Backyard Bug Safari: Tools for Exploration

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Show Notes & Links

In this episode, we take a deep dive into finding, observing, and identifying insects and other invertebrates in gardens and neighborhoods. We describe common groups (bees, butterflies and moths, flies, herbivores, predators, parasitoids, decomposers) and note that both common and rare species can appear, including examples like rusty patched bumblebees in gardens. Tips include looking on flowers, vegetation, under leaves, in leaf litter and soil, and for signs of parasitoids; choosing times of day based on insect activity and photography; and using simple tools like a phone or camera, magnifier, notebook, jars, nets, coolers, and even a tuning fork for spiders.

• iNaturalist projects
  • WMMM
  • Monarch nectar plants
• Pocket guides
• Guide books:
  • Peterson Field Guide to Insects America North of Mexico
  • Kaufman Field Guide to Insects of North America
  • Tracks & Sign of Insects and Other Invertebrates: A Guide to North American Species

Matthew: Welcome to Bug Banter with the Xerces Society, where we explore the world of invertebrates and discover how to help these extraordinary animals. If you want to support our work, go to xerces.org/donate.

Rachel: Hi, I'm Rachel Dunham in Missoula, Montana.

Matthew: And I'm Matthew Shepherd in Portland, Oregon.

Rachel: Do you know what insects are in your pollinator garden, or in your community? How do you find them, identify them, and continue to support them? Well, if you want the answers to these questions, you’ve come to the right place!

Rachel: To help us explore this topic, and give us their best tips, are Jennifer Hopwood and Aaron Anderson. Jennifer is a senior pollinator conservation specialist with Xerces, providing resources and training for pollinator and beneficial insect habitat management and restoration in a variety of landscapes. Aaron is a pesticide program specialist at Xerces, and works with communities across the country, as well as Xerces staff, to reduce pesticide use in residential landscapes, including promoting non-pesticide approaches to landscape care and pollinator-friendly gardening practices.

Rachel: Neither of these guests are strangers to Bug Banter. Nonetheless, we are very happy to have you both back. Welcome to Bug Banter.

Jennifer: Thank you.

Aaron: Thanks for having us, Rachel and Matthew.

Matthew: Yeah, of course. Now, I have to say that when this topic was suggested, I was pretty excited, because we talk about natural history, intriguing behaviors of insects, as well as how to help them, but not about how to actually find them and watch them. So there's a whole world of activity happening right under our noses, and we want you, dear listener, to go out and enjoy them. So Jennifer, Aaron, maybe we can start with talking about the kinds of insects—or more broadly, other invertebrates—that someone might find in their garden.

Aaron: That's a really great question, Matthew. And I think something that's so exciting about creating habitat in your yard is that you can find all sorts of invertebrates, insects, other wildlife. I know people who have been monitoring their yards for years have found hundreds of different species—which is so exciting! In general, of course, there's the pollinators that we talk a lot about through all of our Xerces work. You'll see bees. You know, there's over 3,600 species in the United States, and they can look so different from big bumble bees and carpenter bees to really tiny bees about the size of a grain of rice. You, of course, also see butterflies and moths—they're common pollinators. You'll see flies. Syrphid flies, in particular, many of which are bee mimics and are also great.

Aaron: But I think the other two groups that people often are keeping an eye on in their yards are beneficial insects, which are a really wide category. And also herbivores that are feeding on your plants. Sometimes people consider these pests, too. And beneficials include those pollinators we just talked about, decomposers, predators—those are invertebrates that will prey on other insects. And then also parasitoids, which are similar but they don't kill the pest right away—they'll slowly consume them and end up killing them or making it so they can't reproduce. Because of this, predators and parasitoids—they're also called natural enemies—are really important for pest control in the garden. So those are some of the different insects and different groups of insects you'll see. There's, yeah, so many more things you might see as well. Having these insects will also bring in more bird life. There's just all sorts of great wildlife that you can see through creating habitat in your yard and garden.

Matthew: Yeah. With so many different species types, such diversity, will all the species likely to be common species, widespread species? Or are there rare species that you could also find?

Jennifer: It can be definitely a bit of both, for sure. Depending on what you have planted, that will make a big influence. And also what the landscape looks like in your neighborhood, as well, or wherever you're looking for insects. You can definitely support a bunch of common species, but rare species have been found, for sure. In fact, it was quite a few years ago now, I guess, but there was a student at St. Louis University who was doing some bee surveys in yards, and she found a bee that was very rare that had only been found a couple of times previously in the yard of a resident in Webster Groves, Missouri. So, you never really know what can be found. And that's why—one of the many reasons why it's worth looking.

