surprised to find it covered with insects. Insects I hadn't seen before (of which there are, of course, many).

The natural world is amazing. Specfically, these were yellow star-thistle flower weevils. That's right: a creature that feeds on precisely this flower. Like the plant, these weevils are non-native—they were deliberately imported to attack this invasive plant. Evidently they're not alone in this job: there are a couple of other types of yellow-star-thistle-hungry weevils, similarly imported. I've seen a lot of yellow starthistle ... but this was the first time to find any of the devouring weevils. (In the Bay Area, the plant seems to be winning.)

Life is full of little surprises—always be looking!