“How are you today?” my therapist asked me. I responded with a laugh – not sure what I was laughing about. I wasn’t sure. How am I today? “I feel good, I guess… Busy, hot and sweaty,” I said. “Running around, dousing fires.” “And the parking here sucks! Sorry I’m late,” I added. It prettyContinue reading “How are you today?”
Tag Archives: insects
Alarming insect declines
Over the course of the past five years, many scientific papers have been written about insect declines – some simply reporting patterns in observational data, while others have adopted rigorous monitoring combined with measurements of potential factors contributing to shifts in insect diversity and abundance. There are debates ongoing between entomologists and conservationists as toContinue reading “Alarming insect declines”
The final phase
A short post today. I spent my afternoon getting the final phase of my light pollution experiment going. In this final phase, we will investigate whether light pollution disrupts feeding by an insect herbivore on six plant species. In the picture below you can see the sleeve cages I use to keep the herbivores onContinue reading “The final phase”
A flower feast
Not much to see here today – except some pictures of the new field experiment. I went out to water the plants this afternoon, and the fields were – quite literally – buzzing with activity. This is the first year that I actively work on this plant species, Tansy, as a model system. (I haveContinue reading “A flower feast”
A silly clown
It’s quite funny how hysterical professional gardeners and greenhouse staff get when they see aphids. I get it, aphids are the devil – that is, when you’re a tomato grower or whatever. I cannot count count the number of times I have been warned about all the horrors that are aphids – as if IContinue reading “A silly clown”
The very odd-looking stag beetle…
I’ve been lucky enough to find a couple of lesser stag beetles (Dorcus parallelipipedus) in my garden lately. About two weeks ago I found a female, and two days ago my wife found a male, approximately two meters away from the place I found the female, on the same wall. I hope they managed toContinue reading “The very odd-looking stag beetle…”
My son pays the price…
Those who know me well know that I care deeply about nature. I truly believe that we can (and should!) all play an important role in maintaining a bit of biodiversity close to home – in our own backyards. As you would expect from an ecological entomologist, my garden is a bit of a wildContinue reading “My son pays the price…”
Freisinger Buckl Revisited
Earlier this year – on the second of April to be exact – I wrote a short post about the Easter Flowers (Pulsatilla vulgaris) in the Freisinger Buckl, a nature conservation area just South of the Isar river. Some two weeks later, I visited the area again. When I visited the area then, it wasContinue reading “Freisinger Buckl Revisited”
I think it’s in my blood…
It almost seemed like springtime today! After weeks and weeks of cold weather, and lots of rain, today we had a pretty good day, with quite some sun coming through. We had barely set foot in our garden over the past weeks, except for dumping some organic waste on the compost pile every now andContinue reading “I think it’s in my blood…”
She made me kill it
A couple of years back, Heike and I traveled around the Yucatán Peninsula, with several weeks spent in Mexico, and several in Belize. I wasn’t sure what to expect from the trip. To be honest, the media do not really paint a fantastic picture of Mexico (druglords, kidnappings and the like), although Cancún and PlayaContinue reading “She made me kill it”
Robin Heinen 