Matthew: Oh, that's really cool. Because I've also heard about a rusty patched bumble bee—the one endangered bumble bee species we have—turning up in people's gardens, which I think is so cool. I mean, you kinda touched on it, but I was gonna ask, why might someone want to look for insects?

Jennifer: Okay, I have a long list. There could be many reasons why you might want to. I think broadly speaking, if you are interested in looking for wildlife, then insects can be another reason to look for. If you're a birder, finding more insects can be helpful to connect those dots, too. You can look for insects because you can look to see the impacts of the habitat that you've created in your space. Broadly speaking, insects are on a spectrum of amazing and beautiful and wonderful, so they can bring joy just in and of themselves. And there's a huge diversity. So there's always something to look at that's new and different usually, too. They can provide inspiration, I think. I have a next-door neighbor that also is very interested in native plants, and creating habitat, so we really feed off each other a lot of the time. And you can make contributions to science, too, in your own yard, too, looking for insects. Because insects are so diverse, and so little is known about some groups, you can learn something through your observations. You can also participate in community science projects that contribute to larger efforts of collecting data and sharing that data to influence conservation. And some insects are just stunning.

Jennifer: And, you know, going back to birds, if you like birds, and you like bird song—insects also sing! So you can listen to insect songs. Okay, and last of all. My son just did a science project looking at bird song and how it influenced heart rate, whether or not it relaxed people. So probably insect song does something similar. But in general, there's a lot of studies out there that indicate that people being out in nature, looking for things of interest—whether it's plants, or birds, or insects—feeds back into physical health, and mental health for people, as well. So there's a lot of ways in which nature supports us, but one of those is mental health. So, anyway, that's my list.

Aaron: That's a great list, Jennifer. I love it. Yeah, I think the top of my list is just that insects are so cool. Lots of times, kids are flipping over rocks and looking at what's underneath. It's just really fun to see what's out there. And I think, too, especially if you're taking the time and effort to garden for pollinators, and other insects, and wildlife, it really is rewarding to see who's visiting this habitat you're creating. And yeah, I think the list you outlined there really sums it all up.

Matthew: Yeah. I was like, “Wow.” Because in my head, it's just they're so fascinating. Of course you want to look for insects. But then you had all these other very sensible, practical reasons, too, which I thought was great.  

Jennifer: Hopefully they reach a wide variety of people. Maybe—. There's something out there for everyone.

Rachel: I agree. I love every episode of Bug Banter, but the ones that really stand out are the ones where my cheeks hurt from smiling, and my cheeks already hurt, and we've just gotten started. Haha. Jennifer, I've had the privilege of co-presenting a webinar with you about our yard space. And I realized one of my gaps—the things that I wasn't doing—was actually going out and looking for insects. I was just so busy planting, and doing all these other things. And this season I've really tried to go out and just observe. And it's like you said, Aaron, it's so gratifying to just see that, yes, the dandelions that I've left in my grass, and the little violets that have popped up in the apple tree. I'm seeing so much activity with beetles, and bees, and butterflies that I've just never taken the time to notice before. And it's just brought me so much joy. And it's only spring. So I loved your list, Jennifer. And what both you, and Matthew, and Aaron added to it. My first answer and thought was like, “Why not go look for insects?" But we're all insect people, so for us it's a no-brainer.

Rachel: All right, so where can someone start if they wanna go find and observe insects in their garden or neighborhood? Are there particular places where people might find them?

Jennifer: Yeah, this is a great question. Pretty much just about everywhere. But if you're gonna target your efforts, there are four places you could target the most. Starting on flowers, that's a great place to start because they're really visible, and because there's so many different critters that visit those for the resources. So you can find them easily. Rachel, also it's been a journey for me to learn to go out and look for things. And sometimes on lunch breaks when I need to get out in the sunshine, or I wanna practice with my camera, that's a really good time to look on flowers for visitors.

Jennifer: Another important place is on vegetation—so on leaves or stems. There are lots of herbivores that can be found there. And sometimes they're not as obvious as on the flower, but you can turn over a leaf and look for them. So those are things like caterpillars, or leaf beetles, or true bugs that are feeding on the plant parts.

Jennifer: You can look within leaf layer, or soil, just like Aaron mentioned about kids flipping over rocks, or under logs, digging in the leaf layer. There are lots of insects and other invertebrates that are really active in those places, breaking down plant material, or breaking down animal waste, and digging and moving nutrients around in the soil. Even the action of digging helps to aerate the soil, and add channels for moisture to go through, and plant roots to go through. So those insects are really valuable for soil health. And if you're a gardener—a vegetable gardener—[you] know how important soil health is. And those larger animals are often forgotten in their role in soil health, and the focus on bacteria and fungi, which are really critical, but those insects really play an important role, too. So check out your soil layer. There's really good stuff in there.

Jennifer: And then the last one is one we can't really see inside, but you can look for them, and that's they're inside insect hosts. And Aaron mentioned parasitoids. Those are insects that feed on a stage of another insect and ultimately kill it in order to survive. But they have the most fascinating ways of slowly, torturously killing their host. And you can sometimes see the evidence of it on your plants, like aphid mummies, or the cocoons of parasitoid wasps, and so forth. So those are the main places to look within whatever types of habitat you have. Even if you've got a balcony with plants, you can look in that space.

Rachel: And is there any particular time of day that would be better to go out?

Jennifer: Yeah, this is a good question, too. And I think it depends on what you're looking to do. In general, insects are—they're cold-blooded, of course, so they need warmth. So they're the most active really during the daytime, and usually peak daytime, but not when in the middle of the summer when it gets super-hot. So daytime is great. But if you're looking to photograph them, early morning can be even better because they're slower, or at the end of the day can be better because they're slower. And then there are also those crepuscular insects, and nocturnal insects, as well. So really whatever time of day you wanna go out, you can find something. I just recently got a new ultraviolet light, so I'm excited to hang out a sheet in the early evening and just see what kind of moths and nocturnal insects I can get to that, for example.

Rachel: And do you need any specific equipment?

Jennifer: Nope. No, you don't. I will tell you the things that I use, in case that's helpful. I do have an insect net but usually I don't take it out into my yard unless I need to catch something like a monarch butterfly, if I'm looking to tag it. But usually if I wanna capture something, I have just a small jar. And you can use like a small glass jar, or plastic jar. And you can just put it in there temporarily, take a look at it, and then let it go. Or you could cool it. You could chill it if you need to slow it down in order to take a picture of it or take a closer look at it. And those are the things I use most often. Also, my camera. That is also the other thing I use. But otherwise what could be helpful is a magnifying lens, if you wanna look at something closer. And maybe a notepad and paper to take notes. Or maybe your cellphone, if you wanna take pictures with your cellphone, if you're more comfortable that way. Aaron, do you have other things that you take outside?

Aaron: Generally it's just the smartphone is so useful because you can take photos and videos. And then, yeah, I do have a net, but like you said, Jennifer, I don't use it all the time. Only if there's a reason that I really wanna capture something and try to get a closer ID of a bee or something like that. And yeah, I will also use a cooler with a little ice pack, if I'm trying to cool somebody down so I can get a much closer photo, especially if it's a faster moving insect. And lots of times for getting a more specific ID, having a really zoomed in, high-quality photo, especially from different angles is really helpful. And sometimes you do need to catch the specimen and cool it down so you can take those photos. And like you said, just a notebook for making notes.

Aaron: Yeah, it doesn't have to be very complicated. I think sometimes my monitoring is just very casual. I'll take my morning coffee out into the garden and just walk around and see who's visiting. And I might not even have my camera or my phone on me, but it's fun to just get a sense of who's there. And if I see something that's really interesting or exciting, I'll run back inside and come back out with kind of a more formal setup. But I think just whenever you have time, like you were saying, Jennifer, like taking a lunch break before or after work, whenever it might be. Just going around, taking the time to just sit there for five minutes, 10 minutes, see who's visiting your plants.

Matthew: And I'll throw in one more piece of equipment you might like. When I go out, I carry a tuning fork with me. Because if you strike it and then touch a spider web, you can get the spider to come to your tuning fork.

Aaron: That's awesome. I think we need a video of you doing this.

Matthew: Doesn't always work. I've just got a little piece of nylon monofilament fishing line attached to it. I touch the web with that, and it just transfers the vibration through and it can—you can make the spiders come scrambling straight to you.

Jennifer: I am absolutely trying to remember where my tuning fork is right now, Matthew. Haha.

Rachel: So some of our listeners might be thinking, "I don't really wanna go out and observe insects, because I'm a little bit nervous around them, particularly stinging ones, like bees." Are there any suggestions for how people should act around bugs?

Aaron: I think that's a really great question and a totally reasonable concern. I'll state that, personally, in all of my years of field work and also observing things in my own yard, I've never been stung by a bee while observing them. Our native bees tend to be really docile when they're out foraging. They're not interested in you. They just wanna visit flowers and collect pollen and nectar. That's, of course, not to say it can't happen. But I would just say with stinging insects in general, just moving slowly, not being threatening, grabbing at them or slapping at them, of course, if they get close to you, I think are ways to just make yourself not be threatening and make them not feel threatened.

Jennifer: I was gonna just say when they're foraging on flowers, they're usually well focused on that task. And are really not often concerned about you unless you pose a specific risk, like trying to grab them, or knock them off, or perhaps trying to put a jar over them. But usually they're very docile, and they're not going to sting you unless there's a particular risk to their nest. And so for the most part, most insects are gonna avoid that. Or unless there's some sort of mortal harm that they anticipate. That's true for biting insects also. Not mosquitoes, and other parasites. Haha. But I was just mostly thinking of the predatory insects like true bugs, or some of the ants that bite. They usually don't—they're doing other things. And they're only going to do things defensively if they absolutely have to because it poses a mortal risk to them, too.

Jennifer: But I was recalling when I was a child, I got stung by a wasp when I was very young—so young I don't even remember it. But it created this pattern in my mind when I was a kid about insects and flying, and I was quite nervous about them for a while. And it did take me a good portion of my childhood to sort of just work through it.

Aaron: I think one thing that I was thinking, when you're going out and making these observations, and you are turning leaves over, or maybe diving through the foliage to look at something, just trying to maybe look at the plant a little bit before you grab it. Because there might be somebody who's right there that you accidentally grab, and they—maybe they'll feel threatened and sting you. So I think just moving slowly and deliberately.

Jennifer: Yeah, and the instance in which I got stung was just because I was, you know, a two-year-old. And I had loose clothing and the wasp just got tangled up in that. So it was completely a normal occurrence for that wasp and a totally natural reaction for them.

Matthew: And a natural reaction for you, as well.

Jennifer: Yeah. Yeah.

Matthew: Totally understandable. Yeah. No, I know in my experience—and I handle more bees than most people—I've only been stung once when I've had a bee in the net. And that was because I had three bees in the net, and I'd only seen two of them. And so I put my hand in to get the two out, and the third one is hidden by the seam, and I just pushed my arm against it. And so it was like, "Oi, I'm here, too." And just a little reminder stings, so.

Matthew: So, once people find insects how can they identify them? Are there helpful resources you can recommend, if it's online, or a field guide from the library, or a bookstore?

Aaron: Yeah, there's a lot of different ways that you can start getting a sense of what insects you have in your yard and identifying them. There's some great field guides out there, which are super helpful with getting some general IDs, and getting to family or even genus. This is a, I think, a really nice place to start, especially if you're just starting this journey of learning about these different insect groups and getting a sense of their different characteristics. But for a lot of maybe the less common insects, you might need a more specialized resource to actually get them to species. And there's a lot of online resources that can be really helpful. Bugguide.net is a great one, for example, that has more in-depth features to help you get an insect to species. But I think those general field guides are a great way to get started, and to familiarize yourself with what to look for. But for other online ones that I use, iNaturalist can be really helpful, too. There's a community of users who will vet and kind of ID different observations that you upload to figure out what your insect is. And as I just mentioned, Bugguide.net is a really good one, too, to compare your specimens from the yard to—there's a ton of different photographs. Insects can look a little bit different. Different sizes, colorations, patterns, depending on what we're talking about and what species. So having this big photo gallery that you can compare your specimen to is really helpful. And there is also a section where you can upload your photo and experts will help ID it. But yeah, both of these options require you to take good photos. So either using a camera with a good lens, or a newer smartphone where you can zoom in is really helpful.

Aaron: And as I think as we mentioned earlier, one tip is catching that insect and cooling it down in a cooler with an ice pack, which makes it a lot easier to photograph. And then I think I'll also add that just Googling can be really helpful. I've had a lot of success starting with things like, “black and white bug Oregon” and then different options. And it gives you a sense of where to look. And then you can go to one of those resources like Bugguide.net and hone in farther, and look at the different features, and what you might be looking for. Though, I should add, too, that there are different kind of AI-based ID apps out there, too, which can be helpful. But they're not always one hundred percent correct, so I definitely recommend kind of cross-referencing a recommendation from one of those with these other resources to just vet to make sure that what's being suggested to you is actually what you were finding.

Matthew: As an example of that, I recently had a spider, and I was using one of the apps, and it said, “house millipede.” And I'm like, "I don't think so." But that's the nature with so many different types of insects and invertebrates, and they're fairly small. And so sometimes it's the resolution and the ability of your camera to work.

Jennifer: I wanna just put in a plug. I really love the Peterson guide. It really helps. It's not for getting things down to a species level. It can only really take you to family level. But for many insects, that can still tell you a lot of important information—the habitat, sometimes their plant connections. So I love that one because it has little arrows that can point to the specific features of the insect to help you recognize the group as a whole. But the Kaufman guide is also really good.

Jennifer: Adding to what Aaron said, when you're out there looking for things, if you also jot down notes about the plant that you find it on, that can be helpful information for further resolution of identification. So if you wanna go beyond the family level, plants can really help you narrow down—if it's an herbivore, for example, it can help narrow down a specific beetle that feeds on that plant. Or if it's a bee, or butterfly, and so forth. So capturing that plant identification can be useful, too. And just one more guide to keep in mind is this Tracks and Signs of Insects. So this is looking for the more ephemeral features and impacts of insects, but I really—it's pretty, an amazing field guide. Just as a reminder of all the different ways in which insects leave their signs of life. So it's—that's a good one to consider, too.

Matthew: And if you've got all these field guides, if you're out looking, do you think it's better to—when you find an insect—is it better to spend time studying the insect and noting down, color, size, shape, distinctive features? Or is it better to have your guide and flick through the pages looking for it at the same time? Because there's always the risk that you've—the insect's gonna disappear whilst you're looking at your guide.

Aaron: Yeah, I personally—especially if it's a fast-moving insect like a bee, or a wasp, or a fly, or butterfly—in those cases I really just try to observe it as much as I can to kind of get a sense of its characteristics. What it looks like, and then take some photographs if I can, before trying to ID it. But for an insect that's more stationary, like a caterpillar, or a bug on a leaf trying to ID it right there is a little more practical. But I still mostly, if I can, take some really great photos first. Then I know I have those and I can go back and reference them. But yeah, it is a risk if you're running inside to grab your field guide, you might miss the insect. It's happened to me a lot.

Jennifer: Yup. And sometimes you need to sit on which guide do I need to look in to figure out what this is, and so it just takes a little bit more time. So I'm definitely in the approach that Aaron takes, too. But I could see how it might work better for somebody else to flip through it in the moment while it's fresh.

Rachel: So coming from a vertebrate background and working at Xerces, it's been sort of a whole new world in IDing insects. Let's say I'm in my garden staring at an insect, like, where do I start? What should I be looking for to help me identify it? Are there any anatomical features I should be looking for?

Jennifer: I—just really quickly—I think looking at wing structure can be really helpful. How they hold their wings, how large their wings are, looking at the types of wings that they have. You can immediately separate out butterflies and moths because they have scales on their wings. And, of course, dragonflies have these really gorgeous, veined, elongate wings that they hold out to the side. And beetles have hard wing covers that cover their underwings. And so those—the wings can be a more immediate way to tell at a glance which group that insect belongs to. And flies only have two wings instead of two pairs. So that's a quick way to do it. Beyond that, looking at mouthparts can be really helpful, too. But that isn't as easy to do really quickly. So I think the wings is the place that I start

Aaron: I really like that, Jennifer. I was thinking about the different groups of insects that you'll commonly see in a yard. And, you know, now that I think about those different characteristics that I look for, you're totally right, wings are the main thing. I think I'd also mention number of legs, because if we're talking about invertebrates, in general, insects have six. You might see spiders, which have eight. So that's another thing to look for when you're looking in the yard.

Aaron: And I think another, maybe another tip I'd add here is—and I don't wanna overwhelm people—but as you become more comfortable IDing and getting a sense of what these different adult insects look like the next step is to get comfortable with IDing the immature stages. For beetles, they have a larva, pupa, adult. So as you're digging in your soil, you might find these grubs, these beetle larva. Or on your plants you'll see lady beetle larva kind of cruising around and eating aphids. Many people when they're first introduced to this don't realize that, oh, those are also the same thing as these adult lady beetles that everybody's really familiar with. So I think that's another thing is as you're going on this journey beginning to figure out what these immature stages look like is another really cool kind of hole to dive down.

Rachel: Yeah, that's a really good point, the different stages and how different they look. Lady beetles are such a good example. Yeah, the immature stage, they just look so brutal and vicious.

Aaron: They look like weird little black and orange alligators, or something cruising around. I think they're pretty cool. Yeah.

Rachel: Yeah, definitely. So you did talk about the major groups like bees, butterflies, beetles. So aside from anatomical features, are there any behaviors that could help folks identify different insects, or behaviors that some would do and some wouldn't?

Aaron: Yeah. That's a really great, really great question. One that kind of comes to mind, for me, behavioral-wise is sometimes when you have a flower visitor, if it's a bee, or a wasp, or a fly, lots of times they all can have yellow and black stripes, and when you first look at them, it might be hard to differentiate what different group they're in. Looking to see is somebody just visiting to sip nectar, or are they actively collecting pollen? If they're actively collecting pollen, it's likely a bee. Also looking at how they're flying. The flies tend to be much more zig-zaggy and move faster. And a bee, or a wasp, because they have the four wings, just flies in a kind of different way. There are some of these behavioral things that you can look at to get a sense of: is this a bee? Is this a wasp? Is this a fly? So those are some things that kind of pop into my mind.

Jennifer: Yeah. I think that's absolutely right. And if you decide to drill down further, and identify your insect further, behavior can be really helpful. Again, thinking about herbivores on a plant. Where they're feeding can help you sometimes track back to an identification at the species level. Because insects are so diverse, you can have different species of beetles that feed on different parts of the plant. Or different bees that feed on different pollen, but look very different—collect pollen from different species but look very similar to themselves. So again, that plant relationship, whether it's an herbivore, or a pollinator, or even a predator, can be really helpful to track. And help you think about identification. And so if they're feeding on the leaves, or if they're mining in the leaves, those activities can help you with the identification.

Matthew: Yeah, two behaviors that I think of that are really helpful is like you get the syrphid flies, which in Britain are called hover flies, because that's what they do. Yeah, they can be flying, stationary in-air. And so you're like, "Oh that's not a bee. That's a hover fly—a syrphid." And then another one, when you're watching hunting wasps going around, they're very active whether they're on a plant, on the ground, and you're watching them touching the ground, and hunting around. And so there—. Yeah, once you get nerdy enough, then you can pick up on all sorts of—. And then after a while, as well, I think it's like birders, they talk about a bird having combination of shape, color, size, behavior, whatever. You don't really have to look at it. And after a while you pick that up with the insects, as well. Yeah. So it's just the more time you spend in the sunshine watching things, the better you'll become at this.

Jennifer: And you know what? Gosh, we talked about a lot of really good field guides, but we do have some resources in Xerces that are meant to help narrow down different groups. And so we have some community science information about bumble bees, of course, through the Bumble Bee Atlas. For different regions, they've got field guides. But we also have some pollinator assessment tools. And we just have a really nice new cheat sheet. Yes, it's just a—it's a one-pager of bee groups, and a one-pager of butterflies, just hitting the highlights of what separates out those different groups. So that's a really great entry point for beginners. We also have pocket guide for soil invertebrates, too. And those, again, try to show the features that help you differentiate a millipede from a spider, for example. So I don't wanna sleep on our resources, because we do have a lot of good ones, yeah, that you can use.

Matthew: Once people have started identifying, and you've already mentioned iNaturalist, for example, and you've mentioned taking photos. Are there ways in which people can keep lists of what they find in their garden? Is a notebook a good way, or a photo log, or, I don't know, just start an iNaturalist project for yourself?

Jennifer: Yeah. I think you've mentioned all the ones that I was gonna mention, Matthew. Haha. You can have—.

Matthew: Sorry, my question was too long.

Jennifer: No, it was great. It was right on. I think you could start an iNaturalist project. That's—. I could see how that would be a really nice way for people to track what they've found. And also crowdsource identification of things that you found in your yard. For me, I just use the old school notebook, and take notes, and make a log. And pair it with my garden, my garden log about what plants I've added, and what plants didn't make it. But you could make this as high-tech as you wanted to, or as low-tech you wanted to. You can do what works best for you and your brain.

Matthew: That's great. And if you want to be part of something bigger—community science, participatory science projects—there are those kind of programs, as well, they can contribute to.

Jennifer: Yeah, absolutely. If you're west of the Rockies, the Western Monarch Milkweed Mapper is a good one to get involved in. And of course, our Bumble Bee Atlas projects, and our Firefly Atlas projects are just some that Xerces has. But there are others out there, too, that you can contribute to. And it's been really wonderful if—even if I don't participate in the Atlas as an individual, but I can still submit them to Bumble Bee Watch. And that's been great because every once in a while we'll get the southern plains bumble bee in our yard, and it's fun to submit that one to Bumble Bee Watch. There are many ways that you can contribute your observations in your space and make a big difference

Rachel: That's great. Thank you. So some of the insects that people might find may be considered invasive or damaging pests. What should someone do if they find an insect that they don't think should be in their garden?

Aaron: That's a really great question, Rachel. Yeah, when you're monitoring your garden, you're certainly gonna find herbivores. So those are insects that will eat your plants. And again, some of those might be considered pests, you know, like aphids, or leaf miners, or certain caterpillars. And I think a lot of people are worried about pest insects. But in general, pests aren't a big deal in your pollinator garden, and not something to worry about. Because you need to have some level of herbivores to support those predators and parasitoids. And also healthy native plants are really resistant to feeding by these herbivores, and they really seldom are a cause for concern. And I think also taking a step back in the big picture, you're creating habitat for all sorts of wildlife in your garden and your yard. And ultimately, it's really great that your plants are being used by this really broad suite of insects, including herbivores. They're an important part of the ecosystem. You know, one thing we like to kind of use as an example is we need to have plants that are being eaten by caterpillars in order for them to turn into butterflies, which—and they're, of course, pollinators.

Aaron: But I think sometimes, things might be out of balance. You might have a pest insect that's threatening the health of a plant, especially outside of that habitat context, like maybe a prized rosebush, or a tomato plant start. And I think the way we look at this on the pesticide reduction team is we recommend that prevention is the most important part of pest control. So the goal with controlling a pest is to try to understand the pest's life cycle and what you can change so that pest can't thrive. So some of the things we recommend are just making sure you're watering your plants appropriately—not too much, or not too little depending on the needs of the plant. Make sure there's appropriate fertilization. You know, of course, a lot of our native plants don't need supplemental fertilization, but expanding it to this larger garden context. And also spacing them out and making sure they have good airflow and sunlight. All of these things will help your plants be more resilient to pest infestations.

Aaron: But in the short term, there are different non-chemical methods to deal with pests. Of course, we don't want people to be using insecticides or other pesticides in their pollinator gardens because of how toxic these products are for pollinators, as well as beneficial insects. And the exact solutions are gonna vary depending on where you are and what the pest insect is. But this is why—pertinent to what we're talking about on this podcast—getting a firm ID is really important. Because then you can better figure out, again, how to break that pest's life cycle. So your local master gardener group, or extension agency will likely have suggestions local to you.

Aaron: But for a lot of diseases and certain larval infestations just sanitation—which is just removing infected or infested plant material—is a really great choice to break that development cycle of the pest or disease. You want to throw those plant materials away, not compost them, so they're off site and the insect pest doesn't come back. But for other insect outbreaks—I'm just spit balling here—handpicking and squishing pests, knocking them off with a jet of water can be a really great first step. I've done this. I've done a lot of handpicking of caterpillars in the garden. I've also had a lot of success blasting aphids off my roses last year with a jet of water.

Aaron: And we have a publication that walks you through some of these suggestions that we just came out with called Managing Pests While Protecting Pollinators. So you can check that out for more ideas on kind of this framework and kind of walking through making these decisions. But I think, yeah, pest control, again, is often figuring out what's attracted the pest to your yard, and then what you can change just so that pest doesn't thrive. And then on a final note, I do wanna add that when it comes to actively controlling pests, I think one of the most important things you can do is to have this healthy and diverse population of natural enemies that we were talking about earlier. Because these are the invertebrates that will eat pests and help keep those pest populations in check.

Aaron: If you do find something that's truly invasive, I definitely recommend contacting your local state department of agriculture, or your local university extension agency for what you should do. If it's an emerging invasive, meaning it's new to the area, they might be interested in knowing about this and give you more specific recommendations on what to do.  

Matthew: That was awesome because we always love to have some kind of conservation information takeaway. Something that people can do in their yard, and think about to make places better. So you've filled the need for that one, too. Yeah. So that's awesome. Thank you so much. Wow! This has been great. I'm not sure how long we've been talking about this, but we could keep talking all day, I'm sure. Because we all just love sitting around watching insects and exploring what we find, whether it's in our backyard, whether it's on a hike. In fact, I often tell people if they want to go on a hike with me—it's not about the destination. If you think we're gonna get somewhere quickly, think again, because there's too many things to look at on the way. But thank you. I've thoroughly enjoyed this time with you. And as we wrap up, we have two questions. If you were going hiking and had space for only one field guide in your backpack, which one would you take?

Jennifer: For me, it's plants. A plant field guide to identify plants that I see. Plants make it possible.

Aaron: I would bring a bird field guide because I've been getting a little bit more into birding, and it's really fun! But I think that for what we're talking about right now, I don't know if this is a lame answer, but I'd definitely take my phone just because there's so many different resources you can access. Like we were mentioning, you can take quick photos of insects while you're on the hike. You can access things like iNaturalist. And yeah, I don't know if that's not in the spirit of the question, but phones are just so powerful, and they're really helpful for, you know, both recording and then finding the IDs. And I think when I'm on a hike, it's just really nice to be able to take quick photos, quickly look something up or, if you're not in service, take those photos and then try to get an ID when you get back home.

Matthew: Yeah. No, it's totally in the spirit of the question because I didn't say, “Which insect field guide would you take in your backpack,” did I? I thought it was great that [you] had a plant guide and a bird guide, so that's awesome. Because you've got all that insect knowledge in your head, so that's the challenge, isn't it?

Jennifer: Yeah. Well, and that's an advantage of having an entomological background.

Matthew: Yeah.

Rachel: That's great. Okay, the last question. What is your favorite or most unexpected insect you have found in your garden or community? Or maybe ever—out on a hike. Let's expand it.

Jennifer: Oh. Oh, no.

Rachel: Did I just make that 10 times harder, Jennifer?

Jennifer: Yeah, my brain immediately spun out.

Aaron: Too many options.

Jennifer: I can answer the one for my yard, though. I'm sorry I've talked about this one before on Bug Banter, but it's the rhipicerid beetle. And it's a parasite of cicadas—cicada larvae. So like Matthew was talking about the wasps that go around detecting their prey and their hosts from above ground, rhipicerid beetles do the same thing, and somehow detect from feet between soil the presence of a cicada larva, and dig down and lay their eggs, and then feast on the cicada larva. But it's pretty unusual to see them, and I was just thrilled. It's a quite a large beetle, and it had beautiful plumose antenna. And then we lost our giant tree that the cicada were feeding on, and so I no longer have the ability to find that beetle in our yard. But it was a real treat to find it, so.

Aaron: That's really cool. I think for my neighborhood and community, I would say the monarch. Which isn't a super rare one, but where we are in Portland, we're outside of the normal range of the western monarch. But my neighborhood has started a little community bug club to garden for pollinators, and one of my neighbors planted a bunch of milkweed, and everybody was really excited. They're like, "We're gonna, save the monarch!" And I felt like a little bit of a wet blanket. I was like, “This is really great, but we might not see a monarch. They're not very common up here." And everybody was like "Okay, okay." And sure enough, one of the only places in Portland that a monarch was observed last year, or at least at the beginning of the year, was in our neighborhood. And there was like—I think they had, they'd seen at least a dozen monarchs. And somebody came and was marking them. And it turned into a whole exciting thing. And I had to be like, “Do you know what? This is great. We planted milkweed, and the monarchs came.” So that was kind of fun.

Rachel: Thank you both so much. This has been such a fun conversation. My cheeks hurt even more than they did at the beginning, which is a good sign. But I appreciate all the tips and the information. I'm definitely gonna utilize it, and go spend some time outside in my garden and observe. So thank you. It's just been a pleasure, as always, to have you on Bug Banter.

Jennifer: Thank you. The both of you are so wonderful, and it was great to be on here with you.

Aaron: Yeah. Thank you both so much. It was a lot of fun.

Matthew: You're welcome back anytime.

Rachel: Bug Banter is brought to you by the Xerces Society, a donor-based nonprofit that is working to protect insects and other invertebrates—the life that sustains us.

Rachel: If you are already a donor, thank you so much. If you want to support our work, go to xerces.org/donate. For information about this podcast or for show notes, go to xerces.org/bugbanter.